BitGo, Coinbase Vaut or Paper Wallet for secure long term storage

[avikz]

Try to use hardware wallet if you are holding any serious amount of bitcoin. The blockchain will take around 260 GB space in your hard drive and will take a long time to update initially, but safest to hold your bitcoin for a long time.

But if you are holding a little amount of bitcoin, then you can definitely go for coinbase vault. But again the coinbase is a third party service provider and hence if they go out of business, you will loose all your bitcoins.

[marky89]

Yea, I have no idea the whole story of what happened and it seems Bitgo should be in some way culpable.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised there is no consensus here.

At best, they were willing to burn their reputation to the ground by allowing Bitfinex to run an insecure implementation (i.e. rubber stamping fraudulent transactions for commissions). Possibly worse, this exposes that they have no internal circuit breakers (or ones that can easily be gamed by hackers to prevent them from triggering) to secure against fraud.

The top security firm? That's how they sell themselves. LOL. They are a fucking joke. I hope they are buried in this industry. They deserve to lose everything.

[xdrpx]

You can still easily spend by holding your funds in a cold wallet on a disconnected PC. When you want to transact send a small amount to another wallet and transact from the 2nd wallet. I suggest Electrum for this, uses similar seed based concept as Mycelium. Also do not trust online wallets for the safety of your funds for a long term storage. Don't risk safety, for the ability to spend easily.

[SmartIphone]

For long term storage, it's good to use resources that do need to be accessed offline without needing to backup often.
You can backup the encrypted wallet.dat on usb but you need to put this usb on PC after a while because it can corrupt or lost the files, so electrum, bitcoin core works well.

[PilotofBTC]

Try to use hardware wallet if you are holding any serious amount of bitcoin. The blockchain will take around 260 GB space in your hard drive and will take a long time to update initially, but safest to hold your bitcoin for a long time.

I'm not sure I understand. What does a hardware wallet have to do with the size of the blockchain? My understanding is that a hardware wallet holds your seed/keys and signs transactions for you. It doesn't store the blockchain right?

[CoinCube]

You can laminate your paper wallets, this way it can last longer and only theft or a fire is a issue. The trezor comes with paper sheet where you write your 24 words seed to recover your trezor wallet anytime if your trezor become damaged or lost. If you have spare 1/8 BTC for the trezor, buy it. If not, laminated paper wallets is good option as well.

Lamination does not preserve paper.

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/preserving_photos.html

Archivists have discovered the hard way that using ordinary lamination plastic for old documents, newspapers, photos, etc., does not preserve them.  The best way to preserve them is to store them in a dark place after placing in acid-free Mylar film (not laminated).  Ordinary lamination material still permits light rays to pass through it and to cause a chemical reaction to the acid that most modern paper and modern dyes contain, and that ALL old documents photos contain.  This causes deterioration of paper and fading of the paper and print.  The heat and pressure of most lamination processes also damages documents.

Of course, keeping original documents is important, but one should always copy (scan) newspapers and other documents and then print them on acid free paper, which can be found at just about all stores selling printer paper and/or computer supplies.  Too, one should save the graphics files from scanned documents and put the files on CDs for permanent safekeeping.  Life expectancy for data on CDs is 80-100 years for premium quality CDs.

[PilotofBTC]

You can laminate your paper wallets, this way it can last longer and only theft or a fire is a issue. The trezor comes with paper sheet where you write your 24 words seed to recover your trezor wallet anytime if your trezor become damaged or lost. If you have spare 1/8 BTC for the trezor, buy it. If not, laminated paper wallets is good option as well.

Lamination does not preserve paper.

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/preserving_photos.html

Archivists have discovered the hard way that using ordinary lamination plastic for old documents, newspapers, photos, etc., does not preserve them.  The best way to preserve them is to store them in a dark place after placing in acid-free Mylar film (not laminated).  Ordinary lamination material still permits light rays to pass through it and to cause a chemical reaction to the acid that most modern paper and modern dyes contain, and that ALL old documents photos contain.  This causes deterioration of paper and fading of the paper and print.  The heat and pressure of most lamination processes also damages documents.

Of course, keeping original documents is important, but one should always copy (scan) newspapers and other documents and then print them on acid free paper, which can be found at just about all stores selling printer paper and/or computer supplies.  Too, one should save the graphics files from scanned documents and put the files on CDs for permanent safekeeping.  Life expectancy for data on CDs is 80-100 years for premium quality CDs.

