One of the most popular options for keeping your bitcoins safe is something called a paper wallet. Here we explain how to transfer all those digital coins into a physical paper form using just a printer.
Used with care, a paper wallet can protect you from these possibilities.
What is a paper wallet?
A paper wallet is a document that contains copies of the public and private keys that make up a wallet. Often it will have QR codes, so that you can quickly scan them and add the keys into a software wallet to make a transaction.
The benefit of a paper wallet is that the keys are not stored digitally anywhere, and are therefore not subject to cyber-attacks or hardware failures.
The disadvantage of a paper wallet is that paper and ink can degrade, and paper is relatively fragile – it’s definitely worth keeping well away from fire and water for obvious reasons.
Furthermore, if you lose a paper wallet, you’ll never be able to access the bitcoins sent to its address.
Creating a paper wallet
Here are 10 steps needed to create a paper wallet:
To generate a new bitcoin address, open BitAddress.org in your browser (or LiteAddress.org for litecoin).
BitAddress (but not LiteAddress) will ask you to create some randomness by either randomly typing characters into the form or moving your cursor around.
You will be presented with your public and private keys and their respective QR codes. Do not scan these.
Click the ‘Paper wallet’ tab.
Select the number of addresses to generate.
If you don’t wish to keep the bitcoin artwork, click the ‘Hide art?’ button.
Click the ‘Generate’ button to create new wallets.
Once the wallets are generated, click the ‘Print’ button to make a hard copy.
Your browser will ask you to select the printer you wish to use. In the case of Google Chrome, you may also save the page as a PDF file.
Make a note of the public addresses, or scan the public address QR code in your bitcoin (or litecoin) app and start depositing funds.
