Keep Your Bitcoins Safe

Home How to Keep Bitcoins Safe
Keep Bitcoins Safe

How to Keep Bitcoins Safe

You want to be sure your stock of bitcoins are safely secured until the time you want to use them.

Every bitcoin address has a ‘public key’ and a ‘private key’. A private key allows users to take bitcoins from a wallet or to send them to others, and must be protected to keep a user’s bitcoins safe. Bitcoin wallets come in different forms, designed for different types of device and they can also be stored offline. There are five main types of wallet:

Desktop wallets

If you have already installed software from a bitcoin service, then you are running a wallet. This software makes transactions on the network and also enables you to create a bitcoin address for sending and receiving the virtual currency, and to store the private key for it.

Mobile wallets

Mobile wallets can store the private keys for your bitcoin addresses, and enable you to pay for things directly with your smartphone. Mobile wallets are designed with simplified payment verification backed up on a web-based server.

Online wallets

Web-based wallets store your private keys online, on a computer controlled by someone else and connected to the Internet. The major disadvantage is that they can put the organisation running the website in charge of your private keys.

Hardware wallets

These are dedicated devices that can hold private keys electronically and facilitate payments. The Trezor hardware wallet is the most popular. The Ledger Nano S Bitcoin Wallet uses smartcard security.

Paper wallets

Paper wallets will generate a bitcoin address for you. The private keys are not stored digitally and are therefore not subject to standard hackings or hardware failures.

Keep Bitcoins Safe

Are bitcoin wallets safe?

If you lose your private keys, you lose your bitcoins. There are several ways to make your bitcoin wallet more secure:

Encryption

Encrypt your wallet with a strong password. Also make use of the two-factor authentication process.

Backing up

Backing up your wallet makes a copy of your private keys, but it is important to back up your whole wallet. Some addresses are used to store change from transactions, and may not be shown to you by default.

Multi-signature addresses

Multi-signature addresses allow multiple parties to partially seed an address with a public key. When someone wants to spend bitcoins, they will need some of these people to sign their transaction in addition to themselves.

Offline

Cold storage wallets store private bitcoin keys offline, a good idea for the bulk of your bitcoin fortune, you can transfer just a little to separate bitcoin addresses in a ‘hot’ wallet with an internet connection, making it easy to spend. Alternatively, go completely analogue and simply use paper wallets for offline storage.

humaniq

If you have any questions, please contact us. We really look forward to hearing from you!