PC

Veggieboy1999

You can check your balances on any online [Block Explorer](https://blockchair.com) using your wallet address. Regarding 10 different wallets - I think this is total overkill. If you want 10 different addresses to be totally separate from one another, you technically don't even need a hardware wallet for this - you could just set up an air-gapped PC and generate 10 different addresses, and note down the private key for each. If you do want to use a hardware wallet, though, then I would, indeed, suggest your second method of using the same wallet. Remember, though, that hardware wallets these days create Hierarchical Deterministic wallets. These have a master seed phrase, and generate a tree of addresses from this single seed phrase.

ignominiousDog

Place it in a PC floppy drive and transfer it to your bank account

atheistololo

Python + chatgpt/gemini, PC. Try with random seed known phase. Then go offline and do with yours. You will get 8855 combinations, you have to try them all. If you want to do it online, try with bait seed phase with few sats. Any help outside my comment - lost btc.

Goranbbb

Quick and easy guide on setting up a Mini PC as a dedicated sovereign computer server that can run a Bitcoin node, Lightning node, secure your passwords, and be your own cloud storage. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXVgGLaEEwc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXVgGLaEEwc)

-AgitoMakishima-

Oh I remember…. That PC is long gone as well as anything I had saved on the hard drives.

Veggieboy1999

Yes, you are correct. It's perfectly viable to generate an address (or addresses) on an air-gapped PC and note down private keys or a seed phrase. The main issues with this - for the average user - are: 1. It's a bitch to set up. 2. It's easy to make mistakes. 3. It's a bitch to sign transactions securely. That's why most people opt for a hardware wallet. By all means, going the full-paper route isn't necessarily a bad idea for long-term cold storage, but just make sure you know what you're doing when generating addresses.

No_Peanut4869

Yeah, it's hard to bear all the pickaxe noises coming from the PC

ArthurBurtonMorgan

Imagine a desktop tower PC from 2008-2009 or so running 100% across both CPU cores 24/7. Fans screaming at full speed incessantly. That’s not tolerable for most people, as most people expect their machines to be whisper quiet the majority of the time.

Veggieboy1999

Other comments are good, but I just want to remind you that you don't *need* a hardware wallet in order to have a cold wallet. You *could* set up an air-gapped (offline) PC and generate an address (or addresses) there, and note down the private keys somewhere safe. For most people, owning a hardware wallet is probably simpler, but remember that it's not a *necessity*.

Prestigious_Long777

100% invest in getting more income, because more income = more BTC. 200$/ month ? Bro if you have a PC and internet you’d make more playing Runescape than working. Find that side hussle to earn your BTC.

Sin-City-Sinner

Oh so we will read about you and see you on the news tonight then right troll? The world’s first trillionaire hahahahaha, more like the guy who’s has the most….. idle time on their hands cause to post crap like this is just sad and pathetic. Probably doesn’t even have a crypto exchange on his phone of PC 🤣

Veggieboy1999

For anyone else reading this, remember that generating a paper wallet offline is piss-easy if you have the [`bitcoinlib`](https://pypi.org/project/bitcoinlib/) (or similar packages) package installed. You can ask ChatGPT to write a < 20 line Python script (or follow examples online to write it yourself) to spit out a BTC address, and then just note down the private key. Of course, this should ideally be done on an air-gapped PC. OP, with regards to her Bitcoin, I would suspect she might have leaked the private key when she tried to claim it. My experience has been that people who don't know much about crypto do not understand how very secure the private key must be kept. I gave someone a little BTC on paper the other day (private key + address) and they couldn't shake the idea that they had to - for some reason - put in the "password" (private key) somewhere online to access their Bitcoin. I pray their BTC stays safe...

