Holding Bitcoin? Here's How to Keep Your Crypto Safe

Since a lot of us have been saying we’d get robbed blind if we had crypto, thought I’d find some good tips on how to protect it.

Now just don’t fall for that “one weird trick” to double your Bitcoin!

Thanks for the post. I havent gotten involved in this and still very unsure about it. 
 

nice to read a helpful article about it instead of a lot of negative ones.

anyone here got crypto currency with a positive experience?

Cheers for this! I will still be giving Crypto a swerve though!

Good man!

Thanks for the post, im still learning the landscape with Bitcoin, its all quite daunting

Hardware wallets are definitely necessary. So many ways to lose crypto if you keep it in a desktop wallet or on an online exchange.

I’ve been using Bitfi2 as my hardware wallet and its a different approach than the standard storing keys on a device and instead you just keep the keys in your head as a super long phrase

https://bitfi.com/

If I had any kind of wealth in crypto currency I would definitely invest in something like that 😂 but equally id be concerned about losing the hardware wallet as well

The great thing about the bitfi is it just knows the encryption for your passphrase. You can lose the wallet and just buy another, the phrase is still in your head. 

These hardware wallets cost around $150 and are a must if you have even $1k in crypto IMOP. I use exchanges just to make the trade then I pull the crypto off into cold storage. I don’t trust exchanges at all and literally every other month we hear about an exchange hacked because of some exploit or phishing leading to malware that finds the private key to all the hot wallets of people they trade with. It’s scary stuff

I think that’s the part I worry about most though @TylerM , “The phrase is still in your head” - I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night let alone anything else.

I really wish I had BitCoin to steal. I nearly setup mining back in the early days. Wish I had.

Company I used to work for, the owner took a load of old customer hardware sat in storage and turned one of their server rooms into a mining center during the first lockdown.

@kleinmat4103. Been a long time since I had my own local wallet. But I remember that if I kept it, as you say, cold, it took a very long time when brought back on line  to rebuild the blockchain and catch up. One time months.  
 

Ok computers are much faster than before, but does a cold local wallet still need a long time to “catch up”? And what do you suggest as the storage media? This goes to a question I ask often. What is a good long term storage? HD? Nope, the fail in too many ways. SSD? Depends on how long long term is? Optical media? Nope, they “go bad” due to lamination and material problems. So what is the long term storage plan?

@MajorHavoc : Yeah, I think you’re pointing out a big issue with crypto. There’s not a great place to store it. The only safe place to keep it is offline, but that comes with the syncing challenges you note.

In the US, I can put my money in a bank and know that it’s safe. Even if the bank is robbed, the money I have there is insured by the US gov’t. I don’t have to actively think about protecting that money beyond some basic hygiene like strong password + MFA.

I know I am largely speaking out of ignorance, so someone please set me straight. But at this point it seems like crypto investments are closer to gambling than to real investment.

Happy to hear thoughts from others with crypto investments that disagree with that assessment. I am far from an expert on this.

Right now I have a small amount of crypto in Coinbase, an online crypto servicing agent for lack of a better name. I keep very little and can buy some when I need it, which is not very often. I think buying crypto as an investment may be a real gamble. Buy it knowing that 

Is it better to keep Crypto currency under your bed?  At least it will be safe there.

I do believe you missed my previous message on keeping it at home. Or are you making a joke? Was not sure.