As soon as you have bought some Electroneum, it is very important that you know how to store your ETN coins securely.
The cryptocurrency world is an unforgiving one. Whoever controls the private keys of a wallet controls the coins in that wallet. And if your private keys come in the hands of the wrong people, there is no one you can call to fix it.
So let’s discuss several options where you can store your coins:
1. Offline Paper Wallet (Very Secure)
Undoubtedly the best way to store your Electroneum coins is in an offline paper wallet. A paper wallet is a piece of paper or a PDF that contains the public and private keys that represent your coins in the blockchain.
Anyone can generate as many offline paper wallets as they like, and use it to store their fortunes as they see fit.
Read: How to Create an Electroneum Paper Wallet
The safest way to generate a paper wallet is:
- Download the offline wallet generator to your computer.
- Disconnect entirely from the Internet before running the wallet generator.
- Complete the steps in the offline wallet generator.
- You’ll be prompted to save a PDF of the wallet. Save the PDF in a secure location.
- Print out the wallet immediately.
- Delete the PDF from your computer and empty the recycle bin.
- Transfer coins from the Electroneum app wallet, being sure to scan ONLY the public wallet address.
If done in this way, it is hard for any hacker to get a hold of your private keys.
Protecting Your Paper Wallet
You need to realize that, as soon as your ETN coins are on your paper wallet, you become solely responsible for the safety of your coins. You need to guard the offline paper wallet like you would guard a credit card or cash.
The safety of your coins now depends on the safety of the paper wallet. If someone gets a hold of the paper wallet and knows how to use it, you will have lost your coins. If the paper wallet is lost in a house fire or a flood, you won’t have any way to regain access to the wallet.
Best practice is to make two or three copies of the wallet which you keep in a secure storage space at different geographical locations (keep one at your house, one at your mother’s, and one at your grandma’s). Laminate each paper wallet to protect it from possible moisture (floods or water spills). In this way, if one paper wallet gets lost, you’ll still have the others.
Spread Your Investments
Another good practice is to spread your Electroneum fortunes evenly across various wallets – perhaps 4 would be good. Be sure to keep these in different locations. In this way, if one gets compromised, you’ll still have 3/4 of your investment.
Finally, be sure to use a brand new paper wallet as soon as you have transferred coins from the paper wallet, and wish to transfer them back. Once the private keys have been exposed to any computer connected to the Internet, they can no longer be regarded as safe.
2. Electroneum App Wallet (Moderate Security)
After the offline paper wallet, the safest place to store your coins would be the Electroneum app wallet or the web-based wallet manager.
The app is extremely user-friendly to use but does pose some level of security threat.
Electroneum has worked with Hackerone to develop and test a very secure system that can stop most virtual attacks or hackers. Not only are you required to provide a unique email and password combination for every account, but the system also requires you to key in a code that is sent to a unique mobile number.
In addition, a PIN number further secures the account. The PIN number is required whenever logging in to the app wallet or whenever a transaction is submitted. This prevents someone from transacting on your app wallet behind your back when you have forgotten to log out from a public computer.
The app and online system also require the solving of Google captchas on every page, virtually eliminating any automated bots from trying to gain access by repeatedly trying login combinations.
The Risk Involved
However, you need to remember that the private keys to all the coins on the app wallet are kept in a database on the Electroneum’s servers. And with nearly 4 billion ETN coins stored on the system (at the time of writing), those servers are a honeypot that attracts hackers from everywhere.
Although the front end has been made very secure (as described above), a hacker might still be able to access the backend servers and possibly retrieve the private keys of many wallets.
I’m sure the Electroneum team has taken various precautions to secure these backend servers, possibly requiring multiple layers of authentication and passwords from various team members to access the account. But there is always the chance of an inside job circumventing the entire system.
Bottom line, the app is extremely user-friendly to use, but be aware of the risk of having the private keys to your coins stored in a centralized database.
3. Exchange like Cryptopia (Not Secure)
The last place where you can currently store your ETN is on an exchange like Cryptopia.
