ColdPi - Offline bitcoin wallet on a Raspberry Pi

[Renrub]

What is Coldpi recommended back up procedure for the SD card?

I'm writing this exact tutorial at the moment, you could use Win32 Disk Imager (also available for linux).

And that other device also has to be offline to have true cold storage?

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[xabbix]

What is Coldpi recommended back up procedure for the SD card?

I'm writing this exact tutorial at the moment, you could use Win32 Disk Imager (also available for linux).

And that other device also has to be offline to have true cold storage?

Yes, since you're cloning your SDHC card you would like to do that on another offline machine since you don't want to risk exposing the data on your SDHC card.

[Renrub]

Thanks. I've had some SD card issues in the past with Pi. Although I'm sure it was (partially) user error.

Good luck on your project. I see the turn-key natural being appealing.

[Puppet]

Thanks. I've had some SD card issues in the past with Pi. Although I'm sure it was (partially) user error.

IM sure its not. I have two pi's, my brother has a pi, my neighbor has a pi. All 4 have problems with corrupting SD cards, regardless of brand or type of SD card,  and two of the PIs have loose contacts in the sd card connector (well maybe all 4, but only two you have to wiggle/twist/bend/use tape to make it work at all).  I really wish the Pi could boot from USB.

[crazy_rabbit]

Very cool idea, although rather expensive. The Piper wallet does the same thing (off line bitcoin wallet) and it includes a built in printer, nice decked out software, for about the same price.

https://piperwallet.com

[SimonBelmond]

Love the project. THX. Would prefer just an SD card image as I already have the hardware. Armory is the best wallet for my purposes. I hoped for a long time that someone would provide a ready made image. I there a downlad link somewhere? ;-) Which one is the best dumb dedicated printer for the Armory paper backups?

[xabbix]

Very cool idea, although rather expensive. The Piper wallet does the same thing (off line bitcoin wallet) and it includes a built in printer, nice decked out software, for about the same price.

https://piperwallet.com

I love piper but it costs more than Cold Pi and also provides less features. Cold Pi has Armory that allows you to manage multiple wallets/addresses, print paper wallets and many more features.

[xabbix]

Decided to close shop and release the code so everyone can download freely, see this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1typhl/cold_pi_offline_raspberry_pi_based_wallet/cectur2

[xtraez]

This is pretty cool. Now I'll have something to do with my raspberry pi I got for Christmas.

[xabbix]

This is pretty cool. Now I'll have something to do with my raspberry pi I got for Christmas.

Glad you liked it, if anyone has any suggestions on other relevant software that I can add to the Cold Pi please let me know.

As previously mentioned, all compiled code is available freely for download. You can also choose to pay for the kit or the SD card alone if you don't have the knowledge or time to deal with it.

[SimonBelmond]

This is pretty cool. Now I'll have something to do with my raspberry pi I got for Christmas.

Glad you liked it, if anyone has any suggestions on other relevant software that I can add to the Cold Pi please let me know.

As previously mentioned, all compiled code is available freely for download. You can also choose to pay for the kit or the SD card alone if you don't have the knowledge or time to deal with it.

Could you also fit a browser and the offline version of https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/ in? That would be awesome. I could replace a whole PC with this setup.

[xabbix]

This is pretty cool. Now I'll have something to do with my raspberry pi I got for Christmas.

Glad you liked it, if anyone has any suggestions on other relevant software that I can add to the Cold Pi please let me know.

As previously mentioned, all compiled code is available freely for download. You can also choose to pay for the kit or the SD card alone if you don't have the knowledge or time to deal with it.

Could you also fit a browser and the offline version of https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/ in? That would be awesome. I could replace a whole PC with this setup.

Browser is already there, ships with the Raspbian OS. I didn't mention it but I'm also adding an offline version of the bitaddress.org code. I'll add the bitcoinpaperwallet.com one as well.

Thanks!

[crazy_rabbit]

Very cool idea, although rather expensive. The Piper wallet does the same thing (off line bitcoin wallet) and it includes a built in printer, nice decked out software, for about the same price.

https://piperwallet.com

I love piper but it costs more than Cold Pi and also provides less features. Cold Pi has Armory that allows you to manage multiple wallets/addresses, print paper wallets and many more features.

