Safest Wallet

[Twipple]

Hey everyone, I've heard a lot of speculation recently about which wallet to use and whether it's best to use an online wallet or a static software wallet hosted on my personal computer.

I want to keep my coins as safe as the next person and would like you to voice your opinion on what you think is best to use and for which reasons. Any help is more than appreciated, apologies in advance if this thread has already been created (I have searched beforehand).

Kindest regards,
- Twipple

[Magazine]

Read up about Armory cold storage, safest method!

[BitchicksHusband]

The consensus seems to be Bitcoin-QT wallet and paper wallets.  

Long-time trusted exchanges would be the next safest (but beware of people having trouble getting things out of Mt. Gox).

And don't use fly-by-night online wallets by small developers (such as Inputs.IO), as these are almost always "hacked" eventually.  (Who knows if they just take all the coins?)

And whatever you do, don't make a "brain wallet".

[moderate]

Rely on the least amount of software possible to generate your paper wallets. Do not rely on less than necessary software because that would coincide with broken or wrongly implemented crypto algorithms.

[justusranvier]

Read up about Armory cold storage, safest method!

Yes.

The consensus seems to be Bitcoin-QT wallet

No.

Bitcoin-Qt has numerous problems, such as random key generation which invalidates your backups after every 100 transactions, and no support for cold storage. Every time you spend your bitcoins with Bitcoin-Qt you potentially expose your private keys to malware on your PC.

[birkomester]

Armory + paper wallet

[moderate]

Bitcoin-Qt has numerous problems, such as random key generation which invalidates your backups after every 100 transactions, and no support for cold storage. Every time you spend your bitcoins with Bitcoin-Qt you potentially expose your private keys to malware on your PC.

I'm very sure there is support for cold storage wen using bitcoin-qt, and you don't need the -qt at all. I take that you know about raw transactions, signing, and so on ?

[Barek]

Armory!

It actually runs Bitcoin-Qt in the background and adds a whole bunch of extra security features.

http://bitcoinarmory.com/about/using-our-wallet/

[justusranvier]

I'm very sure there is support for cold storage wen using bitcoin-qt, and you don't need the -qt at all. I take that you know about raw transactions, signing, and so on ?

Raw transactions are the last thing anyone should be recommending to non-experts.

As far as regular users are concerned, Bitcoin-Qt doesn't support offline transactions.

[Rluner]

Once installed the Armory warns users it is a Beta version and will not guarantee lost coins due to software failure.

[agent13]

Does Armory sit on top of Bitcoind (ie RPC), or does Armory include a re-write of the Bitcoin crypto fundamentals?

Are there any concerns with Armory primarily being developed by a single person?

[(A)social]

Someone forgot this...

[dalston5000]

such as random key generation which invalidates your backups after every 100 transactions,

please explain.

[moderate]

such as random key generation which invalidates your backups after every 100 transactions,

please explain.

I expect he is talking about the key pool, which by default is set to 100. After you have you used 100 addresses, another 100 are generated and then you need a new backup to keep up with these new addresses. This default value can be configured, and can be set to values much higher than that. This is not a issue at all as people should be making backups much more often than that.

[justusranvier]

such as random key generation which invalidates your backups after every 100 transactions,

please explain.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change

Bitcoin-Qt generates 100 addresses at a time and stores them in wallet.dat. After you've performed 100 interactions (spend or receipts of coins), it generates a new batch.

When this happens, your old wallet.dat backup is no longer sufficient because it does not contain the new keys.

Deterministic wallets, such as Armory, do not have this problem.

This is not a issue at all as people should be making backups much more often than that.

Please tell me you don't have anything to do with software development. Your ideas on end-user usability are a danger to yourself and others.

[dalston5000]

such as random key generation which invalidates your backups after every 100 transactions,

please explain.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change

Bitcoin-Qt generates 100 addresses at a time and stores them in wallet.dat. After you've performed 100 interactions (spend or receipts of coins), it generates a new batch.

When this happens, your old wallet.dat backup is no longer sufficient because it does not contain the new keys.

Deterministic wallets, such as Armory, do not have this problem.

This is not a issue at all as people should be making backups much more often than that.

Please tell me you don't have anything to do with software development. Your ideas on end-user usability are a danger to yourself and others.

ah, I see..

Well I make a weekly backup of the .dat file anyway

[moderate]

This is not a issue at all as people should be making backups much more often than that.

Please tell me you don't have anything to do with software development. Your ideas on end-user usability are a danger to yourself and others.

Can you keep your baseless opinions to yourself ?

So you think Armory is user friendly ? This is a brand new category of user friendliness to me, as it requires more than 8gb of ram to run, older and not so cheap computers that can be used for actual safe cold storage are immediately ruled out. Can you be clear why you think I'm a danger to myself ? Making backups more often is bad ? Oh dear. Do you create keys for cold storage in online computers ? Oh dear.

[deisik]

Paranoid mode On: Bitcoin-QT password protected wallet in Linux on a TrueCrypt partition

[moderate]

Paranoid mode On: Bitcoin-QT password protected wallet in Linux on a TrueCrypt partition

That is not paranoid at all, it should be the default operation mode for all the bitcoin users. Encrypting the wallet is the basic stuff and a must. Truecrypt partition complements that well, good reminder.

[deisik]

That is not paranoid at all, it should be the default operation mode for all the bitcoin users. Encrypting the wallet is the basic stuff and a must. Truecrypt partition complements that well, good reminder.

Ok, so what is paranoid mode then? For true security maniacs?