So, I found this site, iancoleman.io/bip39, and I'm wondering if it's safe to use for making a wallet. Is it a good idea to store my small amount of BTC there for a long time, like over 5 or even 10 years? I've seen some YouTubers recommend it.
Is this site secure for wallet creation?
13 replies 310 views
stack_2017Senior Member
Posts: 201 · Reputation: 1389
#2Jan 27, 2018, 12:50 PM
It is legit, but you should download it and run it locally (without connecting to the internet). The code is open source: https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39
Also, make sure that the machine you're running it on is not infected. Or you can just run a LiveCD
You can use iancoleman (offline on an secure airgapped device) if you want to derive your addresses and private keys from your seed phrase, but I would never recommend using iancoleman or any other tool that uses javascript for generating a seed phrase.
For more information on why it's not a good idea to use JavaScript for generating a wallet, click here and read gmaxwell's explanation.
Perplexed!
what im simply doing is to go with electrum only. I'm gonna create a wallet and keep the seed, private key offline or will note it down in my copy. I'm not gonna open a wallet but store a btc like few a month (part of my salary around something 20-80$) regularly. Will see the fruitful result after long years.
Thank your so much sir/mam, further if any problem arises I'll come back to this forum to seek for a help.
This is the best thing to do, as using any other tool will definitely be just too much, same as choosing your own seed phrase, electrum has been a very good wallet over the years but the safety depends on you.
First make sure youre generating the seed phrase offline and not connected to the internet,
further more you dont need to store the private key because the seed phrase is just enough although electrum seed phrase is custom and cannot be restored by wallets that are not compatible with it, but should even in future there is no electrum seed phrase compatible wallet you can still get the private keys from the seed phrase.
Further more you can also add passphrase to your wallet seed phrase and store them separately offline for more security
Electrum is surely a good option and it's good that you are going to keep your seed phrase offline, but take note that you don't really increase your security just by not opening your wallet.
If you want your wallet to be completely secure, you should generate your keys offline (preferably on an airgapped device) and your private keys never connect to the internet.
all set up done. thanks again
I think iancoleman tool is important for educational purposes, testing, recovering funds, recovering forks, etc.
IMO, no one should generate a new wallet with this tool and send funds to it (maybe a few funds just for educational/testing purpose)
There are plenty of other wallets available that will generate your funds more safely. Electrum certainly would be the first recommendation.
I assume you installed Electrum for creating a wallet instead of your own.
Since you explicitly mentioned about keeping the funds for long term then better be it a hardware wallet if you're not really capable of maintaining an Airgapped device. Obviously both are good choice still I recommend Airgapped Electrum wallet over HW due to privacy risks we had seen from Ledger.
Another tip, don't forget to consolidate your UTXOs once in a while when fees are cheap so that when you want to move them later then you don't have to pay huge fee is the market surged by that time.
coin_sigmaLegendary
Posts: 1275 · Reputation: 5553
#10Jan 31, 2018, 09:47 PM
I don't think he needs a hardware to hold small amount. Electrum on tails or offline device should be enough to hold BTC for long term or note the seed down to a piece of paper and sealed. The only good thing in hardware wallet it support mulitple coins/tokens so if you only holding BTC why would you spend a hardware wallet Electrum cold wallet should be enough.
He said wanted to save $80 a month so in long term it can become huge value interms of dollars value like in the next 5 years so preferring HW isn't bad idea though if he can able to buy since there are some options available for less than 100 dollars these days. But I always recommend Airgapped wallet that's the most secured compared to any other but it's not beginner friendly that's why gave those suggestions.
it's not to not trust this site but I would be comformatable by using bitcoin core, maybe offline in airgapped laptop...
moreover, this site allow people to setup wallet using some words/password etc etc... this could be risky since you can have a weak solution...
check here to understand what are the aspects that you need to understand to have a safe cold wallet.https://glacierprotocol.org/
Imagine, one day your wallet is valued some millions of usd. Did you feel confortable to use a "test" solution and not the state of the art?!
falcon_wizardSenior Member
Posts: 123 · Reputation: 896
#13Feb 1, 2018, 01:40 PM
Not many software wallets support Electrum's seed system but one that does is Blue Wallet. In the unlikely scenario that Electrum and all its many copies cease to exist at one point in the future, OP can recover their coins with Blue Wallet. Two things that won't work with recovered Electrum seeds in Blue Wallet are RBF and CPFP.
humbleledgerLegendary
Posts: 1027 · Reputation: 6554
#14Feb 1, 2018, 06:56 PM
Read my topic on consolidating inputs: you don't want to end up with dozens of small inputs when transaction fees are very high.
Related topics
- CipherSeed: A Comprehensive Guide to Super-Secure Crypto Wallet Backups 5
- Recovering a Bitcoin wallet and address 8
- What derivation path does mm-gen wallet use? 3
- Looking for wallet software that supports custom P2SH redeem scripts? 19
- Simple Offline Wallet (key-pair) Setup on Linux Without GUI 0
- 2010 Wallet Delivery and Encryption Mystery 19