Safest bitcoin wallet?

[Jay Gatsby]

What happens if your hard-drive crashes when stored offline? Wouldn't it be better to be secretly stored in an online wallet? The chances of your hard-drive crashing is greater than some hacker to come along and hack your online wallet. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[btchris]

What happens if your hard-drive crashes when stored offline? Wouldn't it be better to be secretly stored in an online wallet? The chances of your hard-drive crashing is greater than some hacker to come along and hack your online wallet. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Both Armory and Electrum offer (in fact they both strongly suggest) that you make a paper backup, and store that piece of paper alongside your other important documents (e.g. in a safety deposit box). If you follow this advice, either of those two offer excellent safety from hardware failures. This goes for any deterministic or BIP32 wallet.

Cold storage (as already discussed) and hardware wallets (e.g. Trezor) are the safest options to protect against malware. For some people, cold storage is too difficult/inconvenient. For these cases, you have to make a judgement call: who do you trust more: do you trust yourself, and your ability to keep your computer clean from malware, or do you trust a third party to not run off with your BTC? Many people would probably choose the first, but there are some who would choose the second. Online wallets with per-transaction multifactor authentication (GreenAddress.it, BitGo.com) offer a pretty good (though not perfect) anti-malware alternative for these individuals.

To anyone who chooses to keep an online or a (hot storage) desktop wallet, I'd strongly recommend that you only keep around as much Bitcoin as you can afford to lose.

[jl2012]

Offline-generated paper wallet is the gold standard of wallet safety. Forget any electronic solutions. You still need multiple paper copies, of course.

[btchris]

Offline-generated paper wallet is the gold standard of wallet safety. Forget any electronic solutions. You still need multiple paper copies, of course.

Offline-generated it good, but there's no difference between a "paper" wallet and a cold storage electronic wallet (e.g. Armory, Electrum, BIP32) with a paper backup, or is there? At some point, you have to hand your private keys over to a computing device (an offline computer or a hardware wallet) to do the EC math (unless you do it yourself on paper, good luck with that! )

[jl2012]

Offline-generated paper wallet is the gold standard of wallet safety. Forget any electronic solutions. You still need multiple paper copies, of course.

Offline-generated it good, but there's no difference between a "paper" wallet and a cold storage electronic wallet (e.g. Armory, Electrum, BIP32) with a paper backup, or is there? At some point, you have to hand your private keys over to a computing device (an offline computer or a hardware wallet) to do the EC math (unless you do it yourself on paper, good luck with that! )

By paper wallet I mean paper backup

[jeffersonairplane]

Personally I like to use Armory for my everyday go to wallet, but self-made offline cold storage is the way to go.

[symphony]

If Electrum doesn't need the local bitcoin chain, doesn't that mean it needs to access the server everytime you use it? Therefore your IP could be logged at any time? So while it can be reasonably secure your anonymity is compromised?

[BrianM]

I can say that you should not use Mt.Gox or BIPS

[airpline1]

an Offline wallet?

[joshraban76]

I use 2 electrum wallets on my main desktop.

One is my small transaction wallet that I keep 0.25-0.5 just for quick payments. The other wallet is setup as watch only for my cold storage. When I need to send coin from cold storage I sign the tx on my dedicated offline laptop then put tx on an sd card. Plug in my main pc and sign and execute the tx from the watch only wallet.

This has been working pretty well for me. I probably shouldn't leave .5 in my small tx wallet but it gets to be a pain. 

[airpline1]

How about Trezor?

[The Bad Guy]

I use blockchain.info 

[ticoti]

I use blockchain.info 

Absolutely not

I think armory is the safest but you need a good computer

[arnuschky]

Use the right wallet for the right purpose.

First level are online wallets:
Online wallets are a good choice for everyday (small) payments.
Using bitcoind, paperwallets, or other more sophisticated setups for these day2day payments
will most likely compromise their security (carrying paper wallets with you, typing passwords
in public, using public networks etc).
Of course, online wallets should hold always only a very small amount of coins.

Second level are Internet connected clients:
Whichever you use (bitcoind, electrum, whichever), they are more secure as not on the Internet
in a central, easily attackable location. However, they are still connected to the Internet, and thus
might be compromised. At the moment, their security depends much on your knowledge of
computers and how you administer your local system. But: no matter how good you are, there's
a risk. These wallets should therefore never store more than a moderate amount of coins.

Third level is cold storage:
No matter what you use (paperwallet, electronic), these are private keys that never touch any
machine that is connected to the Internet. Most secure, and also least practicable. Creating a full
setup with a locked-in computer for efficiently signing lots of transaction offline is work, so it's
not always feasible - especially for the average user. This is where paper wallets come into play:
secure, but very little organizational overhead.

In the end, the most important thing is to use all three levels for the right applications and
the right amount of coins. If you go exclusively cold-storage, you will most likely compromise
your security sooner or later due to the impracticality of this solution (ie, whipping out your
unconnected laptop to pay for a restaurant bill). Exclusive online wallet usage is bad for the
obvious reasons.

The amount of coins in each of these levels can only be decided by yourself.
Online wallets: what you can afford to lose without causing a major problem in your life
Connected clients: what you can afford to lose without destroying you
Cold storage: the rest

[RustyNomad]

Use the right wallet for the right purpose....

Nicely laid out

[blossbloss]

How about Trezor?

I agree. Trezor is an amazing approach.  I have one and another on order as a backup.  I'm becoming much more comfortable with it, and am shifting more from paper wallets as time progresses.  It is very well engineered.

[zimmah]

I use blockchain.info  

Absolutely not

I think armory is the safest but you need a good computer

Blockchain, coinkite and circle are all fine (blockchain being the best of the 3), but only for 'pocket money'

see it as sort of like carrying a wallet with $100 or so, if you get pickpocketed you will lose your $100, but at least you still have the rest of your money safe at home or in the bank or wherever you store your money.

You need to have some bitcoin at hand for immediate payments, especially if bitcoin becomes more popular, so that you can spend it on the fly with nothing more than your phone. Need to buy a newspaper, a bit of food? No worry, just use your cellphone (or smartwatch or glasses), and pay with it.

The majority of your bitcoin should be stored offline though, make sure to have several backups, preferably n-of-m stored at various locations, just to be sure.
For example 1 at your parents house (preferably in a fireproof safe), 1 at your own house, 1 in a bank vault, etc.

in case of fire, you'll still have the other ones, and if one gets stolen they are useless to the thief because they only have 1 out of many, and you'll need at least 2 or however many you set them to. That's why you can also safely store them at the bank, as long as you only safe an amount at the bank that is lower than the amount you need to recover your wallet. For example if you have a 3-out-of-5 backup, you can store up to 2 at the bank, but never 3, not even at different banks (because they might theoretically merge someday and it might get compromised)

Make sure to print your wallet backups on paper (preferably laminated with plastic or something) and preferably in a fireproof safe. Digital copies are not as durable as paper.

If you have access to your own tools, you could also cut out of stainless steel or other reasonably inert materials, make sure you make cuts or otherwise permanently deform the material, as writings may fade. Wood and plastic can be used, but they might get destroyed in a fire.

[little_kristof]

Offline-generated paper wallet is the gold standard of wallet safety. Forget any electronic solutions. You still need multiple paper copies, of course.

Paper wallet is most safe, unless you lose it

[Rupert]

Paper wallets are very safe. Check out my website: moneyart.info

[ruins]

Offline-generated paper wallet is the gold standard of wallet safety. Forget any electronic solutions. You still need multiple paper copies, of course.

Paper wallet is most safe, unless you lose it

AFAIK, the wallet in my pocket is the most safe, aha...