Offline Wallet generation

[Almeida]

Hello,

I'm totally new to this entire realm of cryptocurrency and I'm interested in Bitcoins and Litecoins. Trying to get started I did search all I could about wallets and security, so I came to the conclusion that what would work best for me is a "cold storage" thing, in paper. I don't intend to spend BTC or LTC regularly, but mostly to travel money from here to there without paying absurd government taxes.

That being said, my questions are:

1) I want to generate by myself a random private key; when I'm done with it I need to get the public address to receive deposits. How do I do it? (I know there is the bitcoinpaperwallet.com website to do all of this, but I want to get my own random private key and generate the public address out of it);

2) When step 1) is done, one way or another, can I already use the number of the public address generated offline to actually receive deposits? That is, will these transactions be registered already, waiting just for me to go online to redeem the funds?

3) Is the process equal to both bitcoin and Litecoin?

4) Can I use Bitcoin/Litecoin Core, or electrum, to input my private key there somehow and see my funds in these programs?

EDIT: oh, and in case it is indeed possible to use the offline wallet to receive deposits, is it possible to check online if that public address has the balance/funds transferred to it? Say, I want to buy BTC and before I pay in person I want to check whether my funds are there or not.

Thank you!
Al

[Decoded]

Interesting idea. I've never thought of using cold wallets as one of the first things to when starting to use Bitcoin, but you seem to have done your research.

1) Try bitadress.org. Don't ever use their online wallet generator, though. They have a download of their site at the bottom which you can use completely offline. The JavaScript is right there and readable, and you can check it for backdoors if you really want to. My recommendation is turning off your wifi, doing a restart and booting into your computer offline, then generating your private key.

There's still chance of malware already being on your computer, so if you're willing to do it, download a copy of Ubuntu live, mount it onto a USB, and boot into it. Using another USB, transfer that bitaddress folder you downloaded onto the Ubuntu live system, then generate your private key securely.

2) There is no system that creates addresses. All addresses must follow a rule to be valid and work with the Bitcoin protocol (I think they have to be valid Base58 hashes, not sure). You can say that all possible addresses already exist, you just need to generate the right private key to open them. (Don't get any ideas trying to brute force generate private keys, because the odds of you getting a hit is basically impossible.)

All addresses generated using bitaddress will be valid, and if you're unsure, use your phone to scan the QR code that bitaddress generates and look that address up on a site like blockchain.info.

3) This, I'm not sure about. There may be an equivalent version of bitaddress for litecoin, but you'll have to ask someone else. What you could do is install litecoin core offline, then generate a private key from there and manually export it into a paper wallet

4) A Bitcoin private key will work only on a Bitcoin wallet (So Bitcoin core), otherwise it will bug out. Same thing goes with litecoin core. Don't mix them up. Completely different coins.

5) Yep. So the basics of a paper wallet (What you're trying to go for) is to have a private key and a public address printed on it (These both can be in QR format to make it easier for yourself in the future). Since it has the private key on it, this piece of paper is only for your own eyes. You will not have any backup besides other identical pieces of paper. You are to wipe all traces of this Bitcoin wallet on your computer.

Any transaction sent to you will be over the Bitcoin network, which is online. You could search up your wallet address on a site like blockchain.info, and it will show you any incoming transactions.

Extra; There's another form of cold storage, called dedicated cold storage. This is a dedicated offline system that never goes online (Like an old laptop or something) that has Bitcoin core installed on it. You can generate Bitcoin addresses, but since it's not connected to the internet, that system cannot tell if it has received a transaction. This is why you go online on a different device and check the balance there. The offline device or piece of paper is just for storing your private keys, while all the Bitcoin is still being transferred online.

Sorry for the long post x3

[Almeida]

Hey Decoded,

thank you very much for this comprehensive and fast reply. Just a few points here:

3) what I meant to ask was if I could, not in both, but in any of those programs (BTC or LTC) go and insert my private key generated offline. Think of it as what you described in your "extra", an offline dedicated PC/laptop/hardware where one stores all his stuff, but instead of generating the private key offline in my dedicated cold storage, I IMPUT there my private key generated offline, say, throwing dices and coins and imputing any random stuff I can get "in the world". Why is that? First I want something nearly the impossible [squared factorial of impossible lol] to be my private key, and then I want to use such dedicated cold storage to generate my receive orders. Other public addresses.

ps: but now im curious whether there is any possibility of using the same pvt key in both.

2) sure there is in some way, see: https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/, I can also download the html and do it offline; the thing is I get the pvt key the program generates using pseudo-random windows crap, inserting my own random string there, or moving my mouse, to base the pvt key calculation. In sum, I cannot use their algorithm to get me public addresses out of the pvt keys. But now, thinking twice, if that's sorta like RSA, then I cannot use any pvt key, my pvt key would need to be the product of humongous prime numbers. So yeah, seems like one cannot avoid the dedicated cold storage, even as a sheer mean to generate a paper wallet, if want wants maximum security.

If you wonder how I would ensure that I never forget or loose my pvt key using paper wallet, the answer is: I'd use a combination of Beale-Cipher and other stuff and save it without any worry in my online backup. Huge entropy in the result, low entropy inside my human memory. Besides that, I have already memorized a passphrase randomly generated offline, even lengthier than recommended. So, to crack my wallet will be worse than solving all the millenium problems at once. (as of now the payoff would be 0 BTC)

[Almeida]

Ok, so I googled a bit more now and found some answers. There is a format for the private keys, one cannot put anything whatsoever. But if one manages to generate offline a pvt key, it is possible to use bitcoinpaperwallet.com --> 2. print front, and click in "Enter my own key, dice rolls, etc". If your pvt key is in bitcoin WIF - Wallet Import Format, the page will generate a public key for you.

More about WIF in http://www.allprivatekeys.com/about.php

[Decoded]

After a little research, it looks like bitcoinpaperwallet.com is a fork of bitaddress.org. Their source code can be found here - https://github.com/cantonbecker/bitcoinpaperwallet.

Do the same thing that I mentioned before, download it and then use this file to create your paper wallet. Much easier.

[bitkilo]

We have a paper wallet generator here too that is also a fork of bitaddress.org
https://tools.bitcoin.com/paper-wallet/