I have some Bitcoin and Ethereum on Coinbase since 2018. Coinbase never failed me, but they ask for more and more personal details. Last requests made me look for alternatives. I read wasabi is one of the best privacy focused wallets, but what do you use? Im not trying to hide anything from goverment or anything like that, I just want safe place for coins that doesnt feel like someone is tracking every single step I make
Edit: made sentence more clear
The coins are on the blockchain, what you save in a wallet are the keys to access them.
Contrary to the common believe you don’t need a hardware wallet to keep your keys safe, what you really need is a air gapped or cold storage and you can achieve this in many ways. I found that one of the best ways to do it is grabbing an old phone and following this guide
https://medium.com/@fbonomi/a-bitcoin-cold-wallet-based-on-qr-codes-e8c130b3181f
Tldr: install the wallet and never connect the phone to the internet again and use QR codes to sign transactions using the camera. Super practical, cheap, truly air gapped and doesn’t attract attention like a hardware wallet. Additionally I would disable the wallet app when you don’t use it, so the wallet will not be visible in case someone else grabs the phone (you can do this by installing the app as a system app using adb). And don’t forget to save the seeds of the wallet in safe place and always use fully FOSS wallets like electrum.
Thanks. This looks perfect and I have an old phone that I could use for that. But im bit worried if I dont use wallet for 5 years and then realize the old phone is not working anymore. I can still recover with seeds (12 word backup) right? I guess Im asking the question that has the answer already, but want to be sure
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What is wrong with a paper wallet? An offline “cold storage” approach
Ive heard about paper wallet, but honestly I cant keep my papers safe enough to trust that approach.
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Is it enough to keep 12 words safe? Is there any other way to backup? Not sure what you meant with multi-sig and shamirs
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Thank you a lot for detailed answer
Not your keys not your coins.
If your just storing long term, look at paper wallets. Totally offline is the gold standard, it can’t be hacked
A hardware wallet like the trezor, or if you want to read a bit into what ledger has been doing one of those (they had a few controversial changes)
This or at least something self-custodial. Anything with Blockchain is inherently public, but the problem with centralized exchanges is that they hold the tokens for you (or worse, Contract For Difference), and really only have a fraction of the true capital to unwind if shit hits the fan.
From worst to best places to store your crypto:
- Online KYC exchange
- Online non KYC exchange
- Offline on your computer/phone
- Offline on a USB key/SD card
- Offline on a cold storage like Ledger or Trezor
Ok I see Coinbase is 1, but it used to be 2 AFAIK. Ill probably use my old phone, will try it these days.
Thank you for the list, its much more clear now
What non KYC exchange exist today do you know? I guess I could use one in the future when I decide to exchange from crypto to crypto or from crypto to $
Thank you <3
Trezor is a solid choice. https://trezor.io
I suggest Mycelium https://wallet.mycelium.com/
It’s the best one for anonymity, which I have found so far.
Thx, Ill check it out
how high are the fees on coinbase these days?
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Quite low, but dont know exactly. I transfered from coinbase to revolut and then to my bank account and it cost me ~15€ for 2k€ transaction
Thanks for answering. I had 30% 2 months ago.
Away from any bloodtos, don’t want any beef.
