Secure cold storage for noobs

[Anonymous No.22991187]

Was talking with a few newfriends last night and said I would post one basic process for secure cold wallet generation and storage. There are many other ways, maybe even better ways, but this is one basic method outlined for total noobs on how to securely generate keys offline and store them for worst case scenarios. (IE you will have a physical backup of your seedphrase that is more durable than paper)

You will need:
USB flash drive
Etcher - (etcher.net)
Latest version of TAILS (tails.boum.org)
Alphanumeric punches (amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZFB5J15)
Steel blanks (amazon.com/gp/product/B0854GCPSM)

So first you're going to do a full format on your USB drive. Obviously this will wipe it so back up anything you want to keep. After format, download etcher portable and the latest image of TAILS from their respective websites. Etcher is fairly self explanatory, select the drive, select the TAILS image and let it go to work. When it's done, your USB drive is now essentially a closed, amnesic OS that you will use to boot your system. This will ensure that nothing you do while working in TAILS will be saved in your PCs memory or logs in any form. (There is some debate about this but 99.99% secure)

With your TAILS USB created, you need to get to boot selection on your PC. Some PCs do this differently, some will auto boot from external drives if detected but generally (depending on mfg) there is a keypress that enables boot mode. ESC, F8, F11, F12 etc... Jump online and find the appropriate key and then restart your machine and enter boot selection. Boot from USB and TAILS should start loading up. It does have some compatibility issues so it doesn't work with EVERY PC but I would say it works with most.

[Anonymous No.22991207]

>>22991187
Once you have TAILS loaded, connect to your wifi, open Onion browser and navigate to https://iancoleman.io/bip39/

This is Ian Coleman's online tool for mnemonic phrase generation. Select "24 words" from the dropdown, select the chain you are generating a wallet for (where it says "coin"), check the box that says "entropy details" and make sure under mnemonic length it says "use raw entropy". When all of that is good to go, disconnect from your wifi, if you have an external adapter unplug it, in TAILS wifi tools click “forget this network”.

Now, with your wifi off/unplugged, click “generate”. You will now have your 24 word mnemonic (or whatever # words you selected) and if you scroll down to “Derived Addresses” you will see the corresponding generated addresses. Pick an address, record your public key on paper so you can fund the wallet (record private key if you wish but our next step will further encrypt our mnemonic) and write down your mnemonic phrase.

[Anonymous No.22991226]

>>22991207
Now here is where your alpha stamps come in. With a hammer and your stamps you will be stamping your seed phrase into a piece of stainless steel or other metal that can resist heat/corrosion like a house fire or being submerged etc. Here you have an option as you can see on Ian's tool, to record your seed phrase over three separate pieces. If someone were to get control of one set of mnemonics they would still not be able to access to your wallet. HOWEVER, this goes for you as well. Lose one card and you're fucked. Personally what I do for BIG wallets is make all mnemonics on one card and make three total copies. The mnemonics themselves are encrypted with a simple cipher from a word that I choose and only exists in my memory. Something from childhood, pick a word and calculate the numerical value of each letter and shift each letter of your seed phrase by that amount. It will likely be easy to break by someone who is informed and has the tools but 99% of people will see gibberish and not know what to do with it.

Example

Seed word: laser
Personal key word: cab

C A B C A = 3 1 2 3 1
laser = O B U H S

[Anonymous No.22991244]

>>22991226
How you record your seed phrase and if you encrypt it is up to you and there are probably other great tricks people have come up with that work better. What matters is that you have a solid, physical, durable backup of your wallet that can restore your access in the event of some disaster or loss. For big wallets I make three copies and one of them goes in the safety deposit box I rent at my bank, two in the safe at home.

Now that your wallet has been generated securely you need to keep it secure. Since this is a true cold wallet, the only way to do that is to MAKE SURE your mnemonic phrase and private keys NEVER touch a computer from this point on. Once you shut down and unplug your TAILS USB you should never ever ever be typing these phrases or keys (besides your public key) into any PC anywhere unless your explicit goal is to unlock the wallet and transfer the funds. Once you do that, this is no longer a cold wallet and to put things back into cold storage you will need to make another.

For the guys who were asking, I hope you find this and it helps you. Sorry I was too tired to write it out last night. Cheers

[Anonymous No.22991322]

Just generate your keys on an air gapped laptop, manually type unsigned transactions on the keyboard, and retype the signed transactions on the connect computer.