Crypto Paper Wallet

Any public and private key pair can function as a crypto wallet — even when written on a piece of paper from your notebook. While it is no longer suggested to use paper wallets as a secure crypto storage method for significant holdings, you may want to make one for fun, out of curiosity, or as a gift.

Any public and private key pair can function as a crypto wallet — even when written on a piece of paper from your notebook. But be aware that it is no longer suggested to use paper wallets as a secure crypto storage method, particularly for financially significant holdings. That being said, you may want to make one for fun, out of curiosity, or as a gift. Many recommend putting only a small amount on a paper wallet, $1 or less. You could even create a wallet and put nothing on it — and still benefit.  

Although there are ways to manually generate a private key, the vast majority of paper wallet creators use a private key generator. Once a private and public key have been created, you are able to print a paper wallet, which because it’s not online doubles as a cold storage wallet. This will include the public and private key you’ve generated, usually as both a string of characters and QR codes. 

Anyone with a paper wallet’s public key can send crypto to it as often as they like. Using the corresponding private key, you can move the crypto balance of the paper wallet into a software wallet. This transfers the funds to a new private key on your software wallet. 

Besides the risk of loss, theft, fire, and water damage, there are other reasons paper wallets have gone out of style. For one thing, you must use a trusted wallet generator, but because many are open-source software, malicious hackers have created modified versions available online that can steal your keys. Make sure to carefully research wallet generators before using one. For best practices, you’d want to take the following steps:

With Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a host of other cryptocurrencies once again making headlines following an incredibly bullish year, crypto security has never been more important, this guide will teach you how to protect your cryptocurrency with a paper wallet and cold storage. If you are looking to learn more about the technical side of cryptocurrencies and how they work please check out our blockchain courses.

It’s likely, if you’re reading this guide, you’ve recently decided to buy into this rapidly expanding market, potentially to trade but, most probably, with the intention of holding an amount of a particular currency long term. We’ve prepared it to help readers learn how to safely store their cryptocurrencies themselves, in the true trustless spirit of Satoshi Nakamoto himself/herself/themselves.

A cryptocurrency wallet is a digital wallet that you can use to store, send and receive various cryptocurrencies. The wallet doesn’t exactly “store” your money as a real-world wallet does. Instead, it saves your public and private keys which in turn helps you send and receive money.

Let’s think of a real world situation before we understand what public and private keys are. Imagine a vending machine. Can anyone and put their money inside the machine right? But, they can’t take out the money because they don’t have the key, they can only put money in the machine. The only person who can take out the money is the owner of the machine who has the key.

In this example, the vending machine is the public address which anyone uses to send money to you. You are the machine owner, and the key that he is carrying is your private key. Using this private key only you can access your money and do what you please with it.

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A paper wallet contains a public and private key pair for making crypto transactions. It is generally created with a key generator program and printed on paper as two strings of characters and two Quick Response (QR) codes. A paper wallet is a non-custodial cold storage wallet — meaning you control the keys yourself, and the wallet is not connected to the internet. While paper wallets were once considered one of the best ways to secure large holdings of cryptocurrency, other methods of cold storage are now the gold standard. If you’re curious about creating one, be sure to check out How To Make a Paper Wallet.

Initially, paper wallets were recommended. They started to become popular in late 2010 and began to wane in popularity around 2016. As long as it’s created properly, a paper wallet is immune to online attacks — you can’t hack a piece of paper. Major exchanges used to give customers the ability to create and print paper wallets right from their accounts. But, most experts no longer recommend storing large amounts of crypto this way because of the emergence of more secure options like hardware wallets.

To use a paper wallet, you need to securely generate a random private key. Humans can’t reliably generate randomness merely by thinking. Some go completely old-school (and offline), generating a key through a series of dice rolls and writing it down with a pen. This isn’t ideal, though, as it is time-consuming and requires great care in accurately writing down strings of characters.

You can also use a private key generator, but avoid web-based generators because they are vulnerable to a variety of confidentiality threats affecting the private key. Therefore, you should generate your key offline via a trusted and open-source program.

Likewise, if you use a poor-quality inkjet printer, the characters can bleed or fade over time, ruining your printed keys, which potentially could result in the permanent loss of funds.

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Generating new Address... MOVE your mouse around to add some extra randomness... OR type some random characters into this textbox

You may skip this step if you do not plan to use the random key generator.

Click the Paper Wallet tab and print the page on high quality setting. Never save the page as a PDF file to print it later since a file is more likely to be hacked than a piece of paper.

Fold your new Paper wallet following the lines. You can insert one side inside the other to lock the wallet.

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Your crypto wallet holds the keys to your coins and tokens, and it's how you'll buy and sell crypto. Find our top picks for cold and hot crypto wallets.

Julian is a staff writer at CNET. He's covered a range of topics, such as tech, travel, sports and commerce. His past work has appeared at print and online publications, including New Mexico Magazine, TV Guide, Mental Floss and NextAdvisor with TIME. On his days off, you can find him at Isotopes Park in Albuquerque watching the ballgame.

Unlike your old-fashioned physical wallet that keeps your bills and coins, a crypto wallet doesn't actually hold your cryptocurrency like bitcoin and ether. Instead, it contains the passkeys you need to prove ownership of your crypto assets and access them on the blockchain.