Fundamental question about storing crypto safely

[taiping]

6 hours ago, speedtripler said:

If you have a non trivial amount of  money in crypto you could get an old 2nd hand laptop  just for the purpose 

 

Create your wallets on that and maintain an "airgap machine " at all times (so it never goes online) 

 

That's the best way to get as close to maximum security as possible but it depends how you value your investment and how much losing it would hurt

That's an interesting way of doing it using an offline laptop. 

One issue not discussed is what happens when I kick the bucket. SWMBO and sprog have no idea about crypto, so I must try to keep it simple. Passwords to all financial data are kept in hard copy form which they should be able to locate (info in my Will). I think all the other proposed solutions would be too complicated for them to understand. I do have a non trivial amount in crypto.

To save the recovery seed I add this in text format to Winzip which has an encryption feature, and send the encrypted zip file to myself by email. The receiving email address does have 2FA authorization.

 

Edited September 14, 2017 by taiping

[seancbk]

2 hours ago, taiping said:

That's an interesting way of doing it using an offline laptop. 

One issue not discussed is what happens when I kick the bucket. SWMBO and sprog have no idea about crypto, so I must try to keep it simple. Passwords to all financial data are kept in hard copy form which they should be able to locate (info in my Will). I think all the other proposed solutions would be too complicated for them to understand. I do have a non trivial amount in crypto.

To save the recovery seed I add this in text format to Winzip which has an encryption feature, and send the encrypted zip file to myself by email. The receiving email address does have 2FA authorization.

 

You could just hand everything over before you become completely incapacitated.   
Teach your kid about crypto and how to access your wealth before it's too late.

[speedtripler]

7 hours ago, seancbk said:

 

Very smart.   OK my method needs work :-)   

For long term cold storage Another suggestion is Copy your word list to a document file on your safe clean non Internet connected computer.... 

 

Then use 7zip to put it an encrypted archive with sha-256 so nobody can open it and you can email it to friends or family or copy it to cds, dvd,  usb sticks, micro sd cards, even the cloud if you like

 

Crypto currency is a Swiss bank in your pocket! 

 

 

[phycokiller]

another way to do it is to install tails on a usb stick, it has electrum installed and is malware resistant. make a few backup copies and leave with friends etc in case you lose it

[dorchester]

Always use a hardware wallet,i learned this the hard way.Not your wallet,not your keys?, then it's not your crypto.In Trezor,i trust

[InvestMarco]

With security, it's like with the web. If you do not use a low-quality source or a negative feedback, you are safe.

[phycokiller]

On 8/27/2018 at 9:50 PM, InvestMarco said:

With security, it's like with the web. If you do not use a low-quality source or a negative feedback, you are safe.

source or feedback of what?

[Xaos]

For btc you can use https://electrum.org

 

Pretty safe BTC wallet.

 

For Erc20 ETH https://mycrypto.com

 

 

Best get out from BX and transfer to Binance or Huobi more volume and larger exchanges.

 

[ThailandLOS]

16 hours ago, Xaos said:

For btc you can use https://electrum.org

 

Pretty safe BTC wallet.

 

For Erc20 ETH https://mycrypto.com

 

 

Best get out from BX and transfer to Binance or Huobi more volume and larger exchanges.

 

Nothing that requires private keys to be transferred to a computer/smartphone (or even worse the internet) is safe. The only safe way is to use a hardware wallet such as Ledger or Trezor, where the private keys never leave the device.

 

Using locally installed wallets or webwallets outright is a disaster waiting to happen.

[icofriend]

Unfortunately, but giving money to someone's hands (software or website) can be different.