Quote from: Sonny on February 15, 2014, 08:14:58 AM

Quote from: hilariousandco on February 14, 2014, 05:28:36 PM

Quote from: Alley on February 14, 2014, 12:40:40 AM

New BTC adapter here. I'm waiting to get verified by coinbase. I was planning on using there online wallet to store my bitcoins but with all the news last week I see some people are saying not to store your BTC online. Do you guys think it is safe? Otherwise I guess I'll download the bitcoin wallet app for android but what happens if I brake my phone are my bitcoins gone?

I'm not sure about Coinbase, but with Blockchain.info you can get your wallet back up emailed to you or just download it yourself. I'm sure you can just log in to Coinbase online as well.

The "wallet" on Coinbase and bc.i work in a completely different way.
In coinbase (or other exchanges and gambling sites), you do not have any control of the private keys of your "deposit addresses".
In bc.i, you have the sole control of the private keys. You never need to send your private key to the server.

Blockchain encrypts your private keys with your password on your computer in your browser, then they send the encrypted keys to their servers to be stored in their database. As long as you are using a strong enough password, nobody else should be able to access your decrypted private keys.

If you aren't using 2 factor authorization, then anybody can get a copy of your encrypted keys from the blockchain.info servers, and if you are using a weak password they can take as much time as they need across multiple computers to try to brute - force your password and steal your bitcoins.

Therefore if you use blockchain.info it is important to choose a strong password, and it is a very good idea to use 2 factor authorization.