How do I protect my private keys?

Safely storing your Bitcoin is very important.
Unlike other types of money that is
controlled by banks, with Bitcoin you have
many more options on how to store and
control your money.
Remember your private key that you need to
move your Bitcoin? Well that is literally the
key to storing it. Whoever has the key
controls the Bitcoin. These keys can be
either in digital or even in physical format
i.e. written down on a piece of paper.
How to store it then? You can leave the key
in your pocket, but that’s not too secure.
You can put it in a safe - that’s a lot better.
But someone can still break into your house
and steal it. Given you want to use your
Bitcoin regularly, you might also want to put
some or all of it in a digital version on your
phone so you can access it easier. The only
problem is that if you lose your phone it
means you will also lose your key, and there
is no way to get it back.
That is why companies like Luno exist - not
just to make it easier to buy, sell and use
Bitcoin, but also to securely store it. We do
this by taking your private keys and storing
them in a physical bank vault with access
controls like fingerprint and retina scans. In
fact, it’s not just one vault, it’s a number of
vaults across many continents. And we build
it in a way that you have to access the keys
from multiple vaults and put them together
to actually be able to extract the Bitcoin,
similar to the old movies where nuclear
submarines need 3-5 ‘launch codes’ from
different generals to be able to launch
nuclear weapons. This is commonly knowns
as ‘multisig’ (multiple signatures required).
Bitcoin is very safe when it is stored like
this, but there is one potential weak link: you
need to trust the people storing the keys on
your behalf. There are many reputable
companies like Luno that you can rely on,
but also many others that either don’t store
it properly or might pretend to store it and
then misappropriate it. The great thing about
Bitcoin is that unlike old money, you have
the choice - whether you store it yourself, in
physical or digital format, or whether you
rely on someone else to safeguard it for you
(or even a combination of all of these).
The way Bitcoin is often stored is also one
of the biggest ironies of Bitcoin - the world’s
global currency that was designed to be
used online, is mostly stored ‘offline’, in
physical bank vaults and detached from the
internet. Who would have thought!