How to Store Bitcoin in Cold Storage as Offline

How to Store Bitcoin in Cold Storage as Offline? Storing Bitcoin offline in cold storage gives you plenty of flexibility.

Bitcoin’s tendency to break its streak has been relentless for the past few months, with cryptocurrency climbing to over $ 14,000 (about Rs 9 lakh) this week, down from $ 800 (around Rs 51,600) this time last year.

When you imagine a bitcoin cold storage, you can see a modern, state-of-the-art fridge hidden somewhere in a top-secret bunker.

However, bitcoin cold wallets are, to the dismay of some, only paper notes, things, or devices that are kept offline.

They take the form of hardware purses, paper wallets, USB sticks, encrypted data storage devices, and even physical carrier items.

The most convenient way to store bitcoins is to use an online wallet, which allows you to transfer money in and out of the wallet, or turn bitcoins into alternative cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Monero, Litecoin, and others.

But the safest option is known as ‘cold storage’, which stores your bitcoins offline away from any internet access. This is all the more important if you have obtained a large number of bitcoins.

Here’s How to Store Bitcoin in Cold Storage as Offline in multiple ways :

How to Store Bitcoin in Cold Storage as Offline using Paper Wallet

Go to the Bitcoin.com Paper Wallet or the Bitaddress.org page.
After that, Save the page locally on your computer as an HTML file.
Next, close the page and disconnect your computer from the Internet.
After that, Open up the saved local version of Bitcoin.com paper wallet or Bitaddress.org.
Follow the instructions on the page to create a new Bitcoin address.
Once you have a pair of keys and QR codes, print the page. (Note: Make sure your printer is not connected to the Internet for added security.)
You can now use the new public address/ QR code to transfer Bitcoins from another online wallet.

BitKey

Bitcoin comes pre-installed with several software options: Electrum Bitcoin Client, Warp Wallet, and Bitcoin Paper Wallet among others. It also has a built-in network, printer, and wireless manager so that you can use it for all necessary bitcoin purposes.

Go to the BitKey website to download the OS image.
Click on the Download button, and get the 64-bit version.
Choose between USB and CD-ROM. (The latter is safer since they are read-only by default. For USB sticks without write protection, it’s advisable to remove them after boot.)
Burn a CD with your favorite program, or use a utility such as UNetbootin to write the BitKey ISO to a USB drive.
Boot into BitKey by using your computer’s advanced boot function (varies from F8-F12 depending on motherboard manufacturers).

If the boot is successful, you can use BitKey to create a paper wallet, and you can also use the Electrum client to create an offline wallet.

WarpWallet

WarpWallet takes it one step further with “Salt”, an additional piece of data such as your email address that forces attackers to target you personally rather than a wide net.

This means that you do not have to take care of a piece of the document, unless you forget the passphrase, for which most people recommend that you leave secret notes around the house.

Go to the WarpWallet website, and make note of the SHA-256 sum in the URL.
After that, Save the page locally to your computer as an HTML file, and transfer it to a USB drive.
Boot up a bootable Linux distro, such as BitKey from above.
Copy the HTML file over to BitKey.
Open sha256sum warp.html to verify the SHA-256 sum matches the one from step 1.
After that, Open the HTML file as a local file in Chrome/Firefox.
Generate a passphrase that works on an entropy algorithm, such as One Shall Pass.
Use the passphrase in the HTML file, and your email address as “salt”.
Scan public key QR code with the phone, and transfer it to a device with the Internet.
Shut down BitKey.

Now you can transfer Bitcoin from your online wallet / exchange to your WarpWallet address.