I was dumb for using a web wallet. It should be no surprise that after a substantial theft of my bitcoin holdings in 2013, I took a long hideous from cryptocurrencies. Recently, I subscribed the crypto newsletter from my trusted financial publisher. Now armed with my 2013 "tuition" and more-experienced guidance, I am taking small steps back into this market.

The common advice has been very consistent: Keep a cold wallet. Done.

With my much smaller hot wallet, I've started seeing some growth in dollar terms which I want to protect without the slippage associated with continuously transferring currencies to cold storage.

Here's my current method for making Jaxx slightly less hot.

Prerequisites

1. Open Explorer and right-click your primary drive choosing Properties.

2. Ensure the file system type is NTFS. If you're not running this type of journaling, this guide will not be applicable.

3. If you've not already installed them, Google for and download the latest versions of Jaxx and VeraCrypt. Advanced: Be sure to double-check my links and verify your binaries using the hash checksums on the sites.

4. I'm using this version of Jaxx at the time of writing.

5. This is my version of VeraCrypt.

6. Go offline by unplugging your network cable and/or turning off Wi-Fi.

Here We Go

Setting Up Storage

7. Click the Create Volume button in VeraCrypt. Let's "create an encrypted file container".

8. Use the "Standard VeraCrypt volume" type.

9. Save the volume to a location and (potentially cryptic) name of your liking.

10. Set the Encryption Algorithm to your liking. I usually choose AES+Twofish+Serpent.

11. Set the volume size to your liking I chose 20 MB for a bit of extra space. A brand new wallet is < 2MB, but I've seen mine grow to 10MB.

12. Create a password for your volume. Advanced: I prefer using key files but at very least, use a long, complex password as advised.

13. Set the Filesystem type to NTFS and begin randomly moving your mouse around this wizard window to create some random entropy. Click the Format button when the meter is high to create the volume.

14. Click OK once volume creation completes.

15. Click the Exit button as we don't need to create more volumes.

16. Select a drive letter and then click the Select File button or drag and drop your volume file.

17. Click the Mount button and enter your password.

18. Open your new drive in Windows Explorer.

Working with Jaxx

19. Open your Jaxx wallet to one of your cryptocurrencies and take note of some ending characters for validation then exit Jaxx.

20. Right-click your Start Menu and choose Run. Then type AppData and hit Enter or click OK.

21. Navigate to the Roaming subdirectory and drag a copy of your jaxx folder to your VeraCrypt drive/volume.

22. Permanently delete your \AppData\Roaming\jaxx directory...

...or Advanced: use a file shredder application to securely delete it.

23. Click Start Menu and type cmd. Then, right-click the Command Prompt app and select "Run as administrator".

24. Type the command mklink /d C:\Users\{YOURUSERNAME}\AppData\Roaming\jaxx J:\jaxx (replace {YOURUSERNAME} with your Windows username) to create a symbolic directory link between where Jaxx expects its data and where we want to actually store it in an encrypted volume.

25. Close all your windows and launch Jaxx to verify your wallet is using your previously-noted wallet characters.

26. Quit Jaxx. Advanced: Ensure that the Jaxx processes have exited in Task Manager.

Verifying the Process

27. Open VeraCrypt and click Dismount to disconnect your encrypted "drive".

28. Return to your jaxx symbolic link/"shortcut" in your AppData\Roaming directory. Double-click it and you'll find an expected error message providing assurance that the Jaxx data is offline.

29. Launch Jaxx and the app will crash (Decentral, try-catch my friends) which further verifies our data is locked away. You'll need to use Task Manager to End Task the Jaxx process.

30. Reconnect to the Internet.

Opinions? Improvements?

Yeah, I know. This is a hack. I'm simply trying to better protect my liquid funds.

I welcome peer reviews to improve this document. If you could spare a quick comment below, I appreciate it.

Thanks for reading, upvoting, and resteeming. ;-)

-- Mike