Crypto-Guide

BTCRecover can easily handle it if you have just thrown in a few extras, done a couple of swaps or are missing some words. You can see the docco here: [https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) (Just be sure to only ever run it on a totally offline PC) That said, if you have two 24 word seeds that are completely scrambled, you have caused an unrecoverable loss.

unitsperhour

Every person can do what they want with their money and then I don't consider trading "more noble" than gambling. To transfer or swap them lately I have been using an app that I knew well and they presented it at an event, very convenient because it can be accessed from a smartphone, tablet, PC by entering the email and receiving an OTP, at the beginning I had some doubts but I must say that I am very happy with it. *betting advice: Never bet on basketball and tennis, it's like betting on a cryptoscam, same things.

excelance

I'm running Knots. If you have any PC that's on the majority of the time it takes less then 10-minutes to download and setup. I have a media server that's now also running a Knot node. Feels good to support Bitcoin. Also, if the blockchain size is a problem, you can run a trimmed chain and constrain it to a set size.

Bubble_2009C

Every real bitcoiner must own a node. Only who have a node can say to other bitcoiner: Not your key, not your coin. Mine BTC with a PC is quite impossible in 2025, you can only mine shitcoin and get paid in satoshi.

Moistinterviewer

You mine shitcoin for people that rent the PC out, you get paid in BTC. I’ll say that this is a legitimate cheat code to get cheap BTC in the UK in winter as the rigs produce a good amount of heat, normal heaters do not produce BTC, rigs or asics do.

NiagaraBTC

Mining with a PC you wouldn't even make £4 in a decade.

Terhonator

Ok. My last comment to this thread. How many people in your hometown today use online banking to pay let's say an electricity bill? As long as you have access to internet connection you can buy bitcoin from any PC or mobile phone with internet connection - you just need bank that offers online banking service. Why not just offer internet and computer for people? Like old school internet cafe.

Kooky-Sense4165

Exactly, over 95% of so-called Bitcoiners have never used an ATM. The point isn’t that everyone needs an ATM, it’s that many in Africa don’t have reliable internet or banking access to buy Bitcoin from a PC. ATMs are just one practical way to expand real, on-the-ground access where infrastructure is limited.

Terhonator

The real solution is reliable online banking, not ATM machine. I am bitcoiner and I havent EVER used ATM machine. I buy bitcoin using my PC.

penty

Same.. didn't want (stupidly) to burn out my gaming PC for only 50 coins every few days. Did start the hodl thru purchasing late 2012 early 2013.

StonksPeasant

Youre not going to mine with your PC. You need an ASIC

OldPyjama

I was thinkibg: in summer we have a surplus of energy in the house pretty much every day due to our solar panels which goes to waste. Wouldnt it ve a good idea to use this surplus for mining? Or will it fry my PC?

Charming-Designer944

Someone had to mine to keep the network running. At that time you easily mined on a standard PC. And earned 50 BTC for every block mined. With maybe 5 people mining 24/7 it was unavoidable to collect a lot of coins. But the value also was nothing.

wh977oqej9

It doesn't upload anything. It just creates key pairs, that are then used to sign a TX, whis IS broadcasted to network using software on PC or phone.

ExcitableSarcasm

Not a tech guy, but aren't hard drives effectively immortal until they crap out on you? When I built my PC last year I basically just took my HDD from my old PC and used it as a second drive (SSD + this)

Veggieboy1999

Other comments here are on-point, but just remember that you don't *need* a hardware wallet. There is always the option of setting up an air-gapped PC with the necessary programs for generating wallets, and then writing down private keys and/or seed phrases and storing these extremely securely. I'm not saying this is better - for most people a hardware wallet is probably a safer choice - but I think it's good to know you have the option.

Veggieboy1999

People use Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallets nowadays, where you have a single master seed phrase from which an entire tree of addresses can be derived. Thus, you can keep on generating new addresses to which you can receive BTC, all based on the initial master seed phrase. For some this might be overkill. If you're not awfully worried about traceability you can create a single address on an air-gapped PC using the appropriate software, note down the private key and then accumulate BTC at that address over time.

MaintenanceSafe5444

Yeah I'm like 50k into a PC I bought 5 years ago with Bitcoin. Feels great. Still have it, in storage. Played some games and stuff. Yay.

