How To: Import Paper Wallets & Beginners Guide to Wallets

How to transfer your bitcoin from your paper wallet to a blockchain.info account so you can access your funds.

I’ll also cover the basics of how to move your crypto from one wallet to another for those who are brand new to crypto.

Screen Shot 2017-07-07 at 11_Fotor.jpg

I’ve created a new bitcoin paper wallet using bitaddress.org.
When you are generating your paper wallet it’s important to disconnect your computer from your wifi or internet connection.
You'll now have a public address and a private address.
It’s the private address that you want to keep from exposing to potential hackers by keeping your computer offline while this is being displayed because it is the private key that allows you to withdraw the funds.

Print out this page, make a copy just in case, or write it down, both the public and private keys or addresses and store somewhere very safe.

Now when you are ready to move your bitcoin or you want to cash out, you can do this by creating a free account with blockchain.info.
All you need is an email and password.

Once you are signed up they will send you an email with your wallet ID, now this is very important because you’ll need this ID to log into this account.

With your brand new account you’ll need to go to the settings menu and under the Security option be sure to back up your account with the wallet recovery phrase.

This will allow you to still gain access to your funds even if you forget your password.

Once you’ve written down your recovery phrase store this in a safe place much like you would your private key for your paper wallet.

Now this is how you import your paper wallet onto your blockchain.info account.

Go to Settings and then select the addresses option.
Here you can Import addresses.

Now pay attention.

In order to import your paper wallet you’ll need to type in the PRIVATE address of your paper wallet.
It is for this reason that I highly suggest that you take out all coins from the paper wallet as the private key has essentially been compromised.
Even if you want to continue storing some of your bitcoin on a paper wallet, just create a new paper wallet and store them there.
Discontinue use of any paper wallet that has had it’s private key used anywhere on the internet.

This is why I highly suggest moving everything out of this imported address into your blockchain.info bitcoin address.
You can do so by getting your blockchain.info wallet address by selecting the Request option, copy that address and then go to the Send option and select the wallet from which you’d like to send coins. Then you will paste the address of the blockchain.info wallet into the recipient field.
So you will have effectively imported your paper wallet and transferred all of your funds out of that paper wallet address and onto your blockchain.info wallet, the same wallet that is now backed up with your recovery phrase.

Congratulations!

Whenever you want to send coins from one wallet to another, this includes exchanges, since the coins you have on an exchange are in a wallet on that exchange… you’ll need to follow this general protocol.

Open the wallet that is currently storing your coins, select the “Send” or “Send Coins” option.
This is when you will need the wallet address of the location to which you would like to send your coins.
This is the address you will put into the “recipient” field. You’ll also need to input the amount of coins you’d like to send, keeping in mind there might be a transaction fee depending on which coins you are transferring, you’ll need to compensate for that fee if you need a certain amount of coins in the new location.
If you want to give your address to someone so that they can deposit a coin into the appropriate wallet, you can go to the
Receive option and that’s where you’ll find your public address.
This is the address that is meant to be shared, where as your private key or private address is what you want to keep very safe, since that is what enables you to ultimately withdraw the coins.

Three very important tips for anyone new to transferring their crypto:

1: Be sure the wallet you are sending your coins to is appropriate for the coins you are sending.

You cannot send ethereum into a bitcoin address, or pivx to a Monero address, or steem to a steem backed dollar address. If you do this your coins will be lost.

2: Be sure you input the correct address into the recipient field.

I know most crypto addresses have a lot of upper and lower case letters and numbers and they can be daunting to look at at first, so I always double check the first few characters and the last few characters to be sure that I’m sending my coins to the right address.

3: If you need to transfer a large amount of coins and you’re nervous because it’s your first time transferring that particular coin or it’s your first time using that particular address, just send a small amount first.

Once you see that it’s gone through then you can have some peace of mind that you can send the larger amount successfully.

