How to keep your Bitcoin safe

So you followed my advice, put some money in Bitcoin and by now you doubled or tripled your investment. Good for you my friend!
Keep in mind what we’re doing here though. Keeping eggs in different baskets right? Crypto currency is a VERY attractive basket thought and if it ever reaches just a percentage of its true potential…
Anyway, if you bought some coin I’m sure you’re a happy camper and that’s fine but just like you keep your gold and cash in a safe, just don’t leave your money sitting there in an online account. It’s not safe, and if something happens to the company, lets say Coinbase goes under or gets hacked, you may lose your Bitcoin. I know that with reputable companies this is unlikely, but it has happened before and all experts agree on not being a good idea to leave large savings just sitting there.

What do to then?

You have a few options. The idea is to have a cold wallet for the bulk of your coin. Cold storage means storage that is offline and therefore impossible to hack. You can create a paper wallet, with extreme precautions to reduce the chances of hacking such as going off line and using a live OS in a fresh USB drive, print with an offline, wired printer.

What most experts agree on being the best way to store Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is using a Hardware wallet. These are devices similar to a USB drive, with its own screen an pin number which even in a computer infected with malware (like may are these days)  it would be save to use.

I recommend these two, which are considered the best, the Ledger Nano S and Trezor.
Using it is easy enough following a few simple steps. Make sure you keep the recovery code VERY well protected (you write this down in paper), a couple copies in different safes. This would allow you to recover your money if the device is stolen, lost or destroyed.

FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”