almost 7 fking years later, people still get their money stolen, this bitcoin has one huge flaw, nobody understands how to secure this shit, satoshi is a failure
On the contrary.
It's the fact that people can never get it back that makes it so valuable.
The blockchain itself is secure as hell. It's never been hacked in the history of Bitcoin. That's as far as Satoshi's job went. From that point on responsibility lies with the holders of the keys.
If you leave a gold bar in the back of your car and somebody smashes the window and takes it, never to be seen again, don't blame the gold bar.
The way to securely store bitcoin keys is exactly the same as for storing any other electronic asset of value:
[1] - generate the address offline
[2] - dump the public AND private keys using dumpprivkey <myaddress>
***** NOTE AT THIS POINT, VERIFY USING BLOCK EXPLORER THAT ALL YOUR COINS ARE AT THIS ADDRESS AND NOT AT MULTIPLE CHANGE ADDRESSES BURIED IN THE WALLET IN WHICH CASE YOU NEED TO DUMPPRIVKEY FOR ALL THE ADDRESSES **********
[3] - print the public/private keypair and store in a safe place (or a bank safe)
THEN
[4] - create an encrypted drive image to store your wallet (Macs are easy - use the drive utility, takes 30 seconds)
[5] - copy your wallet to the encrypted drive and close the drive
[6] - send your money to that address
[7] - store one copy of your encrypted drive on an external storage device and put it in a cupboard
[8] - upload another copy to an online storage backup like Google drive and preferably protect your login with 2-factor login
Even if someone steals your drive or hacks your Google drive, they won't be able to open your wallet because:
a) - they won't be able to crack the encrypted drive
b) - even if they could, your wallet should be encrypted as well
This may seem like a palaver but Bitcoin is BASE MONEY. There is nothing 'backing' Bitcoin - it is IT, so don't complain. You'd have to go through the same palaver if you had a gold bar in your possession.
P.S. That's the 'best practice' template. I bend the rules a bit by testing the address first before I send my coins to it. i.e. I do actually go online with the wallet briefly and send something from the address to make absolutely sure I control it. But everyone must find what suits them and what's appropriate for the amount of coins they've got.
