Hello everyone:)
I own some BTC that are stored ATM in an exchange (yes, i know it is bad....).
I would like to store them offline for the very very long term. My aim would be to
create a brand new wallet, with for instance Electrum, and move the funds
into it. Since the Electrum Software would be installed on a Ubuntu live session,
i only plan to carefully write the seed on a piece of paper (or better engrave
the seed on steel) before leaving. That being said, i noticed that Electrum
said that BIP39 seed might no longer be supported in the future, and, one the other hand, if i
create an Electrum seed it might not be accepted on other devices. Since my
aim is obviously to have access to my BTC later, i'm puzzled. How can i predidict the
standards in ten years?
Perhaps saving the master private key as a QR code might be a better idea...
I know that a ledger wallet might be better, but i read that the code source is not
open and i'm concerned about the data that might be collected by them (who knows
if they don't keep information about all the transactions of their users).
Any though?
Thanks a lot.
Mate, first of all, remember that Ledger wallet is the worst idea because this company is shady, they were telling us that it was impossible to get data from their secure chip but then they offered Ledger Recovery service that in fact gets data from their secure chip. I wouldn't trust them after this accident and if you are aiming for hardware wallet, you better buy Coldcard or Passport.
BIP39 and BIP39 wordlist will be supported by Electrum, at least in the next few years. I think it will be supported for almost forever because there is simply no reason to not use it, it's secure as hell and writing down some words is better than writing down 010101.
If you are still afraid of BIP 39, you can use a vanity address generator and generate a bitcoin address where you'll get address (custom if you wish) and private key that you can later import in any wallet.
P.S. My advice would be to not worry over something that you don't have to worry. Anyway, if something changes, you can always use an old version of software, create a new wallet in new software and send Bitcoins from old to new address.