Storing bitcoins

[leen93]

Hi everyone,
Some time ago I bought 100 BTC (+70.000$), most of them I lose through hackers, mtgox, investing in HYIP, getting scammed by cloudbet... Now I have a bit less than 10 btc left (sadly worth nothing in compare to my initial investment). I'm used to keep them at exchanges like kraken and justcoin (which closed recently), then I discovered bitfinex and now I'm offering swaps there, hoping to maybe get back an extra bitcoin within a year. But I'm wondering how safe it is to keep my bitcoins there and offer swaps? I can make some profit there (and technically it should work as long as the owners don't run away or something went wrong on the website) but I'm also a bit affraid of losing everything. It also has some advantages, sometimes I really want to make some bets and recently I did it a lot bringing me from less than 3 to over 9 BTC. But that's mostly because of luck and maybe that could precent me losing my bitcoins that way because I never have access to my bitcoins immediately unless I change the autorenew settings in the website and wait for a few weeks. So what would be the best way to store my bitcoins? Going for the profit and let the bitcoins earn intrest on bitfinex or what do you think? My mail is safe now through 2FA if that would matter. If I deposit around 10 btc there I could earn around 2 mBTC every day by just offering swaps.

[mezmerizer9]

Hi everyone,
Some time ago I bought 100 BTC (+70.000$), most of them I lose through hackers, mtgox, investing in HYIP, getting scammed by cloudbet... Now I have a bit less than 10 btc left (sadly worth nothing in compare to my initial investment). I'm used to keep them at exchanges like kraken and justcoin (which closed recently), then I discovered bitfinex and now I'm offering swaps there, hoping to maybe get back an extra bitcoin within a year. But I'm wondering how safe it is to keep my bitcoins there and offer swaps? I can make some profit there (and technically it should work as long as the owners don't run away or something went wrong on the website) but I'm also a bit affraid of losing everything. It also has some advantages, sometimes I really want to make some bets and recently I did it a lot bringing me from less than 3 to over 9 BTC. But that's mostly because of luck and maybe that could precent me losing my bitcoins that way because I never have access to my bitcoins immediately unless I change the autorenew settings in the website and wait for a few weeks. So what would be the best way to store my bitcoins? Going for the profit and let the bitcoins earn intrest on bitfinex or what do you think? My mail is safe now through 2FA if that would matter. If I deposit around 10 btc there I could earn around 2 mBTC every day by just offering swaps.

Why don't you invest 1 btc into cloud mining? hashprofit for example, just stay away from cex.io. You can profit, sure.

[notlist3d]

Seems you have had some bad luck.

Make sure to use multi-factor sites.  Treat your private key like gold.   Get it once on USB and Paper i suggest and put in safety deposit box or some very strong physical safe.

With earning more BTC comes risk only you can decide what is worth it for your personal investments.  I would say never invest more then you are willing to lose, that is my saying no matter what is invested in.     

[jambola2]

Seems you have had some bad luck.

Make sure to use multi-factor sites.  Treat your private key like gold.   Get it once on USB and Paper i suggest and put in safety deposit box or some very strong physical safe.

With earning more BTC comes risk only you can decide what is worth it for your personal investments.  I would say never invest more then you are willing to lose, that is my saying no matter what is invested in.     

Precisely.

Cloud mining, Gambling and all other means of investments are more likely to give negative returns.

Keep it safe on a paper wallet (bitaddress.org is good) and keep that paper safe. Don't gamble/waste any more on the hopes of something great.

[Spamela Anderson]

If they're on any type of exchnage or third party site then you can lose them if you don't own the private keys, so just bare that in mind. Personally I'd just hold the coins you have now and hope for the best for the future.1NemaYUMWD3r3AdVEVqQWwuXd5oUM91qPS

[xcom]

huh, you have lost almost everything :<  Bitcoin world is brutal. on your place i would buy some good tv

[ranochigo]

