Hi, post is a bit outdated but someone else could find this info usefull anyway so ..
HAVE CARE!!! IF YOU LOOSE YOUR PRIVATE KEY ALL YOUR COINS WELL BE LOST I start by saying that following are just my point of view and what I do to achive your goal.
I'm not sure this is the best nor the more elegant, but surely it works.
A wallet uses a private key and a public key (usually called "wallet address"). Basically public key it is used just to receive transactions and private to create and send them, so that all are able to send coins to your wallet but none but you are able to send them: only you have the private key , only you are able to sign the transaction for sending coins from your wallet.
The public key is derived from private one but it is impossible to do the reverse process, so you are free to give and expose your public key to receive coin from others with no fear, because none will be able to retrive private key from it.
That said , worst thing you could do with a crypto currency wallet is to expose your private key to public.
That is why last thing I would ever (IMHO) do is to trust a website asking it to provide me with a private key for my new wallet, especially if I want to store all my coins on that wallet and use it printed as "cold storage" .
I suggest you to generate a new wallet address simply using the original wallet software you want to use.
If you want to generate a keys couple on your own PC without having a complete wallet installation or want to have a particular pattern in you wallett give a try to this
vanitygen If you don't like to download the whole blockchain (as others above already suggested you) you have to use a lightweighted version of the wallet like "MultiBit" and/or "Electrum"
bitcoin.
Googling for litecoin I found this
electrum-lite but I had no test on it.
Returning to the post topic, the easiest way I found to print my wallets and store them in a "secure drawer" is :
- send all my coins to a single public address (or wallet address)
- when transfer is complete, I copy that public address and :
if GUI VERSION ... goto Help-> Debug> Console ... and just type:
dumpprivkey LTCmyPubbddressgr4ZkpGtL5egY
if CLI VERSION :
litecoind
dumpprivkey LTCmyPubbddressgr4ZkpGtL5egY
OUTPUT (obviously these are all random values, not real pub/priv keys)
AGDFBKr4GZmLnoRwyBDMhAttsMxmjjAeG3Knh9cA89cbuA5cft8d
the output in both cases will be the corresponding private key of that public (wallet) address.
That is all I need to restore my wallett with all my coins in.
At this point I can print it, copy , produce a QRCODE (
zint) and etc ....
Remember anyone able to read that code will be able to open your wallet so you'd better put it in a very secure place.This is the reason I don't trust a website giving me my private key.
To restore it I just need to open another wallet of same coin . You can use an already in use or brand new wallet and full version or
lightweighted one, 'cause the transactions are stored into the block chain (and not in your single wallet) and then shared on the coin network.
Well, I give the
opposite command in the same way I got the private key:
importprivkey AGDFBKr4GZmLnoRwyBDMhAttsMxmjjAeG3Knh9cA89cbuA5cft8d myrestoredwallet
(giving it a Label seems to be mandatory)
Restart of the wallet and here you are.
Before to do this operation on your real wallet and coins, I heartily suggest you to do some test with empty wallets or with coins with a very low BTC/$ value so that if you miss something in the process you won't loose all your coins at first attempt.
HAVE CARE !!! IF YOU LOOSE YOUR PRIVATE KEY ALL YOUR COINS WILL BE LOST,
IF ANYONE IS ABLE TO READ YOUR PRIVATEKEY HE/SHE WILL BE ABLE TO OPEN YOUR WALLET
..... HAVE CARE AGAIN AND AGAINPS: I actually use to encrypt my private key with PGP before I print it
