Best/Most Creative Cold Storage Method

[Snipes777]

I just read an article that featured Charlie Shrem's ring and Casascius Coins as methods of cold storage:

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/03/bitcoin-ring/

So I was wondering what other creative methods of cold storage people are using, or they imagine using and haven't gotten around to yet.

I am thinking of setting up a cold "savings account" for some of my coins and was looking for an interesting way to do it. Especially that would allow me to know what the address is, but most everyone else who saw the same thing wouldn't be able to tell. Hopefully there will be several good ideas here that I can mix and match into a pretty awesome result. 

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[Elwar]

Tattoo of my private key on my penis.


In binary.

[Piper67]

Tattoo of my private key on my penis.


In binary.

Works fine in most instances, but when I'm around, not even a quantum computer would be enough to crack it 

[ralree]

Tattoo of my private key on my penis.


In binary.

Just don't put it in a "safe deposit box." 

[Snipes777]

Tattoo of my private key on my penis.


In binary.

Hmmmm, wondering what the smallest font size that would be possible and readable by the "host" and thus the minimum penis length to fit 64 binary lines. Not that I doubt your endowment.

I also think this idea has the added plus of your "privates" being a "private key" to get the coins.

Some sort of new pun on  being a gold digger- a bitcoin digger. 

[siggy]

I'm going old school... under the matress.

encrypted key paper wallet.. literally under the matress... only going this route cuz I have a waterbed.. Hence it is a non-trivial matter to actually get under the matress.

Sigg

[Elwar]

I think it would be cool to create a piece of artwork that had the binary 1s and 0s going across using something as a 1 and something else as a 0 in such a way that it looked pretty.

Just put it up on the wall and display it for the world to see.

Of course, it would have worked better if I did not mention it here.

[Atruk]

Printed on Cotton Archival paper and tucked into large boring books...

[arklan]

gonna make my own ... object of some kind... a coin or statue or something. with "artistic" inscriptions of rune like things or such, which will be my own encoding of the public and private keys in an alphabet i've yet to make up.

or i might just make said statue partially hollow and pull a piece of paper with the info on it in there.

[instaBoost]

bitcoin to gold. best method I know 

[arklan]

Steganographically encoding the private keys into a picture, then just posting it online on several places so it can never be lost.
Might even chose it as your avatar .

copy /b dos command makes this incredibly easy. lets ya comebine one file with another. which is accessed depends on the file extension. i use this to bakcup my wallet. no, it's not in my avatar. and no, the file extension of the wallet isn't simply .dat. it's in another container file. good luck finding it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_(command)

[Carlton Banks]

analogue transaction signing channel, connected to online watching wallet. I liked that one.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I'm going old school... under the matress.

encrypted key paper wallet.. literally under the matress... only going this route cuz I have a waterbed.. Hence it is a non-trivial matter to actually get under the matress.

Sigg

What about if the bladder springs a leak ... your paper wallet may dissolve away or become illegible? I do NOT like paper wallets they are very fragile, fire, water, mold, chemical reactions, sunlight can all render them useless. For large amounts you must think more permanent solutions like engraving, stamping metals etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX6L2MWrPKQ

This is easy, cheap and private way to put codes on a relatively permanent media.

[arklan]

i actually have the equipment to do small scale metal etching. i'd offer the making of cold storage wallets, but to etch the private keys i'd have to see them. never really figured out a way around that i was comfortable with. any ideas? i'd been recommended AES encryption for it, but i haven't had the chance to look into that.

[TheButterZone]

i actually have the equipment to do small scale metal etching. i'd offer the making of cold storage wallets, but to etch the private keys i'd have to see them. never really figured out a way around that i was comfortable with. any ideas? i'd been recommended AES encryption for it, but i haven't had the chance to look into that.

Partial etch, partial tattoo.

LOL at the penis idea. What if you need viagra to tat it, and viagra to retrieve it later?

[Vladimir]

Engraving tool and stainless steel plate that is laminated after engraving is done.

[Ente]

I, personally, would be pretty nervous to let everyone on the internet know I wear a ring which is (potentially) worth dozen times its weight in gold.. ;-)
One letter missing? That's just a lot of numbercrunshing, or even less rubberhose-crunshing..

I would prefer a brainwallet. It's not as cool and needs to be backupped for heirs (I hope every solution posted here has its backups!) and all. But then.. If I had a brainwallet, and not be too scared to forget the passphrase after some time, and I was silly enough to admit here - rubberhose, here I come?

So, I change my mind: I would prefer a paperwallet, stored somewhere save. Protected from forgetting, sudden incidents and robbery.

Ente

[Dabs]

Mine is paper wallet, 1 private key (and corresponding public key) per page. In large font in WIF, and also as a giant 5 inch QR code.

Or, it could be smaller, maybe credit card size. Then laminated twice. Or etched / carved / engraved on hard plastic sheets. Then completely sealed in molten wax (from candles) then left to harden to a solid when it cools.

So my bitcoin keys or wallets will be in small blocks of wax that look like soap or something.

[dave111223]

Write the private key onto a grain of rice...now that's a mini wallet.

[OlgaA524]

I wonder how many BTCs should one have before becoming this paranoid

[marhjan]

I wonder how many BTCs should one have before becoming this paranoid

A lot less than it used to be...  500btc is no longer a trivial amount of money.  Ah some of the btc I wasted in various places lol

[OlgaA524]

Encode private key by a well known book that you can find in any library and most homes.

