How to Secure Bitcoins with a Paper Wallet
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Posted in : Bitcoin:
- On : Oct 27, 2015
Someone asked:
Q: What is a good way to secure a large amount of Bitcoins?
A:
If it’s large amount, long term — IMHO you can’t go wrong with good old paper wallets.
Here’s the deets:
1) get an old piece of junk laptop / PC you don’t need any more or even buy one for $200 (if on a budget you can use Ubuntu, tails etc instead of a dedicated PC) — either a dedicated computer or use of Ubuntu / other special OS will protect you —
2) go to Bitcoinpaperwallet.org or bitaddress — save the page to your desktop — go offline and never go online with that computer again
3) print a mess of paper wallets — three copies of each — use BIP 38 which makes it so you can protect them with a password– Use a dumb printer — older, basic model- not wifi printer
4) you can use tear proof paper, fire proof sleeves and other means of protecting these wallets if you want, plain paper is also fine — take a sharpie and number the wallets with a name: TIGER 1, TIGER 2 whatever — this way you can easily match the same wallet copies to each other — you can use cool tape and sleeves for them
5) keep one copy in a safe deposit company (or bank safe deposit box….a dedicated safe deposit company is a bit more secure than a bank when it comes to seizure or court orders) — keep one copy in a safe — keep one copy somewhere else — if you want to get crazy you can put them in different countries or use vaults in the EU — you can also print a PDF from the laptop and save it on a USB etc.
6) make sure the BIP password is backed up somewhere, somehow in the case of your death, injury, incapacitation etc. – you could have it with a lawyer, loved one etc. or use some code like a Dan Brown novel — just back it up somehow — all the worse events: extreme trauma, a 9-11 scale event if your town, war, head injury, tragedy etc…when you’d need the coins most are also the type indecent that can cause memory loss — never, ever depend on you remembering any password — keeping it with a trusted person is pretty safe — especially if they don’t have access to the safe — you only need to trust them enough to not rob your safe 🙂
You now have a basically unhackable, unseizable store for your Bitcoin — if one location was robbed, all you’d need to do is get one of the other copies and move the coins before the thief could brute force the BIP38 — very, very safe and super easy
I put in some extra steps for extra security.
TLRD: get a safe PC not online, print duplicate copies of paper wallets, protect them with a password