Hi everyone,
Some time ago I bought 100 BTC (+70.000$), most of them I lose through hackers, mtgox, investing in HYIP, getting scammed by cloudbet... Now I have a bit less than 10 btc left (sadly worth nothing in compare to my initial investment). I'm used to keep them at exchanges like kraken and justcoin (which closed recently), then I discovered bitfinex and now I'm offering swaps there, hoping to maybe get back an extra bitcoin within a year. But I'm wondering how safe it is to keep my bitcoins there and offer swaps? I can make some profit there (and technically it should work as long as the owners don't run away or something went wrong on the website) but I'm also a bit affraid of losing everything. It also has some advantages, sometimes I really want to make some bets and recently I did it a lot bringing me from less than 3 to over 9 BTC. But that's mostly because of luck and maybe that could precent me losing my bitcoins that way because I never have access to my bitcoins immediately unless I change the autorenew settings in the website and wait for a few weeks. So what would be the best way to store my bitcoins? Going for the profit and let the bitcoins earn intrest on bitfinex or what do you think? My mail is safe now through 2FA if that would matter. If I deposit around 10 btc there I could earn around 2 mBTC every day by just offering swaps.

Bitfinex is just like any other Bitcoin exchange, they have the potential of running away with your funds. It is never safe to entrust your bitcoins to someone else. They can either claim to get hacked or just simply shut it down and run away. Remember this rule, the house always wins. Due to the house edge, you can't win in the long run so do not gamble more than you can afford to lose. Store majority of your bitcoins in your cold storage and put a few on your online wallet for day use.

[BUYME41]

the best way to store BTC is wallet. no dobut. i lost 6 btc on mtgox, not that much as you but still painful. 

[Loophole]

The average daily return rate for offering liquidity on bitfinex is 0.0222% (from https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/stats), and so you can expect to get about 8.4% return a year. IMO, that return isn't worth the risk, and I would rather store my bitcoin on my own wallet.

[leen93]

Seems you have had some bad luck.

Make sure to use multi-factor sites.  Treat your private key like gold.   Get it once on USB and Paper i suggest and put in safety deposit box or some very strong physical safe.

With earning more BTC comes risk only you can decide what is worth it for your personal investments.  I would say never invest more then you are willing to lose, that is my saying no matter what is invested in.    

Precisely.

Cloud mining, Gambling and all other means of investments are more likely to give negative returns.

Keep it safe on a paper wallet (bitaddress.org is good) and keep that paper safe. Don't gamble/waste any more on the hopes of something great.

ok, i'll use that
so just print out bitcoin address and private key? and send all btc to that address? and how do i use them in the future then? + how do i know that website doesnt know the private key and can steal them too?

The average daily return rate for offering liquidity on bitfinex is 0.0222% (from https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/stats), and so you can expect to get about 8.4% return a year. IMO, that return isn't worth the risk, and I would rather store my bitcoin on my own wallet.

investing dollars there is worth the risk with 25% a year?

[Loophole]

The average daily return rate for offering liquidity on bitfinex is 0.0222% (from https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/stats), and so you can expect to get about 8.4% return a year. IMO, that return isn't worth the risk, and I would rather store my bitcoin on my own wallet.

investing dollars there is worth the risk with 25% a year?

The USD rate is much higher, because most of the bitcoin people believe the BTC/USD price to go up.
So, while your USD balance may go up 25%, you may not be able to buy 25% more bitcoin 1 year later with your USD.

Is it worth the risk? IMHO, nope. But you should make your own decision.

[Loophole]

Seems you have had some bad luck.

Make sure to use multi-factor sites.  Treat your private key like gold.   Get it once on USB and Paper i suggest and put in safety deposit box or some very strong physical safe.

With earning more BTC comes risk only you can decide what is worth it for your personal investments.  I would say never invest more then you are willing to lose, that is my saying no matter what is invested in.     

Precisely.

Cloud mining, Gambling and all other means of investments are more likely to give negative returns.

Keep it safe on a paper wallet (bitaddress.org is good) and keep that paper safe. Don't gamble/waste any more on the hopes of something great.

ok, i'll use that
so just print out bitcoin address and private key? and send all btc to that address? and how do i use them in the future then? + how do i know that website doesnt know the private key and can steal them too?

You should save the html file on bitaddress.org, and run it on your machine without internet connection. You can print the paper wallet out and laminate the paper and put the paper in a safe place.

