Bitcoin Paper Wallets (2015)
jrruethe.github.io
jrruethe.github.io
For smaller amounts of money there is also OpenDime. They don't provide a back-up mechanism though so if the hardware goes your money is lost forever.
And people say that Bitcoin isn't user-friendly for beginners.
They don't have the option of using physical currency, but coins made from actual bits is a good option for them.
Bitcoin mining also provides bitpeople with a good job and steady income.
You can do exactly the same with paper wallets, for what it's worth. Think of the paper wallet as you hardware wallet's backup. Store it securely in 2 places and you're ok.
So the short answer is, there is practically no quantity of Bitcoin too small to be worth properly securing it. If it's enough to be transactable (not dust) then for the love of god secure it and with luck your kids will be truly thankful that you did.
Once you have that, there's a tool (python script I think) to extract the hash from the wallet.dat. Then you run it against that.
The hardest and most important part is seeding a proper word list for it to work off of. The default dictionary probably isn't going to crack it.
How you choose to protect your back-up seed really depends on the amount of value you are protecting. Writing it on paper and storing it in a fire proof safe or safe deposit box might be good enough.
Not sure if trolling or not, but just use Cryptosteel: https://cryptosteel.com/
If you're going to store large amounts of BTC or any other digital store of value, why would you do it on one device unless you trust it absolutely?
The currency is supposed to be trustless, ultimately. Should you really put all of your trust into one device, manufactured in bulk outside of your purview? Especially when it may (in some cases, but sadly not mine) contain hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions!
I tend to store in a few mediums (including a low-capacity SD card), in places I know, with backup seeds in other inconspicuous locations. It's not high tech, necessarily.
That said, I don't do much regular trading, so I don't need to plug my [hardware wallet] in and pipe funds around often. If I want to trade, I tend to wait until I can buy more and in the interim watch the goings on.
I really think that stuff is neat tech, but not useful unless you want to day trade, or use cryptocurrencies for regular purchases.
It's easy for short-term, however. And nearly as convenient as any USB option these days, but more compact.
That's why I keep other backups in other forms as well. I operate the same way: buy and hold.
Another alternative (if you are not good at remembering passwords) is to give a piece of paper to a family member or good friend with the key and tell them to store it safely. This is no different then giving them a spare key or give them authorization to your bank account/deposit
I bet James Bond uses bitcoin.
I think anyone that got into Bitcoin early or has otherwise made it big in the cryptocurrency scene ought to seriously investigate setting up their funds in a way that they can't be quickly coerced into transferring it.
This remind me of stories of people on localbitcoins doing exchange at a local bank because physical security is good for decentralised internet money.
"I can weather torture just fine" sounds like exactly the thing you would say until you experience it.
Make sure to be rich. If you don't own cryptocurrency, make sure to buy some and convert most of your wealth to it so you can irreversibly send most of your wealth away to give in to an attacker. Make sure the keys to spend it all immediately are physically present with you and easy to access when you're kidnapped. Hope the kidnappers don't hold out for more.
If an individual is known to have done that, or the above steps are commonly followed, then kidnapping-for-ransom becomes a more common and more rational thing to do by desperate people. Doing the opposite, having people plan ahead to make it harder to please a kidnapper, makes the kidnapping-for-ransom attack less common and less rational to do. My argument is more about making it not happen to begin than making a kidnapping go pleasantly for the victim.
Does private key remains the same after transaction? I thought that every transaction moves coins into a new address. If that's the case, then memorizing key each time will become cumbersome very fast.
The printer is potentially an easier attack vector, and you've got to pass the funds into an electronic wallet prior to spending, presumably on your PC or phone, whilst an internet connection is enabled.
Seems writing the wallet info down with a pen, then doing your best to ensure security when you have to use the wallet (e.g. live CD) is a better method?
Also, is it me or are people more paranoid with their Bitcoins than others with their USDs?
you can use a multisig scheme where you have multiple private keys, but you only need a fraction of it to access your bitcoins.
costs $$$, whereas paper wallets are nearly free
>online
doesn't protect you if your computer is compromised
The basic deal of bitcoin is that it's harder for people to tell you what you can and can't do with it, but it's also harder for them to help you if you shoot yourself in the foot with that freedom.
A lot of the peanut gallery is scared away by notions like "if you lose your key, there's no one you can yell at down a phone or sue to get your money back, so you'll just have to be an adult and plan carefully". What remains is people who are a bit more systematic and thorough with respect to their finances.
If you only have bitcoin on a single hardware wallet, then if that hardware wallet fails to work one day, then you're boned. Paper wallets are easy to maintain and visually verify the integrity of (they're just ink on paper). Definitely recommend people using them keep multiple copies in different locations though.
By online:
* if you meant in a computer connected to the internet, then if your computer gets malware then it could steal your bitcoin.
* if you meant in an online exchange, then you have the above issue (malware could steal your login info) combined with the issue that the exchange could go offline / lose your money / run away with your money. (See MtGox, btc-e, etc.)
>Also, is it me or are people more paranoid with their Bitcoins than others with their USDs?
If money is stolen from your bank account, then the bank will reverse the transaction. Bitcoin transactions can't be reversed like that, so their security is solely in the user's hands.
>If you only have bitcoin on a single hardware wallet, then if that hardware wallet fails to work one day, then you're boned.
By "only have bitcoin on a single hardware wallet", I meant the case that the user did not back up their seed phrase (such as to a piece of paper). I was trying to hint that the best setup would be multiple paper wallet backups (or the seed phrase written onto multiple papers; I'm not sure it's useful to call that something other than a paper wallet) combined with a hardware wallet for actually making transactions.
Cost. Use cases: one could transact in a medium trust environment using paper wallets passed around offline.
>What are the benefits of paper wallets over storing it online?
Limited attack surface. https://cryptoconsortium.org/standards/CCSS
The ease in duplicating a wallet beforehand (or even having a computer setup to dump it) points towards high trust for me.