Glass_Ground5214

just drop this and use your own sniper man, run it on your PC and control/customise everything... see more at r/cryptobots_dev ❤

lifeanon269

That's a ridiculous analogy here. It isn't just about code review. It doesn't matter if the code base is 99%+ from bitcoin core. It is about who controls and maintains the codebase you're running on your node. In that case, 100% of the code you're running is maintained and controlled by a singular person. Even if you trust that person as a human, it is still controlled by that singular individual meaning it is a potential single point of security failure for that codebase. That singular individual could one day become corrupt or have a change in heart. Or that singular individual could, as I mentioned, have their development PC unknowingly compromised (as has happened in the past) and now an attacker has 100% control of the code repo that you're depending on for releases. Wanting any large percentage of the bitcoin network to be running software maintained and controlled by a singular individual is asinine. Go ahead and ask Luke if you could be a co-maintainer or why there aren't others with maintainer access on his project and see what he says. That should tell you everything you need to know. Saying I'm dense for pointing out this obvious and massive security risk is just unproductive.

FcoFdz

Title had me thinking OP bought a used PC and found the end of the rainbow…

Glass_Ground5214

just use a real sniper not those third party tools... see my creation at [r/cryptobots\_dev](https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptobots_dev/) which you can run on your own PC with all kinds of token safety features built in

Glass_Ground5214

just use a real sniper not those third party tools... see my creation at [r/cryptobots\_dev](https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptobots_dev/) which you can run on your own PC with all kinds of token safety features built in

long-da-schlong

Where do you recommend buying PC parts from now?

LeMelion

You're completely broken. First, you just bought yourself a PC, but you wanted to keep hodling. Now you want to buy a car, a house tomorrow, and in a few years, you'll be wondering where all your money went.

SupermarketGreen8203

Expensive PC and expensive car, at least later when you're looking at BTC at a million. Best wishes either way.

SmoothGoing

[Trezor Safe 5](https://trezor.io/trezor-safe-5) is very nice to use @ $170. Touch screen, swiping, very smooth. Works with PC wallets and Android wallets. It's the best for daily users. [Coldcard MK4](https://coldcard.com/mk4) @ $168 is great if you want high security, lots of features but not obvious on how to use. It's great if you want to pull it out on rare occasion. The dot matrix looking menus and clicky buttons offer somewhat clunkier usability, i.e. for entering your passphrase. It would take me longer to do the same send function with MK4 VS Safe 5. The more budget option I would also recommend (and own) is [Trezor Safe 3](https://trezor.io/trezor-safe-3) @ $80. Ledger has baggage and Trezor Model One is a decade old, may soon go out of support, no secure element. Look for a more modern wallet with a strong base. All of these options obviously come with top notch safety, secure elements, whole nine yards, not just "looking pretty." Do not get scammed. Do not let anyone set things up for you. Do not lose or reveal your mnemonic to any app or website to "validate" wallet, or "web3" anything, or other nonsense. Read and follow the instructions and user guides.

LivingMost6082

Hold your stack. In five years you'll regret the PC. Everything you're selling is going to BlackRock, and they won't sell it back to you later.

sharnox

And here I was thinking you bought a second hand PC that had BTC on its hard drive..

Alone-Emergency2341

I miss read I thought you found and bought a PC with Bitcoin in it I was excited for a second. Not very interesting using your stats for some thing less than 🤦

Embarrassed-Fuel-654

Yes, that's what I thought too; that he'd found a bunch of bitcoin on the old PC that he'd bought! Still a nice story, and glad he's happy with his investment/ purchase.

Ordinary_Ad_7395

Thought you bought a used PC with Bitcoin on it. LOL, this is less exciting.

riscten

Fantastic! You're not betraying the HODL mindset if you spend and replace, it's actually super healthy for Bitcoin as it strengthens its value as a currency. Just use the fiat you would've used to buy that PC to buy Bitcoin now.

atomwide

I honestly thought you bought a used PC with someone's wallet.dat in it.

getothemax

That's what I did a couple of years ago and now I'm looking at my old PC that ISN'T worth $33,000 and crying...

