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Holding the coins is one thing, transferring is another. I just transferred my bitcoin out of my paper wallets. I can promise you there is absolutely no way for

Holding the coins is one thing, transferring is another. I just transferred my bitcoin out of my paper wallets. I can promise you there is absolutely no way for a non-technical person to do this safely. What are they going to do? Visit some random website to sweep their wallets and hope their private keys are not stolen (which they will be)? I haven't used a hardware wallet - I suspect they solve the transferring problem. But what's the risk my hardware wallet still works a year from now? 10 years from now? I decided trusting Coinbase in 2021 is the most reasonable option for the amount I have. (Different calculus back in 2016). I admit I don't know what I'd do with 8-figure balances though.

DennisP 5y ago
Hardware wallets do solve that problem. Keep your 24-word passphrase somewhere safe, and you can use that to restore your keys into any hardware wallet, without plugging it in to a computer. The passphrase algorithm is a public standard, so if your hardware breaks, you can restore onto another one. After that, plug the hardware wallet into a computer and you can transfer without the computer ever seeing your private key. The hardware wallet displays the destination address, which you should check. I do agree that Coinbase is reasonably safe, as long as you use a strong password and 2FA, and don't give them your phone number.