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Are there any recommendations for cold storage? Or are paper wallets enough? I’ve pretty much only ever used Electrum and rarely so and I’m trying to expand my horizons

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Saki@monero.town ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It depends on how much you have, etc. If it’s just like 10 or 100 €, maybe you don’t need to be super careful.

The following is just one possible way—get a safe and libre “poor man’s hardware wallet” quickly and easily without paying:

(1. Main wallet)

Get a USB stick, install Tails. This takes about an hour (most time is for downloading the .img file)

Create a persistent storage, with a strong password (maybe 7 or 8 random words).

Install Feather. This takes 10–15 minutes; 30 minutes if generating a new wallet. Use it as your main wallet, and send your Monero to it.

When ready, shut down Tails. Pull out the USB and save it in a safe place. Now your wallet is physically disconnected from the Internet, air gapped. Very hard for any attacker to hack it.

(2. Hot wallet)

Set up whatever wallet(s) you like on your daily device(s) for daily use. It too can be Feather, or it can be something different. Just don’t have too much money in a daily wallet.

(3. When you send Monero from 1 to 2)

Insert the said USB, boot into Tails, send a necessary (small) amount from 1 to 2. Unlike BTC, the tx fees are like 1 cent or less. You can make a lot of small TXs without worrying about fees.

Once you signed and sent, immediately close your main Feather, shut down Tails, and physically disconnect the USB again. You don’t need to wait for confirmations. It’ll be fully confirmed in 15 or 30 minutes, and for which your wallet doesn’t need to be online.

So your daily wallet will be moderately funded, ready to use. You can enjoy private transactions, e.g. buying VPS or making anonymous donations to support your favorite software. Even if your daily wallet is hacked, your main wallet will be safe, physically disconnected from the Internet.

In theory this should work pretty well, if not the strongest possible. It’s not a recommendation, though. Do your own research. You may want to ask the same question in monero.town; hearing various opinions, not just trusting one person (me), is a good idea.
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