Aazimoxx

>Once they crack the encryption, they can consolidate funds from all old wallets virtually overnight No, they would have to blindly generate the private key for each address one by one. To crack a single bitcoin address' private key, in one year, would take 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the combined power of every quantum computer, supercomputer, laptop, PC, smartphone and IoT device on Earth right now. And we wouldn't be able to game or anything while we're waiting, it would suck 😂 It will take an advance we can't foresee to get QC scaling massively, but there's no telling whether that'll be next year or 10 years from now. It'll happen eventually though, barring an apocalypse, so we (well, smarter people than us) need to get the network ready. 🤓

SadHappypotamus

For a second I thought you bought a PC that INCLUDED Bitcoins

Just-Recording3498

Also just used some btc to buy my first PC. LFG

Good_Extension_9642

Interesting for some reason I thought OP bought a used old PC that came with some Bitcoin, too much Reddit for today

filbo132

You don't need to charge the wallet, you just plug it on your phone or your PC and it opens up automatically.

Ok-Foot7577

In my bedroom. It was 2009 I had just finished setting up my new PC and was browsing and came across an article about a new digital currency. Bought 100 bucks worth at .03. I’m not rich if that tells you what I did.

Mantis-Prawn

I smell BS.  Why would using a hardware signer with an iPhone be less safe than using it on a pc or mac? Actually there is waaaayy more chance that your PC or Mac is having malware than an iPhone. Overall an iPhone is much safer (if you didn't jailbreak it). 

MandatoryEvac

2011. I had just gotten divorced and suddenly had lots of free time. Somewhere online I read about Bitcoin and how anybody could mine it. I setup my gaming PC to start mining and immediately every fan in the case spooled up like lil turbos at full clip. I was like "yea nah... Not gonna burn up my Medal of Honor and BF2 gaming rig for this." Coulda been rich bois. Coulda been.

Wiley935

My friends and I mined for a bit back in 2016 when I was just getting out of middle school, but I had no clue what it really was I just had a graphics card. I made like $150, and I (regrettably) used it to buy half of my first gaming PC. Back then I was a bit of a MAGA guy (as many obnoxious middle schoolers were) but really deep down I for whatever reason gravitated toward Rand Paul in the primaries. Fast forward to just a few months ago, I'm now 22 and a fresh college graduate. I've rediscovered politics in a much more adult way, and in particular I've taken a liking to Rand's father, Ron Paul. After reading "End the Fed", and learning more about the concept of hard money and Austrian economics, I was sold on it and began purchasing precious metals (which I still love). However, as my research progressed, I stumbled upon "The Bitcoin Standard" by Saifedean Ammous, and as I read it I feel as if my eyes are being opened. Made my first BTC purchase last week, and I plan to continue stacking metals and BTC as much as I can. Economic freedom is personal freedom.

Storyteller880

2010, I had a Pentium 4 Processor PC then initial BTC Days. I remember I thought its a gaming currency and could have never thought it will be used in real world. When someone purchased a Pizza from Bitcoin, I thought Wow, so someone is mad enough to buy worthless gaming coins. I must tell I am an initial Bitcoin Forum member, and I once wrote - Who will buy this Digital Coin with real money? Well.. that sums up my story 🥹

MPH2025

Beating off to porn in front of my PC

Liminal_Fox

I actually also use a desktop PC and have an android phone, so can't speak to iphone usage.

