The Ethereum Ecosystem Could Use More Paper Wallet Solutions

A lot of people are actively looking for good Ethereum wallets right now. Unfortunately, one thing that is obviously lacking is a way for people to create a proper paper wallet for Ethereum. That is quite surprising, considering such a service would be of great interest to a lot of people. It is evident the first company to create a convenient Ethereum paper wallet solution would gain a lot of market traction.

Ethereum Paper Wallets Are Difficult To Find

In the world of Bitcoin, creating a paper wallet is quite easy these days. In fact, there are quite a few websites where people can generate a paper wallet right away without too much friction. BitAddress is one of those convenient services a lot of Bitcoin users enjoy to use these days. However, such a project does not exist in the world of Ethereum, for some unknown reason.

To put this into perspective, there is a way to generate a paper wallet for Ethereum right now. MyEtherWallet, one of the most popular Ethereum wallet solutions among cryptocurrency ICO investors, offers a way to create a paper wallet. It is a bit of a complicated process for most people, though, considering users need to generate a wallet first and there does not appear to be a clear “paper wallet” option while doing so.

Once the wallet is created, users are presented with a download button. However, on the download page, there is always a button mentioning “I understand, continue.” After clicking this button, users will have an option to print their paper wallet from the website directly. This is a bit of a backward way of generating paper wallets, although it does the job just fine once people get the hang of it.

There is an alternative way to use the download file and turn it into a paper wallet, though. By visiting the MyEtherWallet website and viewing the wallet info through the UTC/JSON file, users will see all of the wallet information which can be printed out as well. This is an even more complicated solution to achieve something that should be very simple, though. Then again, there is no click-and-print solution for Ethereum paper wallets right now.

One thing to take into account when using MyEtherWallet is how there is a difference between using the website or running the source code on your computer. It is possible to generate a paper wallet completely offline by downloaded MyEtherWallet to your computer and going through the process of setting it up. Everyone looking to create an Ethereum paper wallet using MyEtherWallet should download the source code and run it on your computer, to ensure there is no private key taint.

It is evident there is a demand for Ethereum paper wallet solutions right now. However, it is difficult to find a convenient solution right now. The Ethereum community can only hope someone comes up with a more convenient solution to create a paper wallet. Then again, there are quite a few hardware wallet solutions available right now, which are more secure than paper wallets will ever be. Paper wallets can be used to create convenient ETH gifts for friends and family, though.

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