wallet question

[ilovepizza]

I am new to the bitcoin/altcoin world...
After I bought litecoins and bitcoins, I read about why it is better to have a hardware wallet. Of course a script/hack/lokal user can copy your profile with all your softwarewallet settings and restore them on antoher computer. Maybe even bypass any pin codes...

Since I did a long time investment (and I will not be checking my wallet for a long time), I wonder...

1) Can  I can just delete everything from my computer as long as I got my "seed"-words? (the ones that look like "chair moon Earth cat etc....")

2) Can  I restore my wallet using this seed-password with the same program in lets say 5 years? And is this program-sensitive?
I mean.. if I use electrum-LTC, can I restore it in 5 years with another program that has support for LTC? Like JAXX? Or are the seed words only compatible with the wallet that I used? Or are there different "seed Word standards", so some programs are compatible with another?

3) Is there any form of time out when you are not using your wallet? Not checking your wallet for 5 years has no negative effect?

4) The reason why I am thinking of doing this is simple... No Active wallet in use = no vulnerabilities. Am I thinking wrong here?

Friendly greetings,
The pizza guy

[AdolfinWolf]

I am new to the bitcoin/altcoin world...
After I bought litecoins and bitcoins, I read about why it is better to have a hardware wallet. Of course a script/hack/lokal user can copy your profile with all your softwarewallet settings and restore them on antoher computer. Maybe even bypass any pin codes...

Since I did a long time investment (and I will not be checking my wallet for a long time), I wonder...

1) Can  I can just delete everything from my computer as long as I got my "seed"-words? (the ones that look like "chair moon Earth cat etc....")

2) Can  I restore my wallet using this seed-password with the same program in lets say 5 years? And is this program-sensitive?
I mean.. if I use electrum-LTC, can I restore it in 5 years with another program that has support for LTC? Like JAXX? Or are the seed words only compatible with the wallet that I used? Or are there different "seed Word standards", so some programs are compatible with another?

3) Is there any form of time out when you are not using your wallet? Not checking your wallet for 5 years has no negative effect?

4) The reason why I am thinking of doing this is simple... No Active wallet in use = no vulnerabilities. Am I thinking wrong here?

Friendly greetings,
The pizza guy

1) If you're using a HD wallet ( Electrum), yes, you can. The seed recovers everything. I'm not too sure about other wallets.

2) That depends on the wallet you used to generate the seed. There are alot of wallets who use different BIPS to generate the seed, some  wallet programs are compatible with each other, others aren't.

3) Unless there would be a fork which only allows you to claim within X time, i don't see any reason why there should be.

4) I wouldn't say that there are no vulnerabilities, nor would i say that there are a lot less compared to holding your bitcoins on a hardware wallet such as trezor / nano.


 I think you should maybe use a paper wallet, which saves the hassle/frightening moments of trying to import your seed in 5 years.

See https://www.coindesk.com/information/paper-wallet-tutorial/

[ilovepizza]

1) If you're using a HD wallet ( Electrum), yes, you can. The seed recovers everything. I'm not too sure about other wallets.
I am using Jaxx. I just tried importing it into Electrum and it worked. It said "BIP 39 seeds are dangerous".."might not support it in the future..."
Any way I can fix this? Or can I safely ignore it?

2) That depends on the wallet you used to generate the seed. There are alot of wallets who use different BIPS to generate the seed, some  wallet programs are compatible with each other, others aren't.
It appears that I am using BIP39. (because that worked when importing my seed into electrum)

3) Unless there would be a fork which only allows you to claim within X time, i don't see any reason why there should be.
ok.

4) I wouldn't say that there are no vulnerabilities, nor would i say that there are a lot less compared to holding your bitcoins on a hardware wallet such as trezor / nano.
ok. I understand.

I think you should maybe use a paper wallet, which saves the hassle/frightening moments of trying to import your seed in 5 years.
I am going to check this out. Just to understand what it is and how to get it. Thank you!


Thank you so much for answering so fast. I hope you can answer my new question as well

[Boseda]

1. Yes, you can restore your wallet just using the seed.
2. You will likely to use the same wallet, because often seeds are not compatible on every wallet. So maybe you can find another wallet which is compatible, maybe not. But anyway since Electrum code is open source, it means it will be around forever, even if developers stop to develop it.
3. No negative effect. Your balance will always be there.
4. You are right because even if someone hacks your computer, he won't find any wallet so he won't be able to steal your Bitcoins.


As a side note, I read somewhere that Electrum-LTC has some vulnerability. Here is the link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2060864.0