How to Keep Your Bitcoin Safe and Secure

There has been growing support for bitcoin in recent years, and this has led to a number of businesses starting to accept them as payment. As with any new technology, there are always going to be questions about whether it is worth adopting for your company, and of course, if it’s safe enough to use every day. If you are concerned about how to store the bitcoin you receive safely, then here are a few tips to help you.

Storing Bitcoin Offline

Ledger Nano S
Ledger Nano S – physical cryptocurrency storage

One way that you can ensure your bitcoin are safe is to store them offline. It is called cold storage, and there are a number of wallets that allow you to store coins in this way. Because cold storage wallets aren’t connected to the internet, they can be a little less inconvenient if you are using them in your business daily. For that reason, it is a good idea to store some bitcoin online for use every day, and then save any additional coins to your cold storage at the end of each day. The ideal ways to store bitcoin in cold storage is with a paper wallet, storage devices such as USB drives and hardware wallets.

Back-Ups

Because bitcoin exist digitally, it is vital that you make a regular backup of your wallet. Not only is this a good idea if your system is hacked, but it also protects against system failure or loss of data. Once you have backed up your wallet, you should keep it in multiple locations for added safety. These could be on a hard drive, a USB device or on a CD, these backups could be the only evidence you have of the coins in your wallet, so keep them safe. You should also ensure that they are protected with a strong password in case someone finds them.

Software

MyEtherWallet website
MyEtherWallet

In the same way that you should keep your computer software up to date to protect against a security breach, the same applies to your bitcoin wallet. If you don’t update the software regularly, you might be susceptible to hackers through an exploit. You should also ensure that all devices such as mobiles are also updated to give added protection.

Multi-Signature

The idea of multi-signature authentication has become more popular recently. It involves having more than one person needed to approve transactions. For example, if someone in your company wanted to buy BTC or bitcoin then they would need at least three others in the company to approve the transaction. Although this might seem like a lot of security, it can be hugely beneficial, especially once you start to accumulate more bitcoin. The exact same policy applies when purchasing bitcoin with PayPal (mit PayPal Bitcoin kaufen). It also helps to protect your company from potential fraud within the business.

Bitcoin wallet

The safety and security of bitcoin are steadily growing all the time, as technology and online encryption improves. For your company, this means you can consider moving towards accepting and trading in bitcoin without some of the concerns that have surrounded this currency in the past.