Which is the best cold wallet?

[figmentofmyass]

then a paper wallet is a much more suitable option as it isn't affected by data decay and corruption than any digital storage could experience.

I'm going to suggest going with mobile wallets instead of paper wallets to be honest. The private keys are a lot less likely to get leaked with creating a wallet on a mobile phone, and simply writing down the seed in comparison to creating a paper wallet on an unencrypted online home computer in my opinion.

when the "paper wallet" is mentioned it always refers to the correct way of creating it not the wrong way (on an online possibly compromised computer). if you create it correctly offline then nothing can compete with it.

there are lots of ways that paper wallets can lead to losses though---even if generated offline: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet#Paper_wallet_flaws

i wouldn't recommend them. they are not intuitive enough for users.

we should probably start distinguishing between "traditional paper wallets" where users print out a private key using a popular browser-based software and "paper wallets as seed phrases written down". both should be generated offline but the former is much less secure.

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[bob123]

we should probably start distinguishing between "traditional paper wallets" where users print out a private key using a popular browser-based software and "paper wallets as seed phrases written down". both should be generated offline but the former is much less secure.

I wouldn't call one of them less secure per se.
Paper wallets where the private key (or seed) is generated on an online computer are generally more secure than private keys (or a seed) generated from a downloaded website. Still, both isn't ideal.

However, a properly generated paper wallet has to be generated completely offline. And preferably without any javascript.
Using the RNG from your OS is one of the best way to generate a paper wallet (regardless whether you want to store a single private key or a mnemonic code). A good and reputable wallet can easily be used to do so (e.g. electrum).

[dkbit98]

I would say that easiest way for having a cold wallet would be hardware wallets.
There are even airgapped hardware wallets that only work with scanning QR codes, and there is no cable or other connection with PC or other devices.

[BrewMaster]

Paper wallets where the seed is generated online are way more secure than a single private key generated from a downloaded website.

i'm not sure if this is a typo or what but anything that was generated whilst online is considered the least secure thing it doesn't matter if it is a single key or a seed.
it is always best to download the source code like the bitaddress.org website source code from github and run it offline to generate the key.

[bob123]

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Fixed it, thank you.
I don't know what i was thinking while writing this.

My point was that, considering an online computer as the environment, generating the private key / seed locally on your pc without any unnecessary software (e.g. downloaded website) is generally more secure.
Using the functions included in your OS to generate a private key is less prone to be manipulated than using a website.

Same applies to offline creation.

[ranochigo]

Found the cool concept of the cold storage based on  ^{the sound wallet} developed by  ^krach  The developer is active forum user but his original thread is abandoned long time ago so I decided to revive the discussion of his wonderful idea here. With available laser technique the recording of such encrypted sound wallet on a durable plate seems to be the task which is not hard to complete even at home. What do you think?

It is not a cold wallet. It is merely a form of backup.

Steganography is not uncommon. You can obviously do so yourself but putting it on a vinyl disk is probably one of the most terrible ideas; expensive and short life span. I'd rather etch mine on a metal, probably cheaper and more durable by far. I really doubt the general population has a working vinyl disk, not even something that can write on it.