Bitcoin or just ₿ is a decentralized digital currency without need of a regulator like central bank or single administrator in charge of ruling the transactions that can be sent from user to user on the p2p bitcoin network. Without regulator, it’s very easy to scam or hack end users and steal all of their wallets. This is why it’s very important for you to secure your bitcoin wallet. In this article we will fond out, how to do it.
By default, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency without a regulator, without the possibility of someone to interference with your money. Bitcoin is giving you the right to freely dispose of your funds. Using a bitcoin wallet in any popular site automatically takes away this rights.
This is why I highly recommend you, to avoid any sites which gives you to open a Bitcoin wallet. It’s very easy to make one on your computer and to control it as you whish. The only what you have to do is to install Bitcoin Core. I will not cover in this article how to do it and what is the ways to install it, but I will show you how to secure it.
So, let’s go!
Open your Bitcoin Core program, go to Settings > Encrypt Wallet. You will see the followng screen:
Use some strong password. This will encrypt your Bitcoin wallet and for every major action the Bitcoin Core program will ask you for this password.
Please, be sure to remember the password, otherwise you will be unable to use your funds
By using a passphrase for your bitcoin wallet even in case of hacker were gain access to your device where your bitcoin wallet is running, they would not be able to do anything with the funds unless they also had your passphrase. The wallet encryption uses AES-256-CBC to encrypt only the private keys. The keys are encrypted with a master key which is entirely random then, the master key is encrypted with AES-256-CBC with a key derived from the passphrase using SHA-512.
So I’m recomending you to use very strong passwords containing chars, numbers and special symbols.
Congratulations, you have a secure wallet!