I guess I could get one of these. https://www.cryobit.co/cold-storage-products/cryo-card/

[ajmagz09]

paper wallet is better that other or hard wallet. it is more secure if your going to keep a large amount of bitcoins. because online wallets may go offline or go something wrong. just an advice though if your planning to keep huge bitcoins.

[magemist]

Paper wallet of course.
You can make multiple copies of it incase you misplace one.
With private keys on your computer which people usually only have one copy because they don't thing the worst can happen to their system.

[pooya87]

~~Lamination does not preserve paper.

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/preserving_photos.html

~~ lamination plastic for old documents, newspapers, photos, etc., does not preserve them.  ~~

i have to read the full article to make sure but from this first like it is obvious that the author is talking about old docs, and other stuff not a freshly printed paper that you laminate.

also since it is talking about Archivists and preserving stuff you have to see what they mean by "long" it may be hundreds of years not what we are looking for in a paper wallet (50 years! max).

and from experience i can assure you that laminated paper last long because i have still some laminated cards from my childhood that are still new as the first day they were created.

[n691309]

From your list I don't find the best option because coinbase does not allow you to control the private key and your funds 100%,

I don't think that's true if you chose the multi-sig option:

https://www.coinbase.com/multisig

sounds like the Bitgo multisig wallet actually.

And you still think that you own 100% of you bitcoins? Sorry man but you have to make a research about this because coinbase is safe but not 100% as you think. Paper wallet is still a good option even though it is an old method but moving also to hardware wallet like trezor is a better option.

[PilotofBTC]

From your list I don't find the best option because coinbase does not allow you to control the private key and your funds 100%,

I don't think that's true if you chose the multi-sig option:

https://www.coinbase.com/multisig

sounds like the Bitgo multisig wallet actually.

And you still think that you own 100% of you bitcoins? Sorry man but you have to make a research about this because coinbase is safe but not 100% as you think. Paper wallet is still a good option even though it is an old method but moving also to hardware wallet like trezor is a better option.

Yep, I still do:

The multisig vault is designed to give you 100% control of your funds, with a balance of security and ease-of-use. You control the private keys which allow you access to your funds, yet you can easily spend your funds simply by entering a password.

Because Coinbase never learns your password and never learns your user key, Coinbase never gains access to your funds.

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1743782-what-is-the-multisig-vault-

Are you saying they are lying? Or just incompetent?

[fravia]

From your list I don't find the best option because coinbase does not allow you to control the private key and your funds 100%,

I don't think that's true if you chose the multi-sig option:

https://www.coinbase.com/multisig

sounds like the Bitgo multisig wallet actually.

And you still think that you own 100% of you bitcoins? Sorry man but you have to make a research about this because coinbase is safe but not 100% as you think. Paper wallet is still a good option even though it is an old method but moving also to hardware wallet like trezor is a better option.

thats true, i never put my money into the online wallets, cold storage is the best for big money and i use desktop wallet as a hot wallet

[Gohs]

If you don't want to use a paper wallet, keep the soft copy of your keys in cloud storage where only you have access to the password.

Although you have to trust the owner of the cloud storage site.

[Haliburton]

I will say the coinbase vault. If they offer to give you your private keys then I will go with that.
I don't use Bitgo and if I used a paper wallet I would end up losing it as i store everything on my computer.

[DOGE12321]

I would use cold storage.

Advantages are long-term, secure storage for Bitcoin. The Ledger wallet is a secure device.

A disadvantage is the chance of it being lost. It is hard to hack, but most things today can be hacked.

These are my recommendations.

 

[PilotofBTC]

I would use cold storage.

Advantages are long-term, secure storage for Bitcoin. The Ledger wallet is a secure device.

A disadvantage is the chance of it being lost. It is hard to hack, but most things today can be hacked.

These are my recommendations.

 

By "cold storage" you mean what? Because you say ledger you mean a hardware wallet?

[hieu81]

I usually use Coinbase, I think Coinbase Vault safe to storage Bitcoin.

[satmas]

Why not use some of the downloaded wallets such as Multibit or Electrum? Those are probably the only wallets you can count on not scamming you and/or being "hacked". But anyhow, I'd suggest Coinbase Vault if you are really sure about it.

[BTCLovingDude]

Why not use some of the downloaded wallets such as Multibit or Electrum? Those are probably the only wallets you can count on not scamming you and/or being "hacked". But anyhow, I'd suggest Coinbase Vault if you are really sure about it.

simply downloading those wallets and using them is not going to ensure your security. you have to do some extra stuff to increase your level of security:
1) downloading the wallet files from official sites and checking their signature.
2) encrypting your wallet file with a password.
3) having anti virus and taking other security measures to not get infected
4) using cold storage