Quote from: Walley303 on July 05, 2019, 06:51:52 PM

Hi all. What are considered "best practices" to ensure a paper wallet is as secure as can be for cold storage? I realize the paper itself is vulnerable to fire, water etc. And to be sure to guard your private key from view of people and cameras. But I've also heard about needing a special printer because most modern printers have memory in them that saves what you print and that can be compromised. Also an "air gapped" computer using something called "iceberg protocol" or something like that. Can someone tell me what is the best way to set up a paper wallet?

Don't print. Make a paper wallet by using seed words, people shouldn't be messing with private keys directly anymore. These words, you write in a piece of paper using your own hands. Then using the same hands copy them to another piece of paper. Secure both in separate physical places, that should be it.

If anything, you'd want to print/copy/email whatever some of the addresses to deposit funds to.

Procedure to make the cold wallets vary but i tend to favor booting a linux iso from usb (like TailsOS), install Electrum, create the wallet and shutdown. There are ways to monitor a cold wallets using Electrum or the other wallets (Electrum just happens to do it quick because SPV, but you depend on others).

If Paranoid run your own bitcoin node first, then you can either use core or your own Electrum server. Don't worry, after the wallet is made you don't need either afterwards, but its nice to have.

Yes you can technically make the wallet with a computer unplugged to the network, and then move some non compromising data to a computer plugged to broadcast.

I like booting TailsOS in the plugged computer because it uses Tor by default, and you want your Electrum wallet to use tor as well (and/or your own server).

The chances of someone catching your seed words when you boot something like TailsOS to make your wallet are minimal. Since the OS wasn't installed in the first place, there was no chance to install a keylogger, and sniffing the network won't do much, unless there is some exploit in that particular version that could be used in the small amount of time it takes you to make the wallet and copy the seed words by hand (which is why some people like to do that part in a computer unplugged to the network).