Overcoming Bitcoin Anxiety

[KieranJones1]

I'm not an investor, but I'm someone who's recently found part-time "work" which is paid in bitcoins. As a result, I don't have a sizeable balance by any means, but the balance I do have is worth a lot, at least to me, as an otherwise-broke university student.

Despite my relatively small balance, everytime I check my wallet (on Bitcoin-qt or Blockchain.info), I find myself increasingly paranoid that I'm going to see all my bitcoins gone from that wallet.

I'm not somebody who's foolish with my security; my wallet.dat is encrypted, I have 2FA set up on Blockchain, and I haven't downloaded any "loaded" executables in about ten years. Even so, it's really very unpleasant to sometimes have these "anxiety attacks", especially when Blockchain decides to archive my change address and it momentarily looks like my entire wallet balance has disappeared.

Can anyone reassure me that I'm safe, or if I'm not, explain what I'm doing wrong? I'm aware of paper wallets, etc, but as I said, my balance isn't investor-sized (always less than 1 BTC) and I occasionally spend bitcoins from it, so I don't think a paper wallet is the best idea. Plus, my paranoia would probably get the better of me and I know I'd have to check the balance, thereby putting it on the Blockchain.

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[TookDk]

Yeah, I know what you mean.

One way to reduce the risk is to spread out your funds on different medias.
E.g. having 1/3 of the fund on a computer that is not connected to the Internet and having 2/3 in two different paper wallet that is created on different computers/OS.

I would also recommend to have a old small laptop like a Asus eee used exclusively as a wallet. Then you can turn it off and hide it under your pillow (remeber to back up the wallet to 1-2 dedicated USB drive and hide them somewhere safe as well).

[knight22]

split your funds in some paper and offline wallet

[hilariousandco]

Even so, it's really very unpleasant to sometimes have these "anxiety attacks", especially when Blockchain decides to archive my change address and it momentarily looks like my entire wallet balance has disappeared.

OP I know exactly how you feel, as I'm sure many others do. I would momentarily shit an absolute breezeblock if that happened

Can anyone reassure me that I'm safe, or if I'm not, explain what I'm doing wrong? I'm aware of paper wallets, etc, but as I said, my balance isn't investor-sized (always less than 1 BTC) and I occasionally spend bitcoins from it, so I don't think a paper wallet is the best idea. Plus, my paranoia would probably get the better of me and I know I'd have to check the balance, thereby putting it on the Blockchain.

I think you only need to scan the public key to check the funds of the paper wallet. Try split your funds over all three options: Keep some on Blockchain.info to spend, keep some on your computer, and put any you want to save longterm on a paper wallet and keep it secure/hidden.