In respect of opening up my account here I like to share some things learned over the last few days.

EDIT:



Got some Bitcoins in my wallet, how to cold store them on paper?

I already made some backups of the wallet.dat the bitcoin-qt (original) client uses to store my wallet. But that didn't feel good knowing that this one file could be brute-forced to open the pass-phrase. So after some research the conclusion was: Just knowing the uncompressed private key of the wallet is the only thing needed to store securely on paper ( given the private key only, one can calculate the public Bitcoin address and the blockchain knows the number of btc on this address and stores it forever ).

What I practically did:

• Extracted the real uncompressed private key so I'am independent of the clients backup format
• Using Bitcoin-qt go the Help menu and Enable the Debug window
• Use the command: walletpassphrase "yourpassword" 600
• Now your locked/encrypted wallet has been opened for private commands
• Use the command:dumpprivkey yourbitcoinaddress
• Now you see something like 91b24bf9f5288532960ac687abb035127b1d28a5
• Offline created QRcodes containing the private key and the Bitcoin address using http://sourceforge.net/projects/qrcodegenerator/files/code/
• Without storing on media directly print two copies of the QRcodes and in plaintext to avoid any QRcode reading problems in the future - who knows

Using two wallets: "cold storage" and "active use"

Now knowing about the cold storage being safe on paper in two separate vaults, it was time to reduce the risk and switch wallets.

Steps:

• Downloaded the Bitcoin address generator on https://www.bitaddress.org for off-line use
• Generated new Bitcoin address and stored this cold like above.
• Send some of the bitcoins to this "active use" wallet
• Waited for many confirmations and closed the client, deleted the wallet from Bitcoin-qt since this is long term cold storage
• Added the "active use" wallet by using the command: importprivkey <bitcoinprivkey> ActiveUse rescan=true
• Now the switch is complete and the risk has been reduced to just the "active use" coins on my computer

So without installing another client, wallet manager or giving my details to some online website the wallet has been stored on paper and switched. Your coins are always recoverable without knowing any password when you have the private key available in plaintext - after many years this is easily accessible and independence is good - specifically when it's our private wallet you should not depend on 3th-party tools,websites or some kind of vendor lock.

BTC tips are welcome: 1JqZaexSV45MFDYzKbV4sak3QevkJdMJsj

Most paper wallets if have seen only store both the public and private keys. How does Armory do this?



My bad, should be done using a live-cd and take it off-line just to be sure it's totally secure.



it's the noob section after all

Thanks, +1

I posted a video showing how to create a secure paper wallet using a windows PC and a single CD. No usb drive necessary.

http://youtu.be/azZYO4FuBCs