Additional Reading/Sources:

BitAddress
Blockchain.info
Jaxx Wallet

Sort:  

Nice and useful post.
One thing I like to comment, on the new paper wallet creation process security
Someone may call me super paranoid, but simple network disconnect is not save enough for me. How I can be sure that there is no any Trojan bug hiding in my computer, lying quietly in the background, monitoring and logging literally everything what is slightly similar to the bitcoin url private keys? Which may then latter, maybe hours and days later, once the network access becomes available again, mail all my private keys in an eye blink to the attacker?
The way I do this is as follows:

  1. disconnect & disable ALL external connections from a PC. WiFi, Ethernet cable, Bluetooth, NFC, printers, external hard drives, memory cards. EVERYTHING !
  2. Turn off your PC
  3. Boot you PC from a bootable Linux DVD with a verified, trusted Linux ISO image. Bootable USB can be an option. But i prefer DVD since it is a lot more " write-protected"
  4. Double check the OS has no access to WIFI, network, printers, hard disk drives, etc
  5. Launch crypto-address creating tool. Can be for any coin, not only Bitcoin. Depends on what your needs are. Many different tools exist.
  6. Make sure you apply Private-key encryption by BIP38 method. Do it while you create address, if you can, not later. Use sufficiently long (22+ characters alphanumeric+special keys) password for your BIP38.
  7. Make sure nobody else can see your screen. And there are no any hidden video cameras behind you.
  8. Hit CREATE, and write down BIP38 encrypted private key on paper.
  9. Turn off your PC. Job is done
    10.(optional) Send $1 mln worth of cryptos into your newly created crypto address, and announce a public challenge on FB or Steemit:

If you brake it - you take it




Then see how much interest and up-votes it will generate
:)

sounds secure enough now

Nice points for securing your investment. I use a separate machine for transactions and save all the keys encrypted with SHA-256 algorithm along with paper wallets to be on the safer side.

save the page that generates before generates the add of the bitcoin or ltc, or ether paper add... then using an usb with antivirus to transport to a computer that never touched the internet, if possible, an apple...there you will generate offline the address, yep, the page that generates works offline...than u print on your print that never touched a wifi conection via usb...thats it hahahhahahha when u need to import the private key to a wallet, u go to the offline computer, write the key, transport to another computer offline yet, put the key, then you conect the wifi and import the key and the btcs...at this point that you imported the key to a wallet, I would not use the paper wallet u imported the private key anymore....better creat another one... hahaha at least I use on this way... :)

congrats on 10,000 subscribers

Nice work Heidi!!!!

AND, don't do this on a public wifi peeps.

YES That's one I should've included. Thanks for the supplement!!

Why is that?

Public WiFi is not secure and can be monitored by the owner of the network.

Tip #1 is very important and you really can never get your coins back...Even if you are a little buzzed and click 'BAT' instead of 'BTC' lol.

Drunk crypto transfers are worse then drunk texting :o

Haha... That is why I store my coins off line. When I am drunk it is to much work to move them to a wallet exchange lol.

love your tips, useful and practical

Nice alternative, but why not just generate a signed transaction to use the paper wallet? I think using online services for paper wallets omit all the security benefits they have and it's much more efficient to use an online wallet in the first place.

Your videos have helped me in my journey to learn more about crypto. This is definitely one I was waiting for. Thank you!

I so agree! I am new to this and all the info on here has been priceless!

That makes me so happy to hear! What other topics would you like to be covered?

I would like to learn more about the "atm" cards that bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies offer. How do we get them and load 'em up? I know this may be an advanced topic but I am a quick learner. Thanks for your reply :)

That's a good one, I'll work on that one soon.

I am hoping to gather enough steem one day so I can put this great information to use. Thank you!

Thank you @heiditravels. I love your videos. I have been sharing them lately to peeps new to crypto.

Sweet! Thanks for your support and for spreading the knowledge :)

Great stuff!

And yes, it's important to start small first...with just about everything in life.

Keep sharing the knowledge, Heidi!