Quote from: CBit on April 05, 2013, 12:30:10 PM

Got a Q: is it generally a slowish process to send money from the kind of offline wallet described in the OP? I've read people talking about the bitcoin client syncing something and that taking many hours. I'm not too savvy in this field...

I try to keep my coins liquid, I want to be able to sell them fast. If I deposit coin to an offline wallet using the live-CD/USB-method, does it generally slow down the flow of my BTC?

If yes, then am I correct when thinking that setting up a whole computer never connected to internet would be a better option? Meaning, having the bitcoin client installed all the time?

Thanks. Still quite baffled by this security aspect.

What you have to keep in mind, is you have your spending account, and saving account.

Saving account, you basically want to put this on paper and put it in a safe deposit box in a bank. (why, unless you are planning to spend major money, you shouldn't have to access this account, hence it will be only once every couple of weeks/months, putting it on paper basically guarantees that hackers will not be able to get to it, but thieves will, hence the safe deposit box)

Your spending account could be anything, online service (not recommended) or a multi layer encryption on a computer/hardcopy.

The idea of the spending account is, to have the quick access to your money, without suffering to much risk of losing money. For example, a hacker will not easily go for a single bitcoin, but if he knows you have a 1000 bitcoins in your wallet on your computer... In the end as long as the hacker is good enough... it will get hacked... the only way to completely prevent hacking, is either non-networked, or hard-copy. Hence your 1 to 10 BTC are easy to keep in any wallet, (atm) but the moment you start talking about bigger money, you have to start thinking about good to great security.

So yes, if you want a saving account (in a bank) you want to be able to access often, thats a hassle. If you want to be able to get access to a lot of coins without really locking them up, spread them over your addresses, thats why you can generate basically unlimited addresses. Keep in mind though, that hardcopy is still a very smart thing to do. As if somebody hacks your wallet with all your keys... the spreading over address is useless. (mutliple wallets is what you want)

If you thinking about moving them back and forth over the currency market, then it all depends how much you are willing to invest. (note that the initial registration for fiat(usd, euro, pounds) to bitcoin and vice versa is an hassle that takes a couple of days) Haven't gotten into that yet, and not really sure yet how to do that... because when their end up a lot of money in the wallet... I would kinda want a second pc, non-networked, who would print out my private keys, which I would just have to scan on my regular pc with the QR code, to do the payments. (and if becoming that big of a trader, a VPN connection or something like that to the exchange network would be really nice too... so the chances of Man in the Middle attacks are slim to none too)

Think of your wallet as digital gold, keep in mind that hackers are able to get into any computer that is on the internet, as long as they have a big enough incentive (enough money). And then start thinking about how you want to secure your digital gold, so it stays easy access for you, but impossible / near impossible for hackers / thieves. Here it all comes down to what are you willing to sacrifice for safety of your wallet.