We humans have evolved to handle physical objects. It is in our nature. It is easier for most of us than handling digital information.
Bitcoin paper wallets are much more tangible for people than a string of letters and numbers sitting on their screen. I love giving people the gift of a few thousand bits for a birthday, or having a few paper wallets with a couple of Euros worth in bitcoin on them to hand out to friends, just to get them interested. It works better than you think.
And of course, a paper wallet is what’s also called cold storage, a good way to securely stash away some of your funds.
But making paper wallets is where it gets hairy. If you create one while you’re online, with today’s bad computer security, you might be at risk of your private keys getting stolen through some key logger or other malicious software. And if the private key of a bitcoin address gets stolen, the coins that are associated with it are pretty much also gone.
This is where Mycelium Entropy comes in. It’s a USB key with one button. You attach it to the USB port of your printer, press the button, and it will present your printer with a JPEG with a new paper wallet on it. It will pretty much make safely generating a paper wallet the easiest thing on the planet.
If that doesn’t convince you, make sure to watch the live demo of a prototype.
The product doesn’t really exist yet, they need a few more funds to get it off the ground, so I have just funded their Indiegogo campaign, and so should you.
» Mycelium Entropy Indiegogo Campaign (be quick!)