Paper wallet the only option left?

[Somegory]

Things are not getting better around hardware wallet and someone on X even made the matter worse by calling all hardware wallet unreliable or a bad practice,

Here is the picture of what I found.



This guy is now talking about using a separate iPhone for hardware wallet only use case, do you think that he has a point here? I don't even think twice about it because at this point no device is permanently safe.

One thing comes up in my mind, and that's Paper wallet.


I've hardly heard bad news about this older way of creating and keeping Bitcoin, probably because it's offline and doesn't run on any devices, but shamefully I don't know anything about paper wallets.

Can someone please teach or drop tutor on a safest way to generate crypto wallet,/bitcoin wallet online in the paper wallet style?
I already have a hardware wallet but I'm not against splitting my coins between wallets if possible.

[bitbollo]

"Truly I tell you, third party custody is just self custody with extra layers of risk."
Cit. J. Lopp

I would say that this could define very well and in just in one sentence what it's important about btc and what is the good way to generate your keys - hot/cold wallet.
Another good suggestion would say to "spread" your coins... maybe you could use an IPHONE for an hotwallet but this not the safest solution for a cold wallet.
Here the point: the best solutions would be always something related to a "dynamic" system based on your real usage.
If you want to generate the safest wallet as possible you had to use a procedure like the ones described in www.glacierprotocol.org
Rigorously off line. With an USB Linux Live Distro. Generating everything from scratch...you are really sure to choose a number in 2^256
Custody of btc would become definitely easy if you can sign a transaction off line...

[OmegaStarScream]

Paper wallets are a good option, but not if you want to spend your funds on a regular basis. I would only recommend it if your plan is to store for a long period of time.

If you want to generate one, Bitaddress is the way to go: https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org

Do not use the website directly though, download it and use it offline on a preferably live USB machine as mentioned above.

Most of the arguments made on X against hardware wallets are a joke. Using Trezor and SafePal data leaks to prove that hardware wallets are bad make no sense, since the leaks has absolutely nothing to do with their devices.
Sure, coldcard is one case, but is that enough to say that people should store their funds in Coinbase, and buy ETFs? Definitely not. Besides, whatever happened in Coldcard, could've happened in any badly written software wallet as well regardless of the device and how you're using it.

[Karl_3000]

Can someone please teach or drop tutor on a safest way to generate crypto wallet,/bitcoin wallet online in the paper wallet style?
I already have a hardware wallet but I'm not against splitting my coins between wallets if possible.

You should generate the paper wallet offline. The best device that you can use for it is a formatted computer, remove the bluetooth and WIFI card and install wallet like Electrum wallet on it. Tails comes with Electrum wallet pre-installed but you can use a formatted USB stick to send it to the wallet.

Generate the wallet on the offline Electrum wallet, write down the seed phrase and copy some addresses. Because you want to make it a paper wallet, you will need to format the personal computer again and erase everything on the wallet.

You can use phone but not better than computers because you can not remove the bluetooth and WiFi, but you can put the phone offline and generate the paper wallet. If it is phone, just delete the wallet after you have your seed phrase back ups and some addresses that you will be sending bitcoin to.

You can use watch only wallet to track your transactions.

Alternatively you can have a permanently offline device for it, they are all the same process to set up
https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html

Make sure you back up your seed phrase and passphrase.

[BABY SHOES]

Who said... people who say hardware wallets are bad due to the circumstances of the Coldcard case added to Trezor and Safepal's news about exposed customer data, making many sentiments out there panic to the point that saying hardware is bad is no longer an option... I'll be damned if I don't care.

Paper wallets are a good choice, I myself have never tried to do it except to save the seed phrase, I don't know, don't panic too much, but you can do experience with paper wallets to diversify coins to several different addresses.

His guide... [1] https://coincodecap.com/what-is-bitcoin-paper-wallet

[hosemary]

Can someone please teach or drop tutor on a safest way to generate crypto wallet,/bitcoin wallet online in the paper wallet style?

A paper wallet should be generated offline (preferably on an ait-gapped device), and the private keys should stay offline forever.
If you generate a paper wallet online, you would defeat the purpose of a paper wallet.

If you want to generate one, Bitaddress is the way to go: https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org

Bitaddress generates the keys through javascript, and I don't recommed it.
Read gmaxwell's post on another thread. It explains why it's not a good idea to use Javascript to generate a private key.

Generate the wallet on the offline Electrum wallet, write down the seed phrase and copy some addresses.

Instead of keeping multiple addresses, you can save the master public key.
You can use the master public key in the future to generate as many addresses as you want without needing to use your seed phrase.

[Tongley]

You may decide to use a paper wallet only if you have a significant amount of Bitcoin and are willing to hold it for the long term. You can read this thread and get some ideas.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5190202.msg52655646#msg52655646

[Iranus]

Traditional paper wallet is not automatically safer just because it is offline. Older single private-key paper wallets have several problem with backup, address reuse, change output, secure randomness etc. So I would not recommend using online paper-wallet generator again.