user_name_checks_out

Coldcard sucks balls. [Do you guys trust coldcard?](https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/185mvtz/do_you_guys_trust_coldcard/kb3lv8c/) > I like how politically correct your response was. It doesn't paint the real picture though does it? They changed from open source because some one else was using the open source code? That's exactly the idea of open source code. They didn't like that? Boohoo. **You should expect flack for changing this.** > -They also continue to use code from actual Open source projects. Simultaneously blocking bitcoin developments in the space by dropping lawsuits on anyone that has code to similar to "their code". If you're buying a coldcard instead of true open source bitcoin projects, don't complain if progress is slower. > -Being pretend open source, like this also reduces the chance of anyone who actually knows what they're doing reading the code. The incentives to read code come from developing on top of the code. If you own a cold card and haven't verified the code, slim chance any professionals are checking it. > -They have a "no refunds" policy. Please remember your nations own consumer protection policies over-ride their bullshit "no refunds" so you can still claim a chargeback from the bank with proof of their "sorry no refunds" policy in the form of their shitty emails when you have an issue. > -They also sell your email address etc before "deleting" it from their website. I tested this by purchasing a cold card with completely fresh contact details. A week or so after purchase, spammed with phishing emails. > -Many claim they're "airgapping" this device. If you haven't disabled some of optional onboard features out the box you're not airgapped. Plugging an SD card into and infected computer to your HWW is really no more secure than a USB setup. Once you've broadcast a transaction from PC, you've broken airgap. Ultimately, still trusting CC code to save your funds. > -Let's not forget who profited most from the ledger debacle. Interesting really how that was blown out of all proportion and so many rushed to buy a coldcard. > -CC has a larger attack surface than majority of wallets for these 2 reasons. 1. It seems to be the most popular rn. 2. It has capability for USB, NFC, QR(newer models) and SD. Some of these, like NFC are auto connect features. Best disabled. But having all of this on one board is more surface for attack. It's like a house with many doors/entrances. Ideally you want one door per device. > -anyone aware of a security and penetration testing budget for this wallet? Or is it just a case of "well you can look at it guys, tell us if it's bad" > These are the red flags. Until they change, I'd probably not recommend this product for a singlesig, protecting someone's life savings.

StraightStackin

I thought my PC was broken so I opened my phone. I guess 11am EST it is!

Neuron_Upheaval

Yes, you never know who is behind that PC screen just by any means nowadays. Not only text, but also audiovisuals can be AI generated.

Timely-Hedgehog-8432

The anti virus i got is for my android and desktop PC, it probably isnt needed but I feel better with it, especially if im connecting to public wifi. I've done some browsing with the VPN so far and it claims to have already blocked some trackers/ads. I just have simply gotten to the point where I am hodling enough btc and using both my phone and desktop to interact with my cold and hot wallets so fuck it. I will protect what's mine to my best ability and the VPN and anti virus make me feel safer. I only need to tighten up personal security and ensure I don't fall for phising emails/scams messages etc, I'll do what I can for my network and devices too.

Used_Difficulty8060

Its a very cool design but any connection to a PC is a potential threat over the steelplate thing.

procabiak

Because you're doing this all backwards is why you think it's wild west when it is perfectly flatline. I'm gonna assume you have basic sysadmin or dev knowledge since you're capable of setting up remote servers (on AWS, or some other remote SSH). Your first problem is installing something on a remote server, without learning how to use it on your local home/work PC/virtual machine. I don't know of any sysadmin or dev who would do that. Always learn the product first before taking it to the dev/staging/prod server. If you did step 1, then you'd know Bitcoin Core has a wallet when you opened the bitcoin-qt executable file. If you did and still missed it, then your second problem is you didn't RTFM. That shouldve been done there and you'd have no wild west duel shootouts in your brain. You most likely don't need all that shit and just want to run Bitcoin the way it was meant to be. If so - delete the server. Just download Bitcoin core on your own home PC and run bitcoin-qt like the original manual says. Done. You have a wallet, and a node ready to go. If the og client doesn't meet your needs, THEN NOW you have the reason to pick between electrum, xyz or sparrow now innit?

gbitg

1 - Ok, but how the PC knows how many screws are left? Clearly some information is leaking outside the device. You'd be surprired how little information is required to compromised a seed. 2 - You can't rely on printed text, we are talking about corrosion and/or fire/flooding. There is a lot of "unspoken" information needed to decode the binary sequence: start is on the top-left corner, decode left to right, wrap around to the next line.

bujna94

1. It’s generated by the Optiga chip inside the device, no PC 2. Yes, there should have been printed/engraved the numbers 2048, 1024… on top like on the last image. With that it would be possible to understand what’s going on even 100years from now

RandoDude124

I’ve cashed 700$ at a casino and bought a desk and a new PC with my profit from Ethereum. #This ain’t profit, this is humiliation.

