Tails / Bitcoin-QT / Cold Storage

[BitcoinQTlol]

Hi friends,

i downloaded bitcoin-qt to my amnesia file in TailsOS,

I am going to open it and generate 5 addresses then do dumpprivkey [your public key here]

write down the private keys and store them on a bit of paper / usb stick offline

will this be cold storage?

does it matter if the bitcoin-qt is offline

and is this 99.9% secure? nothing is ofc secure....

[BitcoinQTlol]

sorry 4 bad english btw.

[jimhsu]

+1 to Tails.

Better though to download an offline copy of bitaddress.org (after verifying it, of course) and do your paper wallets there. You can use bitcoin-qt, but that adds unnecessary complexity.

If you're printing, also look into BIP38. Do you trust your printer?

[corebob]

If you remove the wallets on disk after printing I guess it would be considered cold storage, but I'm not quite sure.
It depends if cold storage requires your private keys to never have existed on a online computer

[jimhsu]

It depends if cold storage requires your private keys to never have existed on a online computer

That's my definition of cold storage at least. Online is the perogative.

[BitcoinQTlol]

If you remove the wallets on disk after printing I guess it would be considered cold storage, but I'm not quite sure.
It depends if cold storage requires your private keys to never have existed on a online computer

i will be disconnecting from the internet after downloading bitcoin-qt then generating 5 addresses then printing the private keys then deleting bitcoin-qt then send my bitcoin to my wallets

[corebob]

does it matter if the bitcoin-qt is offline

No. You can transfer btc to any bitcoin address at any time, and from anywhere.

Its the p2p network that manages your bitcoins, not you.

This actually illustrates one of the really neat features about the bitcoin technology:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

[corebob]

If you remove the wallets on disk after printing I guess it would be considered cold storage, but I'm not quite sure.
It depends if cold storage requires your private keys to never have existed on a online computer

i will be disconnecting from the internet after downloading bitcoin-qt then generating 5 addresses then printing the private keys then deleting bitcoin-qt then send my bitcoin to my wallets

In that case its cold storage for sure.
Be aware that most operating systems doesn't actually delete a file physically.
On most linux systems you have a commandline tool called shred that overwrites a file several times, making it unrecoverable. You might want to use that before you "delete" it


btw are you aware that there is clients that can generate printable wallet backups for you?