Better approach for me is if we can use hardware wallet as seed generator. And our recovery seed should be written and engraved offline. Seed cannot be stored on phone, PC, screenshot or cloud in any way.

And the idea that you talked about with separate iPhone can be useful for wallet app. If you're talking about air-gapped iPhones, it's the same thing like hardware wallet. But are different trust assumptions on the phone's operating system, firmware, apps, supply-chain and physical security. And the hardware wallet has a dedicated design from the beginning to reduce the attack surface.

[Filicius]

Most of the arguments made on X against hardware wallets are a joke. Using Trezor and SafePal data leaks to prove that hardware wallets are bad make no sense, since the leaks has absolutely nothing to do with their devices.
Sure, coldcard is one case, but is that enough to say that people should store their funds in Coinbase, and buy ETFs? Definitely not. Besides, whatever happened in Coldcard, could've happened in any badly written software wallet as well regardless of the device and how you're using it.

That's what we were talking about in another discussion in my local board: the data leaks, just like the one that happened to Ledger a few years ago, it is a serious issue, we agree, but it has nothing to do with the robustness of the seeds or with the safety of use of the devices. Nobody likes to see information about where they live because, in the worst case, it could lead to a visit to your home, so I don't take away from the seriousness of the security event, but that alone doesn't necessarily make HWs worse as a storage solution.

[EL MOHA]

That's what we were talking about in another discussion in my local board: the data leaks, just like the one that happened to Ledger a few years ago, it is a serious issue, we agree, but it has nothing to do with the robustness of the seeds or with the safety of use of the devices. Nobody likes to see information about where they live because, in the worst case, it could lead to a visit to your home, so I don't take away from the seriousness of the security event, but that alone doesn't necessarily make HWs worse as a storage solution.

This are simply just those who thinks self custody is not a must that people can comfortably use the exchanges to store up their funds. The social media is the least place that one can go to, to actually make decisions like, X is filled owners of exchanges looking for investors to forsake their investments custody in their hands and also ETF advisories looking for any single flaw in self custody to actually make their claims.

Then on same social media you critics of bitcoin and cryptocurrency at large looking to bounce on the reason why people shouldn’t even be on cryptocurrency at all and this is the situations that gives them opportunity to streotype bitcoin.

Yes the recent news around hardware wallets are actually a thing of concern because this shouldn’t even be happening if most of the hardware were doing the right at the right time. But even at that exchanges are still have higher proportion of leaks or breaches as at now.

Also it should be understood that hardware wallet isn’t the only way to self custody one can have their own self custody set up on airgapped devices. Personally I have this opinion that this even more secure to me than an hardware wallet

[pooya87]

someone on X even made the matter worse by calling all hardware wallet unreliable or a bad practice,
This guy is now talking about using a separate iPhone for hardware wallet only use case,

"Someone broke into my home and stole the cash I was hiding under my mattress, so now I decided that it is safer to store my cash under a bench in a park in a public place" /sarcasm

That's pretty much what this dude on X is saying. Smart phones, specifically iPhones, are designed to NOT be cold ever. They will be connected, whether you block it or not won't matter because that's how they've been designed (some like iPhone definitely have backdoors installed intentionally in them).

do you think that he has a point here?

These days people are taking big jumps from one HW producer messing up to just abandoning HW entirely.
But they have to realize that there is no such thing as 100% secure. Every method will have strengths and weaknesses. They just have to learn about both of them and if the strengths outweighed the weaknesses, then that method is useful after accepting the risks associated with it.

One thing comes up in my mind, and that's Paper wallet.

Same as above. Paper wallets also have strengths and weaknesses.
For example 2 weaknesses are the medium itself (if you choose a simple one like paper, it will be susceptible) and difficulty of spending from it (you'll have to re-establish the safe air-gap environment each time).

Can someone please teach or drop tutor on a safest way to generate crypto wallet,/bitcoin wallet online in the paper wallet style?

Step 1: Choose your favorite tool that is open source and secure. I would go with Electrum since it is a popular wallet with its code reviewed and most importantly it generates a mnemonic not a single key.
Step 2: Build that air-gap environment. Something that requires effort. I suggest a live Linux with no physical network access.
Step 3: Generate your key(s) using what you selected in step 1.
Step 3.1: Optional: Encrypt the key(s).
Step 4: Write down the key. Selecting Electrum is beneficial here since you won't have to "print" anything, you can just write down the mnemonic on a piece of paper since they are just words not random characters like a WIF is.

[Pmalek]

@OP
You are forgetting that Coldcard was a cold wallet. It was an airgapped device where the keys didn't touch the internet. The issue wasn't that private keys were leaked or stored in a database and got hacked, the problem was in the randomness. There wasn't enough entropy in the seeds the devices generated. So even if those keys never touched the internet, someone found out how to recreate the steps and find the not-random-enough keys of funded wallets.

The same thing can happen to the software that generated your paper wallet, a different hardware wallet brand, or the software wallet on your iPhone if the developers made those types of mistakes and blackhats find out before they get patched.

