Safely transferring from a paper wallet

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I am holding for the long term and have a significant amount of bitcoin (~10) in a paper wallet (the actual private key is printed on a piece of paper). To improve security measures and possibly sell forked coins, I would like to transfer the funds to a new address (paper or hardware wallet).

I understand the technical procedure - sweep the private key into a wallet software and send to the new address. I am concerned about taking the proper security measures.

Some online resources recommend myCelium, but while I am cautious I do not trust my Android devices to be free of malware. I plan on using a PC with a Live CD Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) installed on a fresh USB disk and connected behind a home router.

  1. Are there any other security measures I can take besides running an OS with no malware and a reputable wallet software?
  2. Are there any specific disadvantages to using Electrum for this vs. running a full node wallet such as Bitcoin QT (besides privacy)?
  3. Does the Electrum Cold Storage feature (signing transactions on an offline machine) has any benefits for a one time transaction?

paper_btc

Posted 2018-02-05T16:18:00.660

Reputation: 13

Question was closed 2018-02-06T03:46:24.573

I'm voting to close this question as it is "primarily opinion-based". – Adam – 2018-02-05T18:29:55.210

@Adam reworded the opinion-based question (the other two questions are not opinion-based IMHO) – paper_btc – 2018-02-06T13:10:53.227

Answers

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Just go ahead with Bitcoin-core. Which is much more secure than the others. Encrypt your wallet with some long strong password and you're good to go.

Electrum recently had a critical security vulnerability. Read More About it.

Adam

Posted 2018-02-05T16:18:00.660

Reputation: 3 215

Thank you for the response. As mentioned in the question, I do not plan on using the wallet software other than for this one-time transaction. Does it make sense to download the entire blockchain for a one-time transaction (might actually increase the chances of getting infected with malware)? I understand that the Electrum vulnerability was related to wallet files, something I do not intend to use. – paper_btc – 2018-02-06T13:13:22.617

you should sign the transaction somehow, you can make your own transaction in any way you prefer. but the danger is when you sign that transaction, you should find some software to sign it. – Adam – 2018-02-06T14:29:52.370

Asked: 2018-02-05T16:18:00.660

Viewed: 343 times

Active: 2018-02-06T13:09:49.883