VollcommNCS

If you dont reveal your address it's one more piece of information for someone with bad intentions to gather. If I'm specifically trying to find Person A's wallet address. It's much more difficult to get that information rather than just choosing a random wallet address to try and hack, phish, scam or whatever. It's just an extra step, but it's not impossible to overcome. Hence why I said safer, but not safe. It's not making the wallet more secure, just forcing the hacker to expend more resources to figure out Person A's address. Most hackers or scammers like easy targets, thats why they go after random wallet addresses and not specific people as targets. Unless the person has publicly shared their address, you know that person and have access to their devices, or have malware installed on their PC or mobile phone, it's not easy to just get someone's wallet address

ColtAzayaka

Remember, there is very high risk involved for people who might want to pull a stunt like this. They won't risk going to prison for a decade or more for tracking a random off reddit only to discover they were a huge bullshitter and had btc dust from their last weed order. I believe there have been a bunch of attacks based on bitcoin. For what it's worth, a guy I hung out with was showing me some stuff on his PC and I noticed he had what I believe was his cold wallet open lol. Dude had just over 6 BTC. I was 17 at the time and had less than 1k of btc on a hot wallet. Made me realise I could've locked the guy out his own room, stolen it all, and then dipped. I'm not like that but the thought that I had the potential to earn what was probably like 55k at the time... weird feeling. I wouldn't go as far as saying she's unintelligent for this, it's just not a smart move. Smart people still make bad choices every so often. Could've put it somewhere less visible. Again,minuscule risk.

Lysergicus

You can make hard-entropy seeds (dice, coin flip, or other analog entropy) and use the Ian Coleman tool to verify that your wallet is generating accurate seeds. Your method, to me, increases the chance that some funds will be lost (more hardware manufacturers and more code = more surface area to search for exploits) but it will only be half the funds. The solution to, "I don't have the knowledge background to read and verify the code in order to trust the RNG algo" isn't to trust more code and more hardware. The solution is to buy dice and verify consistency of hard-entropy keys. You don't even need an offline-only PC if it's not an actual seed you'll use.

azamat6037

I think this is overkill. You only need either PC or PS5

einTier

I see nothing wrong with this image. I have a bed to sleep on, a PC to trade BTC and do work, a TV and a PS5 to entertain me, a weight bench for my workout, and enough energy drink to last me at least two days.

Mstr_Strk_645

Nice! 💪 Now don't rush and do something you'll regret! Keep your login details safe, keep your phone or PC clean! Research and think before acting. 🙏

Independent-Stage-93

Wow! What a story! You have been so lucky and I’m brightly green with envy! And of course you’ve had a very lucky escape to manage to withdraw all your BTC at Blockfi too. That’s smart. I remembered seeing a picture of 1 BTC in 2017 on the PC and regretfully I didn’t do anything about it. Nevermind. I hope one day I will get to achieve 1 BTC but it’ll be years before I reach that. Hey ho!

angelwolf71885

ALL cold wallets need a companion app Ledger Treznor Jade ect BUT avoid anything that wants to use blutooth or NFC to connect so Jade and Ledger are out Teznor just needs a USB connection to a PC and if you are extra paranoid use an old computer with a fresh formatted HDD and install Ubuntu and install the companion app and use Ubuntu to sort out the wallet

Bigshift-2034

As Kraken supports mentions its free. Also you can use it as an app and PC. Make sure you use Kraken Pro cheaper on fees and has some good features.

