Do I really need a Bitcoin wallet?

[acoindr]

Hardware wallets are coming soon, that should help.  But, the average Joe gets his identity /cc info / pension / savings / etc stolen all the time and is left with a permanent loss, so it's not totally different.

That's true, but while it's a headache a lot of banking related theft has a measure of recourse. With Bitcoin you're on your own.

It would be great if we could fix both problems, though.

[Anon136]

Geez, we've got to make this simpler. No way Joe Average is going to do this.

oh yea entrepreneurs are working on it. its very analogous to the internet in the early 90s.

[sal201987]

1) Generate a key-pair
2) Put the private key and bitcoin address on paper (keep paper, delete the rest)
3) Mine to the address

Finally monitor your balance: http://blockchain.info/address/<insert bitcoin address>

Then you don't need a wallet until you want to spend.

There are several ways to do 1 & 2 in a secure way, here is one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=milxhe-RoCI

Great video! Thank you

[colinistheman]

here ill tell you what i did:

• go to bitaddress.org and save page as
• boot linux from a disk (do not connect to the internet)
• run bitaddress.org.htm and generate a paper wallet
• hook your computer up to a printer with a usb cable
• print out several copies of the paper wallet
• clear printer cache
• laminate the paper wallets and throw um in the safe or hide um really well or both
• then just send all the coins that you want to keep safe to that address and keep your spending coins on gox or multibit

with this technique there is basically no risk of any significant portion of my coins ever being stolen by a hacker or lost due to counter party risk

I did exactly this too. And I am very happy I did so. Now I just send my bitcoins to it and don't have to worry at all. Totally secure and in my control. Hack proof

[omar]

Appreciate any advice on using a bitcoin wallet vs just keeping coins at an exchange place. Thanks!

Download and try out the EZ Wallet.

https://github.com/osyed/ew

[cryptocash]

Unless I am mistaken this is only a paper backup BUT not a secure paper wallet.

The first phone could contain malware. The printer could be wifi connected and / or store the private key in its buffer.
The second phone could contain malware.

Am I wrong?

[Jan]

1) Generate a key-pair
2) Put the private key and bitcoin address on paper (keep paper, delete the rest)
3) Mine to the address

Finally monitor your balance: http://blockchain.info/address/<insert bitcoin address>

Then you don't need a wallet until you want to spend.

There are several ways to do 1 & 2 in a secure way, here is one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=milxhe-RoCI

Check out this demo on how to spend from your paper cold storage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pDSzOiFgIk

For optimal security you should use a dedicated device for this purpose. I got a second hand old android 2.2 device, nuked it to factory defaults, installed cyanogenmod with no SIM card, and only installed the Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet on it.

Disclaimer: I am a Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet developer.