Post
Topic
Board Electrum
Re: Using old smartphone as cold storage, signed transaction => QRcode
by
NinoJJJ
on 02/11/2016, 03:19:59 UTC
The latest Electrum app requires gingerbread (android 2.3), so it should run on that build, try it!

Wow nice, THANK YOU, I'm downloading all those buiilds, opened the wiki and will read docs (never rooted/flashed a smartphone) and will definitely give it a try (although "no recovery" sounds to me like in case I brick the phone it might be difficult or impossible to revive it).


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What I did a couple of days ago: get Tails on my PC (*), unplug the ethernet cable, burn to DVD, boot it while still offline, use that Electrum version to generate the wallet and store it on a pendrive which will never go online + write seed on paper + export public key on another pendrive, than install Electrum on my Android phone from Google Play and import the public key. BUT of course this is watch-only and requires to sign outgoing transactions from a PC offline after booting Tails and opening the cold storage wallet from pendrive or typing in the seed phrase.

(*) Tails: not for the amnesia feature nor Tor, just as a pre-made live CD already coming with Electrum, assuming I'd use it offline

What I had done a couple of years ago, although I never used that wallet, was to choose Linux Slax instead, modify it by adding the latest Electrum, burn it and boot from it while offline, generate the wallet and save it on pendrive + seed on paper, then I'd use the watch-only version from Slax or some other Linux distribution or Windows.


WITH YOUR SUGGESTION I might be able to sign outgoing transactions with no need to have a PC handy, by simply using my old (and smaller) smartphone offline.


What I like about Electrum is that being the cold storage offline it should be 100% sure, right?... Or is the deterministic nature of the seed-to-wallet passage vulnerable to some kind of smart attack?
Do any other wallets offer the seed phrase feature?


I saw reviews of hardware wallets: Ledger needs Google Chrome, ruled out for me I have been trusting Google more than enough and recent international events are making me feel like migrate to some other e-mail account and not buy another Android phone ever (I already set DuckDuckGo as my default search engine on any OS and browser I use). Besides, the Ledger has no display => pin not so safe, a review said.

Trezor: better. BUT I wonder if it allows a seed phrase to restore the wallet elsewhere in case something happens to the hardware (e.g. stolen with other stuff).