Want to know deatail about paper wallet

[~speedx~]

I have seen that many people are discussing about paper wallet.

• What is the mechanism of paper wallet ?
• And can it be a alternative of hardware wallet when we can't get hardware wallet for the regional facts?
• And is there any others things which can more safer from hardware wallet?

Thank in advance to all bitcoiners

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[Charles-Tim]

Paper wallet will generate you a private key and an address. Because people backup the wallet private key on paper is the reason it is called paper wallet. Although , not necessarily on paper because there are other means that you can backup the wallet offline.

There are HD wallets now and which supposed to let paper wallet to become obsolete means of having bitcoin wallet. If you use HD wallet like Electrum to generate seed phrase on an airgapped device, backup the seed phrase and delete the wallet. That can also be regarded as a paper wallet. I will advice you to go for this one instead.

Am alternative to hardware wallet are wallets on airgapped device like this: https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html

The security of your offline wallet (and even online wallets) depends on you. I mean how secure you make it be with the knowledge you have about securing your coins.

[Upgrade00]

And can it be a alternative of hardware wallet when we can't get hardware wallet for the regional facts?

An airgapped device, which can be a spare phone or PC is the best alternative to a hardware wallet for me. If generated properly the keys never go online, plus you can create a watch only wallet and still be able to sign transactions without your keys going online.

If you want your keys only stored on paper it should be because you have no plans to touch your investment for a very long time and should have more than one back ups.

[Saint-loup]

Usually a paper wallet is just the printing of your Bitcoin address and the private key of this address in letters and through QR codes so except the way you've printed it, it's not less safe than a hardware wallet if you've been cautious for generating your private key. That is to say you've used an air gapped computer/device for this purpose and you've not left critical traces on it or you're sure to not connect it again before having used and destroyed your paper wallet to prevent the ability of the private key to be hacked.

[Stalker22]

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Charles-Tim explained, a paper wallet is basically your private key written on some physical medium, like paper or engraved on a metal plate. Nowadays, a similar method is often used, but not with private keys, but with backup seed phrases from which countless private keys and associated addresses can be derived.

However, a "paper wallet" is not a substitute for a hardware wallet, because a hardware wallet allows you easy access to your wallet and coins, so it is more convenient. A paper wallet (if created in a secure way) is good only for long-term hodl.

[Cricktor]

Creating and printing a paper wallet securely isn't easy and shouldn't be done on an online device. Good luck also with today's ubiquitous network capable printers which like to "phone home" to their manufacturer. You trust your printer's black box firmware fully? There's always hope all goes well...

Handling a paper wallet securely is somewhat cumbersome and I don't see much reason to use them today. We have HD wallets that take care of key and address generaton on demand and which are usually easy to restore if you practised it. Air-gapped wallets, properly executed and handled, provide equal security as hardware wallets, but are less convenient to use.

I'd recommend to stay away from paper wallets unless you know very well what you're doing and have a good understanding of all security requirements.