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So for those of you who doesn’t know, back in the day all we had was something called paper wallets. It looked something like

Some people did fancy tricks like

This was before things like Ledger Hardware wallet or other things like that. Like the idea was is if you store it on this. Someone can’t hack paper.

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.

Printed paper wallet keys are often designed to look like cash with a QR code: The private key is on one side and the public key is on the other. If you accidentally show the private key when using the QR code, someone can “sweep” your paper wallet and take all of its funds. For the above reasons, many believe that creating a paper wallet is unsafe, time-consuming, prone to errors, and simply not worth the risk anymore.

Note paper wallets are still in use today. Like I have one with ERGO mining where I’m waiting on them to add themselves to Ledger wallets, and setting up a paper wallet is quick and easy vs another hot wallet.

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Have you ever used a paper wallet? Have you even heard of them before?

What experiences have you had with them?