Tomsolo2021

Fact , gold can’t be hacked , stolen off your PC . You don’t need a seed phrase to store it , that if you screw up the process it could disappear. It can be confiscated by the government and has , or you can be locked out of it by an exchange. Gold is wealth that’s totally removed from the system. You have to try amd physically take it from a safe or security system, that’s if you know it’s truly there . You could get killed trying too . I have both btc and gold , I believe in both . But I’m always nervous about my bitcoin when I transfer it or when’s it’s on an exchange. I have no worries about my gold. I buy both because they both have true value in ver any fiat currency.

h19x5

it will use the same amount of energy or less because some mug warmers get up to 85C and this miner only 55. any electric heater is pretty much exactly as inefficient as a PC or both are 100% efficient as heaters.

Aussiehash

No definately not, the mnemonic seed MucroSD is not used for anything else, and is to NEVER be inserted into a PC/Mac/Phone. Personally I don't use it, but the Coldcard does the .7zip AES encryption on device to the MicroSD. Recovery is also directly via Coldcard.

halflinho

Yeah you don't NEED a HW wallet dummy! Well, except for generating private keys or signing transactions. Then it's pretty handy unless you're a hackerman who can do all that securely on an always offline PC.

TP_Crisis_2020

I was a PC hardware flipper and learned about ethereum mining right around when the RX 480 launched. I put together some rx 480 rigs and a 750ti rig, and was mining Eth when it was around $10. I remember buying used rx 480's and 470's for around $100 each then. Ended up losing most of that at the end of 2017 when I thought it was a good idea to dump tens of thousands of dollars into a bunch of stupid fucking altcoins. Had over 30 BTC at one point. 🤦‍♂️

na3than

That's the rub: I'll bet at least three quarters of the people who own Bitcoin and haven't yet self-custodied have never booted a Linux PC and would probably screw up the op sec if they tried. You're not wrong that a dedicated, hardware-based signing device isn't strictly necessary, but for those who don't know what a secure operating environment is or how to create one, a hardware wallet from a reputable vendor is a much safer option.

eyeoft

Any secure computer will do. I wouldn't generate a seed on a Windows PC, mind you, but an offline Linux machine is at least as secure as those devices.

supremezionsky

This resonates so much with trying to buy a new PC 🤣

NFT_fud

I think the way you are using it with a hot wallet and cold wallet is good. Metamask is as good as any hotwallet. Ive been using it for 5 years now, never an issue but as you say browser wallets can be susceptible to "man-in-the-middle " attacks. I have a seperate cheap PC that I only do crypto transactions on and nothing else, its my work computer so to speak. All the other non-transactional crypto stuff and general usage I have my main laptop.

PoisonWaffle3

I started mining BTC on my gaming PC (with a mining pool) in 2011. It was profitable to mine on the CPU and on both GPUs, and over a period of about 6 months I had mined about 5 BTC, worth about $2-3 each. Everyone I talked to about it at the time was interested in the blockchain tech itself, and about how it could disrupt the entire finance industry. Sure we were making some money with our gaming PCs, but it was small change and we had no idea how valuable it would become. I ended up spending 6 years in prison (late 2011 to late 2017) so I was forced to HODL for that time. In 2020-2021 I sold a good chunk of my BTC ($30k-60k range) and put it toward building a house. It's crazy that we're in the $110k range now, but it looks like we still have a long ways to go before we hit the top. I wish I'd mined or bought more BTC way back then, but I'm still grateful that I've done as well as I have with it. I'm still a whole coiner 😎

Azzuro-x

I am not familiar with Kleopatra (looks like it is based on GPG) but that could have been the weak point if they managed to get into your PC and brute-force your encryption scheme.

Hanzieoo

Better still is to get a small mini PC or laptop if you must and run a Full node. Easy as fuck Parmanode has sparrow built in. Leave it plugged and don't use it for anything else. You are now your own bank.

uniqueheadshape

Running the filter to limit the size will help though. It is a perfect solution but it will help. As I said I just want a choice. I don't want inappropriate pictures on my PC either. Furthermore, with 3 dependents, I don't want to be having to upgrade my PC more than I have to just to run a full node.

uniqueheadshape

I use my own personal PC. It's just you ideal to keep it on all the time if you can but not the end of the world if you re-sync each time you turn the PC on.

