[HOWTO] Creating a secure encrypted USB Drive Wallet

[Phoenix80]

This is  a secure way to store your bitcoins on an encrypted USB drive.
 
What you will need?
 
1. USB Flash with minimum 8GB capacity
2. a DVD and DVD burner
3. a linux distro (I select AntiX Base, will tell you why...)
  
Creating Wallet:
 
- Download AntiX Base ISO from (https://antixlinux.com/download/), I used AntiX Base because it is lightweight, can encrypt entire drive and is bootable in old computers so you can access your wallet on almost any computer/laptop.
 
Note: You can use AntiX Full version or use any other distro like Tails or Ubuntu but disk encryption may not be available on installation step and you should do it yourself later (and make sure do it!).
 
- Burn linux ISO on a DVD/CD and reboot into linux:
  
https://i.imgur.com/dQrU5gI.jpg
 
- plug USB into PC and select Install:
 
https://i.imgur.com/7a7Gzzq.jpg
 
- in AntiX installer window click on Next, select USB disk drive, click on 'auto-install using entrie disk`, check `Encrypt` and type strong password:
 
https://i.imgur.com/k0t4az3.jpg
 
- click next, confirm installation and wait until installation complete.

- Now reboot but this time, "boot from USB Drive" not DVD!

- Type encrypted disk password and create user at first boot.
 
- select Web Browser from AntiX menu:

https://i.imgur.com/QE3fzFL.jpg
 
- Download Electrum Appimage version and it's signature from (https://electrum.org). (To download signature, right click on and select `Save Link As`)
 
https://i.imgur.com/PzpS61Q.jpg

- Open Terminal from menu and type:
 

Code:

cd Downloads
mv electrum-* ..
cd ..
chmod +x electrum-*.AppImage

Code:

gpg --recv-keys 2BD5824B7F9470E6
gpg --verify electrum-3.3.8-x86_64.AppImage.asc electrum-3.3.8-x86_64.AppImage

- make sure you see following message from last gpg command otherwise you downloaded fake electrum!
 

Code:

gpg: Good signature from "Thomas Voegtlin (https://electrum.org) <thomasv@electrum.org>"

- That's all. you can access Electrum from `Files` in AntiX desktop and securely create and use your wallet.
 

[pooya87]

this is best if you turn it into your cold storage otherwise just encrypting the USB is not really giving you much of a security in my opinion. and to do that you need to disconnect your network inside the installed OS so that it can never connect to the internet.
you might also want to disable some extra stuff including guest login,...

as for the choice of OS i personally dislike anything that is not popular (i haven't heard of) and since i am barely familiar with Linux i prefer sticking to the popular ones because it is always easier to fix a problem with them since they also have the biggest communities.
in this case an alternative to AntiX could be different flavors of Ubuntu. for example the most similar one would be XUbuntu which is using the same DE called Xfce so it is similarly light and can be used on older computers while it has all the features that come with Ubuntu.

[Pmalek]

What about the BitLocker encryption that comes with Windows 10. It can be used to encrypt hard drives as well as USB drives. I know that people are not big fans of Microsoft when it comes to privacy but has anyone tested BitLocker and are there any security concerns?

Sorry for going a bit off topic but my question is sill about USB encryption.

[NeuroticFish]

Well, if you use BitLocker you'll have to go though some workaround if you'll want to see that USB under Linux afterwards.

I don't know this AntiX, but at least it seems to have an out-of-the-box solution (for itself).
But I didn't use (nor research much about) BitLocker, I can't tell more...

[Phoenix80]

this is best if you turn it into your cold storage otherwise just encrypting the USB is not really giving you much of a security in my opinion. and to do that you need to disconnect your network inside the installed OS so that it can never connect to the internet.
you might also want to disable some extra stuff including guest login,...

as for the choice of OS i personally dislike anything that is not popular (i haven't heard of) and since i am barely familiar with Linux i prefer sticking to the popular ones because it is always easier to fix a problem with them since they also have the biggest communities.
in this case an alternative to AntiX could be different flavors of Ubuntu. for example the most similar one would be XUbuntu which is using the same DE called Xfce so it is similarly light and can be used on older computers while it has all the features that come with Ubuntu.

encrypted USB is physically more secure and yes of course if use it for cold storage you should disconnect from network.
AntiX full disk encryption is so easy for beginners, others need some commands and partition configuration.