Similar to the app wallet, the private keys to all coins on the exchange are kept in a database on Cryptopia’s servers. The same vulnerabilities exist, with hackers trying everything to get into these mega ETN storage spaces.
I for one know that Cryptopia does not have nearly as much security as Electroneum on their front end. They do require unique email and password combination (and insist on choosing a secure password) and also require a PIN code whenever logging in or changing security settings.
Furthermore they require an email confirmation (by clicking the link in an email sent) to complete any withdrawal process.
But even if these requirements are enough, there is still a possibility of the backend servers and database being hacked, or an inside job circumventing the system.
I, therefore, do not advise storing your ETN coins on an exchange at all. Rather keep the coins in a paper wallet or the Electroneum app wallet and only transfer them to the exchange when you wish to trade with them.
Bottom Line
The best recommendation would be to keep your ETN coins in an offline paper wallet. Follow the necessary steps to generate a safe offline paper wallet, and only transfer your coins to the app wallet or an exchange when you wish to transact or trade with them.
Know of any new ways to store Electroneum? Let me know in the comments…
Hi, what pool do I need to use in order to mine Electroneum with Antminer X3?
Most of them will do. See a list of the top pools here.
Will be there any desktop wallet like e.g. bitcoin core wallet with full blockchain?
As of now, I don’t know of any plans to create such a wallet. But in the meanwhile, you can use the web-based online wallet at my.electroneum.com, which you can access in the browser from a computer.
Hi, when withdrawing ETN from Cryptopia it asks for a payment ID. Can I leave this blank or is a payment ID mandatory for withdrawing ETN? Thanks.
A payment ID works like a reference code on a normal bank transfer. It helps the receiving entity know who sent the funds when there are several people depositing into the same account. Exchanges sometimes make use of one wallet for several people, and therefore you will most likely need to enter a payment ID when sending ETN to an exchange (else they won’t know who sent it). But when sending it to your online Electroneum wallet or an offline paper wallet, there’s no need for a payment ID. If Cryptopia insists on one, just enter some random characters.
Thanks for the help with looking at my wallet. I would never have figured it out. Your directions were very easy to follow, thanks.
Also, I can see that my withdrawal went through from Cryptopia to my Electroneum wallet. Do you explain on your site how to move from wallet to another exchange?
I would also like to get my Linda Coins off of Cryptopia. Any suggestions?
Bill
Any plans to support hardware wallets such as Ledger Nanos?
It is up to developers to develop specific hardware that works with the Electroneum blockchain. But with the amount of hype and mass adoption, I think it’s only a matter of time. Stay tuned…
Hello, I have a part of a Bitcoin. How can I buy Electroneum with it? Thanks in advance.
This article will explain it.
Hello, I use the Electroneum online wallet (my.electroneum.com). Where can I find my private key? Thanx.
The online Electroneum wallet won’t provide you with a private key since they are managing it for you. They keep it safe so that they can send your funds when you withdraw. You gain control of your private keys only when you use your own offline paper wallet.
What about using the cli with electroneumd synced?
Next best thing to a paper wallet, yeh?
The electroneum-cli system is not another type of wallet. It’s just a way of downloading the blockchain to your computer and determining the balance of your paper wallet locally. A wallet is simply a collection of 3 keys. So if you create a paper wallet, or if you create a wallet with the cli system, you’re getting the same three keys.
In other words, at that point your wallet is as secure as your computer is.
I followed this advice of creating a paper wallet and printing a copy of the PDF of it for placement in a secure location. Then I took the next step: I sent all my ETN from my Electroneum wallet to my newly created paper wallet today, 12/28/17. But now the transaction doesn’t appear anywhere in my “Recent Transactions” list! I can’t find it listed anywhere — not as a completed transaction, not even as a pending transaction, even though the teeny amount of ETN now left/available on my account does accurately reflect the transfer.
Thankfully, while in pending mode, I did make a copy of the transaction page which includes all the codes, numbers, and information: transaction hash, key, date and time stamp, etc.
