What is the safest way to create a Daedalus wallet?

I’m wondering what the safest procedure is for creating a daedalus wallet. having used trezor and ledger, I know the private key isn’t exposed. But with daedalus, it’s right there on my screen.

Everything I read about crypto seems to say if your private key is exposed online, you should consider it compromised.

So i’m just wondering how best to proceed with Daedalus. and have a few specific questions:

1 - is there a checksum available for the installer? I didn’t see anything on the download page.

2 - does it make sense to install on a freshly installed OS to prevent any chance of malware/keyloggers, etc.

  1. Once the blocks are synced, is it possible (or advisable) to kill the internet connection and create the wallet “offline” in daedalus? is that possible?

Or if there is a guide of steps for best practices for security when using daedalus, that would be great.

Thanks for your help!

2 Likes

Maybe I’m missunderstanding something but isn’t the private key only used to verify transactions as well as create/generate new addresses ?

So how is your security compromised even if people know the private key? Since they can only access the wallet belonging to that key if they know your seed or your passphrase

sry if i’m hijacking your thread and can’t really answer any of your questions

I may have misspoke, but it is the 12 word seed I’m talking about when I say private key.

It seems that there is no way to verify the integrity of the installer. As the developers have left your question unanswered since Dec 17 last year, they clearly don’t care. The same concern was raised on Redit in December. Same lack of action. https://www.reddit.com/r/cardano/comments/7krmku/daedalus_installer_checksums/

Here are the checksums calculated for the installer I downloaded;

Checksums: daedalus-win64-1.0.3769.0-installer.exe
SHA-256: 192ba5a9b8ca2a301bb3106cfe2b6c52e86ac81c12cf506c3f43add8da54d63b

The safest way to store and use cryptocurrency is in combination with a hardware wallet. On the https://daedaluswallet.io/#download page there is a checksum, so you can check the downloaded software. Here is a Comparison of Ada wallets and exchanges which includes hardware wallets.