How do paper wallets work?

[williamshennie9]

Hey guys

So I was doing research into paper bitcoin wallets and I came across this guide: https://coinomi.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/29000027026-can-i-use-coinomi-as-a-paper-wallet-

I understand the whole concept of being offline and all, but I wondering how the app can generate a bitcoin receiving address without being connected to the internet to "see" the blockchain. Surely if everyone does this there could be an overlap. What if the app (being offline and all) generates a wallet address which is already in use?

Could someone with more knowledge please help me understand this? I'll tag @wry since I think he has a good knowledge about wallets  

[BidaManEris]

It is too much of a hassle for it being termed as a "paper wallet", not to mention that you still have to go online in order to spend the funds. This is no different than having a bank account without a bank medium or a third-party financial system maintaining it. In the end, it will still be your call on how to actually make it secure and accessible again in the future.

What if the device and your private keys lost? It isn't a "paper wallet" if it is irretrievable (unlike its actual counterpart which you can recall your steps and report to someone else to try to find it again).

The steps are definitely not user-friendly and will discourage people to use it because of the "technicalities".  Ease-of-use must be of number one priority when trying to present a feature to a product's certain group of users. How would this thing overcome that hurdle?

[williamshennie9]

10 hours ago, BidaManEris said:

What if the device and your private keys lost? It isn't a "paper wallet" if it is irretrievable (unlike its actual counterpart which you can recall your steps and report to someone else to try to find it again).

The whole way the blockchain is set-up, you could lose everything, as long as your seed phase is kept safe then your funds will be safe. So my question is how it is possible that if the app generates an address offline - how does it know that address is not already in existence?

[Tat40hk]

Paper wallet the most benefit is offline to create the wallet .That mean your private key of paper wallet noone know when u create it.

Check the balance of paper wallet it is still need online .

If u want to deposit the paper wallet u can still use the address or QR code to make it.

Make a paper wallet to be a Bank it more safely than online wallet.

But I am using the hardware wallet to be a Bank.=)

[Ali saher]

20 minutes ago, Tat40hk said:

Paper wallet the most benefit is offline to create the wallet .That mean your private key of paper wallet noone know when u create it.

Check the balance of paper wallet it is still need online .

If u want to deposit the paper wallet u can still use the address or QR code to make it.

Make a paper wallet to be a Bank it more safely than online wallet.

But I am using the hardware wallet to be a Bank.=)

Ohh very nice information I really not know about paper wallet and not know how to use this wallet.i think paper wallet safe for other wallets and not easily anyone hack this.

[williamshennie9]

lol you guys aren't answering my question. I want to know how the app determines the wallet address if it has never connected to the internet before. Because surely if it is random then it is bound to use the same address twice.

[Ajel]

Hello, I think a paper wallet would be good, if you could make it, it would be good for you, but you need to protect this wallet, hope you understand, thank you.

[williamshennie9]

On 4/12/2020 at 4:44 PM, Ajel said:

Hello, I think a paper wallet would be good, if you could make it, it would be good for you, but you need to protect this wallet, hope you understand, thank you.

I do not understand the point of your comment. I posted this in the technical section to understand the technicalities of my question, not to know whether a paper wallet is a good thing or not.

[Lucas Holder]

On 4/12/2020 at 3:40 AM, williamshennie9 said:

lol you guys aren't answering my question. I want to know how the app determines the wallet address if it has never connected to the internet before. Because surely if it is random then it is bound to use the same address twice.

It's extremely improbable. What I mean by improbable? If you had a billion computers generate addresses for billions and billions and billions of years, you probably still wouldn't generate an existing address. I will simplify some things in my explanation but for a more in depth understanding I suggest you consult the Bitcoin documentation.

Generating an existing address would mean you are now in possession of a private key that is allowed to spend the BTC at that address. So if it was likely to generate existing addresses, it would mean that Bitcoin is insecure because anyone could generate keys until they are able to steal from existing addresses.

The reason it's so improbable is that BTC keys are 256 bits which means there are a total of ~2^256 keys (a very large numbers, bigger than the number of atoms in the universe!). When you "generate a key", you are picking at random among all those keys. Now if you still think it'd be likely that two people accidentally pick the same key, that's probably because our mind isn't used to dealing with such large numbers.

Now imagine how likely it is that 2 people in the Sahara desert randomly pick the same grain of sand. Well, the likelihood of that happening is billions and billions of time higher than two people picking the same Bitcoin address. I hope this illustration convinces you!

Cheers,
Lucas

 

[Dena Topik]

I think that the wallet at the beginning of use maintains a set of your data. I see that it treats every individual in a department on its own, it does not link anything else from the data, as if it were creating your own protocol to access it even in the absence of the Internet. This is my point of view.