3 fields of say 6 characters sequence:

000312000035000003 for one character where 000312 = page number, 000035 = line number, 000003 = column number

Then you can become more paranoid and alternate page, line, column for first char then line, column, page for second. Then you can do it in hex, then backwards etc   Imagination is a limit.

[Snipes777]

I wonder how many BTCs should one have before becoming this paranoid

Depends on current/future value of those coins. At 100/BTC then maybe going north of 50-100 would require some paranoia. At some arbitrary future value of 100,000/BTC then .1 or .05 would require the same security  measures. Always hard to determine, but for me it is more a fun project to create a crazy intricate code/masterpiece to hide my coins rather than a practical cost/ risk analysis. I want to have fun and make something unusual.

[pa]

I'd like to use a 3D printer to print QR codes for private/public keys in the center of some opaque solid plastic object that would have to be broken/cut in half to reveal the codes.

More durable than a paper wallet and could be hidden in all manner of innocent-looking 3D structures. . . .

[Ente]

I'd like to use a 3D printer to print QR codes for private/public keys in the center of some opaque solid plastic object that would have to be broken/cut in half to reveal the codes.

More durable than a paper wallet and could be hidden in all manner of innocent-looking 3D structures. . . .

I like that idea!
How about some fugly chinese "may wealth be upon your path" statue?
With the current exchangerate-action there is no excuse to not have a 3D printer by now ;-)

Ente

[b¡tco¡n]

How about your fingerprint as the basis for the hash? (you'd need something to convert a fingerprint to a 'string')

[marcus_of_augustus]

How about your fingerprint as the basis for the hash? (you'd need something to convert a fingerprint to a 'string')

Like from a fingerprint scanner input?

[Dabs]

I didn't get to post this earlier, but another creative idea (which is extreme) is to.

1. print and laminate or engrave on metal or hard plastic.
2. pour melted wax around.
3. put in bigger wooden or plastic box.
4. pour cement around.

You get a block of cement when it's dry. You will have to break open the cement but since there is a box, the contents of the box is protected. The wax is also additional protection for the object which actually holds the private key for your bitcoins.

The problem with fingerprints is that it has to consistently give the same output. Fingerprint scanners work by comparing your scan of right now, with something it stored previously, and checking to see how much of before and now is the same. It can't give the exact same output all the time, because of finger orientation, so I don't know how a hash of your fingerprint would be secure.

Also if you wound your finger with a blade cut or something, or it grows a pimple, then the scan would fail.

[eldentyrell]

i actually have the equipment to do small scale metal etching. i'd offer the making of cold storage wallets, but to etch the private keys i'd have to see them. never really figured out a way around that i was comfortable with. any ideas?

I'm planning to order 580 laser-engraved "scrabble tiles" -- 10 each of the 58 characters allowed in a bitcoin private key.  The idea is to use some inexpensive non-oxidizing metal.  I'll epoxy the sequence of characters that forms my private key onto a backplate and then melt/destroy enough of the leftovers so that I have an equal number of each of the spare letters remaining.  And then destroy the laptop that produced the key, of course.

The result is an engraved private key that will probably outlive my descendants, produced without having to trust the guy operating the laser engraver (or having to buy+operate one myself).

[marcus_of_augustus]

I didn't get to post this earlier, but another creative idea (which is extreme) is to.

1. print and laminate or engrave on metal or hard plastic.
2. pour melted wax around.
3. put in bigger wooden or plastic box.
4. pour cement around.

You get a block of cement when it's dry. You will have to break open the cement but since there is a box, the contents of the box is protected. The wax is also additional protection for the object which actually holds the private key for your bitcoins.

The problem with fingerprints is that it has to consistently give the same output. Fingerprint scanners work by comparing your scan of right now, with something it stored previously, and checking to see how much of before and now is the same. It can't give the exact same output all the time, because of finger orientation, so I don't know how a hash of your fingerprint would be secure.

Also if you wound your finger with a blade cut or something, or it grows a pimple, then the scan would fail.

Yes, this is all true. What could be used though is the facial recognition software that works on 8-26 (depending on quality) unique numerical coordinates for features on the human face. That could be the basis for a brain wallet or hashed, etc ...

[Atruk]

I didn't get to post this earlier, but another creative idea (which is extreme) is to.

1. print and laminate or engrave on metal or hard plastic.
2. pour melted wax around.
3. put in bigger wooden or plastic box.
4. pour cement around.

You get a block of cement when it's dry. You will have to break open the cement but since there is a box, the contents of the box is protected. The wax is also additional protection for the object which actually holds the private key for your bitcoins.

The problem with fingerprints is that it has to consistently give the same output. Fingerprint scanners work by comparing your scan of right now, with something it stored previously, and checking to see how much of before and now is the same. It can't give the exact same output all the time, because of finger orientation, so I don't know how a hash of your fingerprint would be secure.

Also if you wound your finger with a blade cut or something, or it grows a pimple, then the scan would fail.

Concrete might actually not be the best material for this because it can be rather corrosive, especially while it is curing...

[Rassah]

My savings account private key is generated using the VIN number of my new car. Shhh! Don't tell anyone 

[justusranvier]

My savings account private key is generated using the VIN number of my new car. Shhh! Don't tell anyone 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k