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Creating a Bitcoin Paper wallet is considered one of the safest ways to store your Bitcoin. With a paper wallet, your funds are stored offline and therefore one step away from online threats such as hackers. By printing a paper wallet, it puts you in control of your funds and you can store them safely away to minimize exposure.
What is a Bitcoin Paper Wallet?
A paper wallet is exactly what it says on the tin. A cryptocurrency wallet that is printed and made of paper. Although, technically it can be made of other materials! The paper wallet will display your public Bitcoin address on the left-hand side with a QR code. This is for loading and verifying. On the right-hand side of the wallet is your private key for spending. You can also write down the amount of Bitcoin that you have on your wallet, to help you track the amount.
What is Bitcoin Cold Storage?
Cold storage is where your cryptocurrency’s private keys are stored offline, away from the internet. This comes in the forms of paper and hardware wallets such as Ledger Nano or Trezor, where your private keys are stored on your hardware device.
How to Create a Bitcoin Paper Wallet
Creating paper wallets is pretty simple to do. Although it does include some extra security steps to ensure the safety of your newly created wallet. To start creating your paper wallet you will need access to a printer.
How to Use the Bitcoin Wallet Generator
To begin, open a browser and navigate to; https://bitaddress.org/.
Before you start creating your paper wallet it is important that you take a security step!
When creating your Bitcoin Paper Wallet, you need to ensure that you are doing so OFFLINE. This is so that you’re creating this safely and securely. Just in case you have viruses or malware, which may compromise your wallet.
To create this offline, go to your browser menu bar and select File>Save Page As. Then save your web page to your required location.
Next, you can shut down your browser and disconnect from your WIFI or internet connection. Once you have removed your self from the internet you can open the newly created BitAddress.org webpage.
Start to generate your Bitcoin Paper wallet by moving your cursor around the screen until it reaches 100%.
If you want to create just a simple wallet you can click onto Print to create your wallet. Alternatively, if you would like a design you can click onto Paper Wallet to create single or multiple paper wallet addresses in a gold artwork design.
For extra security, you can also password protect your Bitcoin wallet by ticking the BIP38 Encrypt checkbox. You will then need to enter a Passphrase.
You can then select Print. It may be worth printing multiple copies of the wallet, in case of damage. Also, make sure that you keep it somewhere really safe and away from harm or potential damage.
Your Bitcoin paper wallet is now ready!
Tip: Before you print, make sure that your printer is not connected to the internet and that you connect directly to your printer.
How to Send Bitcoin to Your Paper Wallet
You should only send Bitcoin to your paper wallet once you have created and printed your paper wallet. It is important that you don’t save your funds on an exchange as you don’t have access to your private keys and therefore no control over your funds, also an exchange is far more likely to get hacked. So it is recommended that you send your funds to a wallet. So, in this example, I will be sending funds from Coinbase and onto my Bitcoin Paper wallet.
To start, log into Coinbase, select your Bitcoin Wallet and click onto Send
Enter your Bitcoin paper wallet public address into the BTC address field. Alternatively, if you are using a mobile device you can simply scan the QR code to save you some time.
You then need to enter the amount of Bitcoin that you would like to send across and click onto Continue.
Funds will now send across to your paper wallet and you can write down the amount on your paper wallet if you wish.
How to Check your Paper Wallet Balance
The method of checking your balance or withdrawing the Bitcoin from your paper wallet will depend on the software wallet you are using. In this example, I will show you how to check the balance of your paper wallet within Blockchain.com.
To begin, log into your Blockchain.com wallet and click onto Settings on the far right-hand corner.
Choose Wallets & Addresses and click onto Import Bitcoin Address.
Select “Existing address generated outside this wallet“.
Enter your bitcoin address or private key into this section or use the QR code.
Your balance will then appear beside your imported address.
How to Withdraw from a Paper Wallet
The method of checking your balance or withdrawing the Bitcoin from your paper wallet, will depend on where you wish to withdraw it to. In this example, I will show you how to withdraw your Bitcoin to a Blockchain.com wallet so that you could then (for example) sell to FIAT.
To begin, log into your Blockchain.com wallet and click onto Settings on the far right-hand corner.
Choose Wallets & Addresses and click onto Import Bitcoin Address.
Select “Existing address generated outside this wallet“.
If you enter your public Bitcoin address, you will be prompted to input your private key later, when sending funds, etc. You can also enter a label to help describe your imported address i.e. Bitcoin Paper Wallet.
Click Send and your imported Bitcoin paper wallet address will then show in the dropdown as well as any associated balance.
You can then send funds from your paper wallet over to an exchange like Blockchain Exchange and to withdraw to FIAT or to another recipient address.
Alt-Coin Paper Wallets
Creating an Alt-Coin Paper Wallet is performed in a very similar way to creating a Bitcoin Paper Wallet. However, you will need to find a relevant and trusted website for your alt-coin. In the below tutorial, I show you how to create these for Litecoin, Ethereum, Dash & Monero.
Paper Wallet Alternatives
There are many ways to store your cryptocurrencies. The safest way to do this is by Cold Storage, alternatives to a paper wallet will include hardware devices like the Trezor or Ledger Nano where your private keys are stored on the device. The other choices are software/online/mobile wallets. There is an array of choices depending on the tokens you are storing such as Blockchain.com, Exodus, MEW, etc. Please note that it is not recommended that you store your crypto on an exchange which is far more likely to get hacked and where you don’t have access to your private keys.