In the future when you want to spend your bitcoin, you just need to import the private key to any wallet (such as blockchain.info, electrum,  bitcoin core, etc) or sweep the key .

[Sugarape]

Only create paper wallets if you know what you're doing and make several back ups. I'd write down the private keys as well just in case you lose them or something goes wrong.

[leen93]

The average daily return rate for offering liquidity on bitfinex is 0.0222% (from https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/stats), and so you can expect to get about 8.4% return a year. IMO, that return isn't worth the risk, and I would rather store my bitcoin on my own wallet.

investing dollars there is worth the risk with 25% a year?

The USD rate is much higher, because most of the bitcoin people believe the BTC/USD price to go up.
So, while your USD balance may go up 25%, you may not be able to buy 25% more bitcoin 1 year later with your USD.

Is it worth the risk? IMHO, nope. But you should make your own decision.

yes, i know that
but this means it is safer to keep usd there than btc

[leen93]

the problem is i don't really know where to keep the paper then 
would it be good to split it in 2 and keep 2 of them each? keep 2 matching halfs in 1 house (eg copy an article, write the btc key randomly somewhere in the middle and hide it in my study books?) and 2 other matching halfs in another house (in case there would be a fire or something). Would that be safe enough? Or is it better to just remind the private key and study +- 1 hour to remind it forever? But in case I would have an accident and come out of coma and don't remind anything at all i would have a problem 

[Divinespark]

Stick 80% of your coin in a paper wallet, margin lend with the rest, avoid gambling or you will lose everything in time

[Loophole]

the problem is i don't really know where to keep the paper then 
would it be good to split it in 2 and keep 2 of them each? keep 2 matching halfs in 1 house (eg copy an article, write the btc key randomly somewhere in the middle and hide it in my study books?) and 2 other matching halfs in another house (in case there would be a fire or something). Would that be safe enough? Or is it better to just remind the private key and study +- 1 hour to remind it forever? But in case I would have an accident and come out of coma and don't remind anything at all i would have a problem 

To prevent coin loss due to burglary, you could encrypt your paper wallet. On bitaddress.org, you can tick the box "BIP38 Encrypt?" and enter a passphrase to encrypt your paper wallet.

To prevent coin loss due to fire, you could make multiple backups as you said, and store them in different places (your room, your backyard, your parents' house, bank safe box, etc).

To prevent coin loss for something related to your health conditions, you could teach your family members about bitcoin, tell them about your paper wallet location(s) and passphrase (if any). But then they could spend your bitcoin without your permission.

[notlist3d]

Seems you have had some bad luck.

Make sure to use multi-factor sites.  Treat your private key like gold.   Get it once on USB and Paper i suggest and put in safety deposit box or some very strong physical safe.

With earning more BTC comes risk only you can decide what is worth it for your personal investments.  I would say never invest more then you are willing to lose, that is my saying no matter what is invested in.    

Precisely.

Cloud mining, Gambling and all other means of investments are more likely to give negative returns.

Keep it safe on a paper wallet (bitaddress.org is good) and keep that paper safe. Don't gamble/waste any more on the hopes of something great.

ok, i'll use that
so just print out bitcoin address and private key? and send all btc to that address? and how do i use them in the future then? + how do i know that website doesnt know the private key and can steal them too?

The average daily return rate for offering liquidity on bitfinex is 0.0222% (from https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/stats), and so you can expect to get about 8.4% return a year. IMO, that return isn't worth the risk, and I would rather store my bitcoin on my own wallet.

investing dollars there is worth the risk with 25% a year?

Ok a few tips.
1. Scan computer for with anti-malaware and anti-virus software.
2. Do not store it in the "cloud".  It sounds nice but its a horrible idea.
3. Put paper wallet copy or private key on a thumb drive.   Buy a new one for it, only use it to store the key.  Check it to make sure it is there, now don't use it till needed.
4. On printer the best if your paranoid is a "dumb" printer.  One without scanning, network, etc.  Chances are your printer is newer though.  Only print it at your private residence, do no print in public or at work.
5. Truly put those in a safe place safety deposit box, good safe, etc.