Actually, all you need to do is add Armory to the Piper and you have that too. Remember Piper is also a Raspberry PI but with an included printer. So technically it's Cold Pi plus printer. In reality though with both projects you're just paying for the box. The software is all open source. :-)

[xabbix]

Very cool idea, although rather expensive. The Piper wallet does the same thing (off line bitcoin wallet) and it includes a built in printer, nice decked out software, for about the same price.

https://piperwallet.com

I love piper but it costs more than Cold Pi and also provides less features. Cold Pi has Armory that allows you to manage multiple wallets/addresses, print paper wallets and many more features.

Actually, all you need to do is add Armory to the Piper and you have that too. Remember Piper is also a Raspberry PI but with an included printer. So technically it's Cold Pi plus printer. In reality though with both projects you're just paying for the box. The software is all open source. :-)

Yes you're right, problem is that compiling the Armory for the RPi is a nightmare..

[Exocyst]

I think the key point being made is: You have no recourse if a user of your coldpi creates an image of the sd card posts a link to the image as the software is open-source and you don't "own" the software. I like the idea about pre-loading it with BTC but then you may need a register as a MSB with MT license to sell within the USA.

[xabbix]

I think the key point being made is: You have no recourse if a user of your coldpi creates an image of the sd card posts a link to the image as the software is open-source and you don't "own" the software. I like the idea about pre-loading it with BTC but then you may need a register as a MSB with MT license to sell within the USA.

There's no reason for anyone to create an image since I'm sharing compiled Armory source available for free download. The Cold PI kit will be sold to people that does not have the time/knowledge to deal with purchasing a new Raspberry Pi and installing everything on it.

Regarding preloading it with Bitcoin. It's a cool idea but not practical. I do not want to launch the Armory client after I install it on a client's Cold Pi since they cannot tell if I also took their private key and saved it somewhere.

[mimarob]

Hi!

Great initiative, I tried to follow the instructions, I fail on one python message:

coldstore@pi:~/BitcoinArmory-0.88-beta$ python ArmoryQt.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "ArmoryQt.py", line 33, in <module>
    from PyQt4.QtCore import *
ImportError: No module named PyQt4.QtCore

any ideas?

I wouldn't mind at all to pay for a ready-made image to download, but I am to impatient to wait for a piece of plastic in the snail-mail. Think people with serious bitcoin assets would be quite weary of using warez copied to an obscure site btw :-)

[xabbix]

Checking out this error now, will update

[xabbix]

Hi!

Great initiative, I tried to follow the instructions, I fail on one python message:

coldstore@pi:~/BitcoinArmory-0.88-beta$ python ArmoryQt.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "ArmoryQt.py", line 33, in <module>
    from PyQt4.QtCore import *
ImportError: No module named PyQt4.QtCore

any ideas?

I wouldn't mind at all to pay for a ready-made image to download, but I am to impatient to wait for a piece of plastic in the snail-mail. Think people with serious bitcoin assets would be quite weary of using warez copied to an obscure site btw :-)

My installation manual was not complete, I've updated now to include all necessary packages required to install Armory. Please try now http://coldpi.com/manuals/install.html

[bitmagi]

I know you are probably doing this with good intentions, but it seems a lot of people are putting a lot of trust in these kind of products without thinking about the security possibilities.

If I wanted to steal some bitcoin this would be a fantastic way to do it.  I could modify the armory source to stash any PKs loaded to an obscure location on the SD card.  I could then modify one of the standard linux daemons to wait for an internet connection and then send the contents of this obscure PK file to myself.  I know that this is theoretically an offline wallet but I can see many people in a moment of weakness establishing an internet connection  just long enough to download and install one of their favorite apps that doesn't come in your bundle.

Again, I doubt this is the case, but people really shouldn't be running software on anything that they haven't personally verified the source/binaries.  When setting up an environment verify the OS, the bitcoin client and any other tools that you will need.  There isn't any way to do that with this, a whole lot of blind faith in an anonymous entity is required.