ManlyAndWise

Why an old laptop? Why not your current PC? Are there risks involved?

cloudwalker187

Yeah, I totally agree with you - but the problem is the broader public. The fact that this kind of thing has become so easy is not necessarily good. Think about the kind of people who let a "Microsoft employee" access their PC via TeamViewer and then buy Xbox gift cards to fix it. Some people honestly need protection from themselves. And in crypto, there are no guardrails.

a14alo

I believe any digital platform or software may have some vulnerabilities that are not publicly known, that's why it is never ok for me to write seedphrases on any computer. In terms of decryption I'm gonna copy paste this message from chat gpt: If your PC is compromised, malicious software can: 1. Log your password when you decrypt. Copy the encrypted file and try to brute-force it later. Capture clipboard or screenshots. 2. Weak password or encryption If the encryption passphrase is weak (e.g., “mypassword123”), brute-forcing it becomes easier. DIY encryption using outdated or misconfigured tools (instead of battle-tested ones) can be a risk. 3. Decryption moments The moment you decrypt your seed phrase to use it is the most vulnerable. If malware is running, it can capture that. 4. File metadata or backup syncing Automatic backups or syncing to cloud (e.g., OneDrive, Google Drive) could leak the encrypted file unintentionally. File metadata could leak info like modification dates or file names that hint at its contents.

SmoothGoing

Ledger has baggage and Model One is old, no secure element. Look for a more modern wallet, not something a decade old. [Trezor Safe 5](https://trezor.io/trezor-safe-5) is very nice to use @ $170. Touch screen, swiping, very smooth. Works with PC wallets and Android wallets. [Coldcard MK4](https://coldcard.com/mk4) @ $168 is great if you just want to park stuff there and pull it out on rare occasion. It's usable of course, but the dot matrix looking menus and clicky buttons offer somewhat clunkier usability. It would take me longer to do a function with MK4 VS Safe 5. The budget "set it and forget it" option I would also recommend (and own) is [Trezor Safe 3](https://trezor.io/trezor-safe-3) @ $80. All of these options obviously come with top notch safety, secure elements, whole nine yards, not just "looking pretty." Do not get scammed. Do not let anyone set things up for you. Do not lose or reveal your mnemonic to "validate" wallet or other nonsense. Read and follow the guides.

Your_As_Stupid_As_Me

And these are the few reasons I don't own a PC.

psi-storm

No. That seed phrase has no access to the funds of your other seeds even if you have it in the same wallet. You can't access your neighbors PC with your password.

Temple-Ball-Z

Thank you for your response. I’ve had this particular wallet connected to some wallets for years with no issues. One of my accounts must have been compromised, I imported the seed phrase from that account in to the majority of my wallets. That wallet seems to be the common denominator in this situation, unless it my PC was somehow infected with malware. I have deleted that wallet from all of my other wallets, Will they still be able to gain access to all of the private keys from every account it was connected to regardless of it being deleted?

Temple-Ball-Z

Thank you, I really appreciate that. I just want to figure out the cause, I’ve accepted my losses. I was really hoping that it wasn’t malware, but I will run that program and post the results. I’m infinitely grateful for you taking the time to provide that advice. It might be pre-mature to ask, but if it is malware, is there anything I can do to get rid of it, or will I have to fully reset my PC?t

NervousTruth7693

Ro add, once they have access to your seed just deleting the wallet won't make it safe to use anymore, as any seed generated from that same phrase is known by the Hacker as well. Just move on to a new seed, write off ur losses and start again. Perhaps invest in a hard wallet to store your long term holdings or staking coins. It might not be much but knowing that it's safe from daily breaches on your PC provides a peace of mind that I think is worth having.