You can keep your public key pretty much anywhere and look at blockchain if you want to see your money setting there, without using your wallet to see balance.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Seems you have had some bad luck.

Make sure to use multi-factor sites.  Treat your private key like gold.   Get it once on USB and Paper i suggest and put in safety deposit box or some very strong physical safe.

With earning more BTC comes risk only you can decide what is worth it for your personal investments.  I would say never invest more then you are willing to lose, that is my saying no matter what is invested in.    

Precisely.

Cloud mining, Gambling and all other means of investments are more likely to give negative returns.

Keep it safe on a paper wallet (bitaddress.org is good) and keep that paper safe. Don't gamble/waste any more on the hopes of something great.

ok, i'll use that
so just print out bitcoin address and private key? and send all btc to that address? and how do i use them in the future then? + how do i know that website doesnt know the private key and can steal them too?

The average daily return rate for offering liquidity on bitfinex is 0.0222% (from https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/stats), and so you can expect to get about 8.4% return a year. IMO, that return isn't worth the risk, and I would rather store my bitcoin on my own wallet.

investing dollars there is worth the risk with 25% a year?

Ok a few tips.
1. Scan computer for with anti-malaware and anti-virus software.
2. Do not store it in the "cloud".  It sounds nice but its a horrible idea.
3. Put paper wallet copy or private key on a thumb drive.   Buy a new one for it, only use it to store the key.  Check it to make sure it is there, now don't use it till needed.
4. On printer the best if your paranoid is a "dumb" printer.  One without scanning, network, etc.  Chances are your printer is newer though.  Only print it at your private residence, do no print in public or at work.
5. Truly put those in a safe place safety deposit box, good safe, etc.


You can keep your public key pretty much anywhere and look at blockchain if you want to see your money setting there, without using your wallet to see balance.

good tips.

use 2 factor authentifikation. dont install shady programms on your pc.


 maybe buy a Trezor (good storage - google it).

[leen93]

Seems you have had some bad luck.

Make sure to use multi-factor sites.  Treat your private key like gold.   Get it once on USB and Paper i suggest and put in safety deposit box or some very strong physical safe.

With earning more BTC comes risk only you can decide what is worth it for your personal investments.  I would say never invest more then you are willing to lose, that is my saying no matter what is invested in.    

Precisely.

Cloud mining, Gambling and all other means of investments are more likely to give negative returns.

Keep it safe on a paper wallet (bitaddress.org is good) and keep that paper safe. Don't gamble/waste any more on the hopes of something great.

ok, i'll use that
so just print out bitcoin address and private key? and send all btc to that address? and how do i use them in the future then? + how do i know that website doesnt know the private key and can steal them too?

The average daily return rate for offering liquidity on bitfinex is 0.0222% (from https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/stats), and so you can expect to get about 8.4% return a year. IMO, that return isn't worth the risk, and I would rather store my bitcoin on my own wallet.

investing dollars there is worth the risk with 25% a year?

Ok a few tips.
1. Scan computer for with anti-malaware and anti-virus software.
2. Do not store it in the "cloud".  It sounds nice but its a horrible idea.
3. Put paper wallet copy or private key on a thumb drive.   Buy a new one for it, only use it to store the key.  Check it to make sure it is there, now don't use it till needed.
4. On printer the best if your paranoid is a "dumb" printer.  One without scanning, network, etc.  Chances are your printer is newer though.  Only print it at your private residence, do no print in public or at work.
5. Truly put those in a safe place safety deposit box, good safe, etc.


You can keep your public key pretty much anywhere and look at blockchain if you want to see your money setting there, without using your wallet to see balance.

good tips.

use 2 factor authentifikation. dont install shady programms on your pc.


 maybe buy a Trezor (good storage - google it).

Trezor seems a bit expensive, I'm not dealing with a few 1000's bitcoins or something
so if i make a paperwallet there? print it (and maybe put them in a word document which i safe on 2 usb's (one usb-card in my wallet, one at my home)) and I'm 100% safe?
A lot safer than keeping them on bitfinex with 2FA? :p