Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Technical Support
Re: Quick check, is this the proper way to store BTC on a USB stick
by
skeeterskeeter
on 31/10/2013, 15:50:43 UTC
It will not be cold storage, as in "private key is secure, by never being written to a computer system storage device and by being generated on a non-internet-accessible computer". Cold storage is a phrase used for the securest of offline Bitcoin addresses, stored as a private key or paper wallet, that are created in a way that the stored copy(s) of the address are the only ones that have ever been recorded.

Thanks for explaining that to me and not just saying no.

A simple way to make your own is to boot off a non-persistent live CD with the ethernet cable unplugged, and run a copy of vanitygen to generate a simple phrase address (use a seed file with a couple minutes of keyboard pounding in it). Write down the resulting address/private key on paper, or dump 100 copies of it to your USB stick. Alternately, use a saved copy of the bitaddress web page to generate your address: https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org

By live CD you mean something like running a .iso or an install disk? (Could I do this on a virtual machine then delete it?)
I am currently looking over vanitygen, I like it, never knew how people got the "special" addresses.
I'll post here again with some more questions when it comes do doing this.

Once I get the private key from vanitygen, how do I go about accessing my coins again?