Yosemite Photo Credit: Ned Scher

Off The Grid — Bitcoin and Ethereum Storage

No matter how improbable the breach of a digital currency exchange is, physically owning some currency is a good idea.

What is Cold Storage?

Why Use A Paper Wallet For Cold Storage? (blockchain.info)

  • Protection from malware and keyloggers.
  • Maintain 100% ownership of your private keys. You own the coins not a 3rd party service.
  • No dependence on the security of any website.
  • Keeping a piece of paper safe is easier than keeping your computer secure.
  • The paper contains everything needed to spend the coins and must be kept physically secure.

How To Setup A Paper Wallet For Cold Storage

Choose a Solid State Drive — Part 1 of 6

Generate a Paper Wallet — Part 2 of 6

  • Bitcoin: You can generate a Bitcoin wallet using bitaddress.org or downloading from GitHub and running offline by opening the bitaddress.org.html file from the project in any web browser.
  • Ethereum: You can generate a Ether wallet using MyEtherWallet.com or downloading from GitHub and running MyEtherWallet offline by opening index.html file from the project in any web browser.

Save Wallets to a Solid State Drive (SSD) — Part 3 of 6

Deposit Currency Into the Wallets — Part 4 of 6

  1. Go to whichever exchange your Bitcoin and Ethereum are stored on and send however much you want to store offline to the address on the generated wallet.
  2. The process is straight forward via Coinbase. Enter the Bitcoin or Ethereum address outlined in the images of the wallets above into the Recipient field below.

Confirm the Deposits — Part 5 of 6

Withdrawing — Part 6 of 6

  • Bitcoin: Using Mycelium’s Bitcoin Wallet app on Android or iOS you can scan your ‘paper’ wallet and send to any other wallet address.
  • Ethereum: In order to complete the process on my phone as I did for BTC, I plugged my SSD into my phone and opened MyEtherWallet.com and the Coinbase app. I accessed my Ethereum wallet’s private key from the SSD to unlock my wallet via MyEtherWallet. Then I copied my Coinbase account address in order to enter it into MyEtherWallet to make the transfer.

Room For Improvement

  • Having a web and mobile app that can generate BTC and ETH wallets and transfer currency given a scan of the wallet QR code or Private key. Currently, for Ethereum one has to type the private key into MyEtherWallet as opposed to snapping a picture of the QR code.
  • Having a web and mobile blockchain explorer app that can keep track of the volume and value of both BTC and ETH addresses.
  • Open API integration from services such as Intuit’s Mint or @Penny in order to display the current value of wallets held offline in one’s Mint dashboard.

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Open Sourcer

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