Secure Your Bitcoin Holdings

[jacobmayes94]

This should be sticky, I have been reading of too many cases of loss of funds. For anything more than daily change, hardware wallets are a no brainer. This article is why:

http://betbybitcoin.com/protecting-your-bitcoin-holdings-betbybitcoin-special/

This article is exclusive, but the information it contains is so important and while I spend so much time emphasizing security here, I feel it is a must to follow this advice.

If anyone does wish to buy a hardware wallet, do use the link in my sig As I do get commission for it. I do not expect any donations but if your going to order one anyway I wouldn't say no to a commissioned sale!

Please, please give this a read and make up your own minds. I have presented hyperlinks of real situations in this article. It is so important. The cheapest Hardware wallet is less than £20, coinbase multi sig vault is FREE minus one or more paper printouts of the shared and user key. It is worth the investment. And not just limited to Bitcoin.

[merchantofzeny]

Do you use a hardware wallet yourself? I'm not sure if those are available in my country. I don't even have 1 btc but the issue of security does make me uneasy.

Also for multi-sig vaults, they use that for accounts that have multiple owners right? Would it be any useful if I'm the sole fund owner? I remember making a Coinbase account that I ended up not using when I discovered buying and selling is not available in my country. Just started learning about btc then and it happened that coinbase was the top result when I searched for wallet

[shorena]

Do you use a hardware wallet yourself? I'm not sure if those are available in my country. I don't even have 1 btc but the issue of security does make me uneasy.

Also for multi-sig vaults, they use that for accounts that have multiple owners right? Would it be any useful if I'm the sole fund owner? I remember making a Coinbase account that I ended up not using when I discovered buying and selling is not available in my country. Just started learning about btc then and it happened that coinbase was the top result when I searched for wallet

Id stay away from Coinbase, multi sig as a service is not the holy grail either. The idea is that the service holds a key and you own two. One of your is kept offline and one with the main wallet. The key the service holds serves as 2FA. You usually unlock it with either a phone 2FA, SMS or JubiKey. Im not sure which method CoinBase uses, but 2FA varies greatly in security. Espencially SMS-2FA was recently shown to be easily circumvented.[1] At the very least make sure you understand its limitations.[2] If you just started with bitcoin make sure you are familiar with how the wallets work, use strong and unique passwords. If own more than a month salary in bitcoin you should consider some sort of offline system. This must not does not have to[3] be a hardware wallet. It could be a paper wallet or an old laptop. Again, make sure you know the limitations of each approach, as neither is 100% and has its risks involved. There are plenty of threads here about that subject.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/06/hey-stop-using-texts-two-factor-authentication/
[2] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/the-limits-of-sms-for-2-factor-authentication/
[3] fixed in-head translation

[kolloh]

I've been meaning to get a hardware wallet but still not sure whether I want to go with a Trezor or Ledger Nano S yet. For now paper wallets will work but they aren't the most convenient method.

.. you should consider some sort of offline system. This must not be a hardware wallet. It could be a paper wallet or an old laptop

Why do you say it must not be a hardware wallet. Is a hardware wallet really less secure than a paper wallet or offline system? I thought the hardware wallets had protections that would work even if you were on a malware infected PC?

[shorena]

I've been meaning to get a hardware wallet but still not sure whether I want to go with a Trezor or Ledger Nano S yet. For now paper wallets will work but they aren't the most convenient method.

.. you should consider some sort of offline system. This must not be a hardware wallet. It could be a paper wallet or an old laptop

Why do you say it must not be a hardware wallet.

Must not in the sense that it can be something different, not that its disallowed or discouraged.

Is a hardware wallet really less secure than a paper wallet or offline system? I thought the hardware wallets had protections that would work even if you were on a malware infected PC?

IMHO a hardware wallet has the advantage that its clear how the data is transfered to and from it. The biggest risk for a paperwallet is its creation and use on possible insecure system. Similarly advanced malware can move to a dedicated laptop over USB, even though I doubt this would be used for common users its still a potential risk one should be aware of.

[jacobmayes94]

When you wish to sign a transaction, it is sent to the hardware wallet that signs it WITHIN itself, so the keys never leave it. Many have a screen to also show what address the transaction was signed for. Ledger do ship to most countries.

The multisig vault is not the holy grail but this does encrypt a shared key with a passphrase that is sent to your machine for decryption to be signed along with coinbase's key. The printed user key can be given to coinbase if you forget your passphrase. You can use the user key with your passphrase to decrypt it without coinbase. Privacy levels are lower with coinbase and these do differ from their normal 'vaults'.

I will admit coinbase stopped working for ages and their support went quiet and I could not decrypt my vault for ages, I got fed up and used the printed encrypted shared key and user key to move my coins after two weeks of waiting.


Hardware wallets are the way forward and I think in some ways they are more secure than a paper wallet as they are useless to anyone finding them, the handwritten seed (Stored in multiple locations) can act as a defacto 'paper' wallet and is easier to import!

A wallet such as trezor and ledger nano S are as good as an offline system in my book and more secure than a paper wallet for the reasons described in the post above me for security and Ledger HW 1 is a close contender, equal to the first two when used with a smartphone as a second factor screen. I say close because advanced malware after 10 or so transactions could decipher enough of the security card to bypass it. The ones with a screen or after the smartphone is set up bypass this vulnerability.

[eternalgloom]

This should be sticky, I have been reading of too many cases of loss of funds. For anything more than daily change, hardware wallets are a no brainer. This article is why:

http://betbybitcoin.com/protecting-your-bitcoin-holdings-betbybitcoin-special/

Shouldn't be sticky imo, at least not a link to that article, since it's a for profit website and you can find the same information on the Bitcoin wiki, which is non-profit, if I recall.

Plus, people who are not serious about security won't read things like this, you can give out as much information about wallet security as possible, in the end it's the user who decides to apply that information or not.
Most users just don't want to deal with the hassle of applying decent security or don't have the funds to warrant buying a hardware wallet.