Cold wallet vs paper wallet for a holder.

Question

Hello there. Localbitcoins is closing down after more than 10 years of putting my coins there and now i have to store them somewhere else.

What's the advantage of an electronic cold wallet vs just writing my private key down in a paper (knowing its limitations) or stamp a pice of metal?

Thanks!

Answer 1

None. They both could be lost by fire, theft, natural disasters or mishandling. One is just harder to access than the other.

I keep mine digital on a password manager backed up in the cloud.

All have their own risks.

Answer 2

Hardware wallets don't have the limitations you said you know about. That's the advantage.

Answer 3

Every wallet(hardware,mobile,pc,cold or hot )gives you a seedphrase(privatekey) that you are supposed to write down on paper or whatever physical form you choose so what exactly are you asking?

Answer 4

The advantage of a hardware wallet is that, come spending time, it provides a layer between the signing keys and the transaction broadcasting device. Additionally a hardware wallet gives you a seed mnemonic that you can put into any other hardware wallet if the device itself breaks. If you know what you're doing, you could even just use a seed mnemonic now and put off buying the device until it comes time to spend your funds.

If you just pop your private key from your paper wallet into a PC or phone that's compromised, you lose everything. Additionally, if you don't spend 100% of your funds, and the software you use for spending sends the change back to an address that you don't record the private key for, you'll lose whatever funds you didn't spend.

Answer 5

Putting your coins in a cold wallet gives you complete control over your coins.

Answer 6

Electrum plus only use linux OS.

Answer 7

I have mine on a hardware wallet, easy-to-use, safe and the device is easy to store.