Please advise, as this is extremely disconcerting.
Thank you.
I know Electroneum has had some problems getting transactions going the last few days. I myself submitted 2, both of which just disappeared. But they seemed to have fixed it now, as per their email that was sent out today. I was able to successfully transfer ETN to a paper wallet this afternoon.
Here’s a new article I wrote on how to check the balance of your paper wallet. Please check if the transaction is indeed viewable in the Electroneum Block Explorer. If it isn’t, I think it would be safe to try and send the ETN again.
Has the ETN reappeared in your account yet?
Are we able to send ETN directly to Cryptopia from the Electroneum online wallet? Or must it be transferred to the paper wallet and done from there?
All wallet are the same. You can send from any wallet to any other wallet, whether it be the online wallet, paper wallet, or exchange wallet. The easiest would be to transfer from the online app wallet to Cryptopia. Just be sure to insert a Payment ID when you transfer to Cryptopia, else they won’t be able to find your deposit between all the others.
Beware of sending directly from Coinbase. I was charged $40 and only $15 went to my Cryptopia account. I believe you need to send your BTC to head then to Cryptopia to avoid this. Conan
Well observed! Yes, it would be better to convert your Bitcoin to Bitcoin Cash (BCH) on Coinbase and then send it to Cryptopia.
Thanks so much for the orientation. Can I generate my offline wallet with my android phone, or must I use a PC?
You should be able to use a phone to do it, but I’m not sure how you would pass the randomness test. Haven’t tested it on a mobile yet. Try it out and let me know how it goes…
I transferred mine to a USB drive along with the paper wallet creator. Afterwards I copied the public key and removed the spaces and saved it as a text file on both my computer and onto the USB drive. Since that is the deposit-only key it is safe to store on your computer.
I also stuck some tape over all cameras on my devices using painter’s tape when I printed off my wallets, just in case a hacker got control of the camera and took screenshots of the paper as I walked in front of it. But you could just recommend to place all devices with cameras (phones/tablets/laptops) with the camera face down or just in another room.
Thanks! Great suggestions!
Hi!
I want to send my ETN from Cryptopia to a paper wallet. I copied and pasted the public key to withdraw… But how can I check the amount in my paper wallet afterwards? How and where can I check if the ETN is transfered? Sorry for this new beginner question…
Not a beginner question at all. Actually there’s no easy way to do it. You could load the wallet into a fill mining node and check it there, but that would require you to keep an update copy of the entire ETN Blockchain on your computer and use the command line. Best is just to view the transaction by searching for the transaction hash on blockexplorer.electroneum.com and trust the system that your money is transferred safely.
Good afternoon, yesterday at 12:59:13 I transferred 2 etn from my Electroneum account to my offline paper wallet (just as a test). Today I look and although the transaction is marked as complete my numbers are: Wallet balance 27459.97, Available balance 7461.89. It does say that my balance will increase when the transaction is completed. Can you explain this please.
Thanks
Ok it seems to have resolved itself.
Thanks
Where do you check your paper wallet balance? I tranfered a few ETN from Cryptopia to my paperwallet but I don’t know where to check the balance.
The Electroneum blockchain is set up so that it is very hard to view the balance of any wallet, for privacy reasons. There is no easy way to do this… You could load the paper wallet onto a full node miner, but that is quite technical and exposes your private keys to a connected computer.
Another method would be to copy the transaction hash from Cryptopia and search for it on blockexplorer.electroneum.com. You’ll see a list of transactions with stealth addresses. At the bottom you’ll see a tab saying “Prove sending”. Open it up and enter your pubic key and private view key. It will then show you which of the outputs in the transaction belongs to you. You’ll have to trust that.
I’m planning to write an article explaining how to do this soon.
What about the ‘electroneum-wallet-cli.exe’ wallet? Where does that fit into your security rating article? Thank you.
Thanks for reminding me about that! I left it out due to the complexity of the whole process – running a node and restoring your wallet in the command line. But I’ll write a short paragraph just to cover it broadly.