Where is the guarantee that the software + iPhone combo is the best way to go? Not using the phone often and not taking it online doesn't help. Like I said, Coldcard wasn't a hot wallet and we all know how that worked out.

[ashmodeus]

well,i knew where it came from,but basically the hacker come from a mistake from to whoever who take a part of that wallet.The newest come from coldcard wallet which manufactured by coinkite , and before that Ledger and Trezor also got attack , even not direct attack to the wallet, but the hacker got only data breach, but ofc, its just about time until the buyer got phising attack. The problem its not about how secure the wallet or not, the problem just about people who contributing the wallet it self. as long u didn't make a mistake such as got phising or ur device got viruses, u definely fine.

[Somegory]

Paper wallets are a good option, but not if you want to spend your funds on a regular basis. I would only recommend it if your plan is to store for a long period of time.

If you want to generate one, Bitaddress is the way to go: https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org

Do not use the website directly though, download it and use it offline on a preferably live USB machine as mentioned above.

Most of the arguments made on X against hardware wallets are a joke. Using Trezor and SafePal data leaks to prove that hardware wallets are bad make no sense, since the leaks has absolutely nothing to do with their devices.
Sure, coldcard is one case, but is that enough to say that people should store their funds in Coinbase, and buy ETFs? Definitely not. Besides, whatever happened in Coldcard, could've happened in any badly written software wallet as well regardless of the device and how you're using it.

Thanks for your input, the plan is to hold Bitcoin for many years into the future, I don't want to come back one day and see a empty balance, if I am all into spending every week I already have unstoppable wallet for this.

Yes I thought the same too, data leak isn't the same as these hardware wallets getting compromised, but I will like to have some Bitcoin in a paper wallet and some in my Bitcoin hardware wallet.

I don't think it's a bad plan at all..

[satscraper]

the plan is to hold Bitcoin for many years into the future, I don't want to come back one day and see a empty balance,

The strongest setup for such plan would be Yeti Level 3, so if you are technically savvy, proceed with its implementation. Otherwise, you might want to consider the simpler multisig scheme based on  quorum of cosigners using conventional hardware/software wallets from different manufacturers/developers. Whatever scheme you choose, think carefully about the backup scheme, as it differs from that of singlesig wallet.

[Lucius]

Things are not getting better around hardware wallet and someone on shitsX even made the matter worse by calling all hardware wallet unreliable or a bad practice,
~snip~

I don't understand people who seek wisdom on social networks where at least 80% of the content is nonsense, fakes and scams. Unfortunately, many members of this forum do not understand why the coldcard hack happened, nor why hackers succeed in hacking databases that contain information about customers of hardware wallets.

A paper wallet with bad/weak entropy during seed creation is almost as bad as the one in the coldcard case. Besides, if you don't know how to spend coins from a paper wallet properly, you'll have a very big problem.

[Yamane_Keto]

A good hardware wallet contains a secure element to run a True Random Number Generator (TRNG), which is more secure than generating seeds via an iPhone and much more secure than generating them using JavaScript or paper wallet. Paper wallets do not allow you to manage your wallet effectively and you cannot generate many addresses.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

"Someone broke into my home and stole the cash I was hiding under my mattress, so now I decided that it is safer to store my cash under a bench in a park in a public place" /sarcasm

That's pretty much what this dude on X is saying. Smart phones, specifically iPhones, are designed to NOT be cold ever. They will be connected, whether you block it or not won't matter because that's how they've been designed (some like iPhone definitely have backdoors installed intentionally in them).

They are firstly careless, lost their bitcoin or lost their wallet backups but were still lucky enough if they did not lose their coins. Consequently, they turned to panic and tried to innovate some creative backup ways that are both dangerous, careless and stupid.

Like this method.
Knitted my seed phrase into a blanket. Clever backup or stupid idea?
How do you safely keep your recovery phrase written on paper?

Yesterday, my mom did a general cleaning on my room and when she's done, I saw the recovery phrase of my Trezor hardware wallet on the garbage can which I placed on my computer table, I also have that same copy on my wallet but still can't stop myself to tremble in fear to lose that piece of paper. I didn't told her about it to avoid more argument because she wouldn't still understand what it is. This is what I've been scared about when people say to write your recovery phrases on a piece of paper instead of storing it online.

[ABCbits]

This guy is now talking about using a separate iPhone for hardware wallet only use case, do you think that he has a point here?

I'm surprised nobody mention "price" or "cost" of iPhone, which is more expensive than hardware wallet or basic computer/laptop. Other already argue why hardware wallet is still better, but basic computer/laptop are also have more configurable for security purpose.

If you want to generate one, Bitaddress is the way to go: https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org

Bitaddress generates the keys through javascript, and I don't recommed it.
Read gmaxwell's post on another thread. It explains why it's not a good idea to use Javascript to generate a private key.

As reminder, Bitaddress also use text you entered and mouse movement as inputs. The non-obvious part is how those inputs used or processed.

On side note, does anyone know modern or non-JS alternative of bitaddress.org that are popular enough? While you can easily find newer website or code, it's hard to tell how secure or popular is it.