In my previous post, I briefly described the tools that I use on Windows 10 for managing cryptocurrency (Litecoin specifically) and the steps needed to get going. In this post I’ll go into a bit more detail on how to actually complete the steps. Please refer to the end of this post for a list links for reference.

The first step will be to download both the KeePass and Electrum-LTC programs. While optional, I highly recommend taking the time to verify the programs as well and establish the habit going forward. While not completely bullet proof (you’ll at least have to trust the site that you download the verification keys from), it will prevent you from accidentally using a version of the program that has been altered by a third party.

To perform the verification of the downloaded programs, I use the GPG tooling in Linux. Alternatively, you could install Gpg4win; however, since Windows 10 has new support for true Linux distributions why not go directly to the source? To do so, you will need to first enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux (see the link at the end of this document or search how to in your favorite search engine.) Once WSL is enabled, visit the Windows Store and pick a distribution of Linux (I use Ubuntu, but there is Suse and others.) Once installed, launch the Bash command line shell.

Optional Step – Mounting a Removable Drive in WSL

If you are doing everything on an internal hard drive, then this next step can be skipped. In my case, I have a MicroSD card slotted into my Surface Pro and encrypted with BitLocker. WSL does not automatically mount a removal drive so this needs to be done manually. For example, if the MicroSD is mounted to drive letter D: in Windows then the following commands need to be run the mount it in WSL.

$sudo mkdir /mnt/d

Then, to mount the drive (and again on subsequent Bash sessions):

$ sudo mount -t drvfs D: /mnt/d

When I’m finished, I can unmount it with.

$ sudo umount /mnt/d

Download and Verify KeePass

I will be keeping all of my downloaded files in D:\software (so in WSL that will be /mnt/d/software)

Start by downloading the latest version of KeePass. I prefer the Portable version so as to keep my system cleaner (it simply runs out of a folder and does not need to modify the Windows Registry etc.) Next, from the signatures page, download the PGP .asc file corresponding to the version of the program that you downloaded and place it in the same folder as the downloaded program file. For example, if you downloaded the portable version KeePass-2.37.zip then also download KeePass-2.37.zip.asc. The other piece of information that you need off of the signatures page is the Key ID of the program signer (see screen shot below).

Over in the Bash window, run the following command (make sure you grab the actual Key ID off of the page when you run it)

$ gpg --keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys <keyIDvalue>

Below is an example with output.

Once the key has been imported to your local “key ring,” the KeePass .zip file can be verified with the .asc file by running the gpg --verify command. See the example below.

The main thing that you are looking for here is the “Good signature” message, and the warning message here can be ignored. You can also compare the key fingerprint to the one that was displayed on the website where you downloaded the .asc file from.

Download and Verify Electrum-LTC

The good news is that now that you’ve verified KeePass, the process for Electrum-LTC is nearly identical. Head over to the Electrum-LTC site and first download the .exe (once again, I recommend the portable version) and the corresponding .asc file. Also, visit the link to the “Pooler” signature. I’ve highlighted all three items for the portable version in the image below.

Import the Pooler public key (example below) and then run the gpg --verify command on the Electrum files.

Fwew! That was a bit of work, but now with both the programs verified we are finally ready to setup our Litecoin wallet. However, I am going to end this post here and will save that for the next one.

Reference Links

• Windows 10 – Install Windows Subsystem for Linux
• Gpg4win (alternative to using gpg within WSL)
• KeePass – Releases
• KeePass – Signatures
• Electrum-LTC

While I am not going to claim any expertise in cryptocurrency, I have spent a bit of time dabbling in it in order to gain a working knowledge as well as keep a bit on hand as an alternative investment. There are many options out there for acquiring cryptocurrencies and storing or spending them on a variety of computer platforms. I am going to document one option that I use on Windows and the steps and tools needed to make it work. I will focus specifically on Litecoin here, but working with Bitcoin would be nearly identical. This Part 1 post will be fairly brief – I’ll describe the list of tools and steps that I use and then in a subsequent post (or posts) I will go into a little more detail on how to complete the steps.  Some of the steps here are optional and really depend on how careful you want to be. I’ll label the optional steps, but I think they are good habits to follow anyway.

First off, why go through all this trouble in the first place when one could simply buy some coins on Coinbase or another online wallet and leave them there? Also, why Windows?? Well, to answer the first question, ideally you should keep as much control over your money as you can. Once your local wallet is setup, it’s trivial to transfer your coins to it. There’s always the risk that an online site could be infiltrated by hackers and your money taken out. Obviously, there’s also risks to storing it yourself, but you are also a much smaller target to go after and you have more control (and at the end of the day, that’s what cryptocurrency is all about, having control over your money.) As for the use of Windows, the simple answer is that I am a long-time Windows user who enjoys the OS. I spend a lot of time on my Surface Pro so that is the environment in which I am most comfortable getting setup to work with cryptocurrency. There are a lot of mobile apps and wallets out there that are fairly turnkey, but setting up a wallet on a PC is a bit more involved. I am not sure how much documentation is out there on how to get started on Windows so I thought that it might be helpful to record a few notes on my blog.

Here are the list of tools that I use:

• Windows 10 Pro (Windows 10 Home can be used for most of this, but I recommend the Pro version mainly for the next point which is…)
• BitLocker – this is optional, but BitLocker allows drives to be encrypted. This includes SD cards, so that, for example, I can encrypt a MicroSD card plugged into my Surface and then remove it to store offline.
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) – I use the GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) tools to verify file downloads – again, an optional step but recommended. There are also other ways to do this, but this is the methodology that I went with.
• KeePass – a password manager – I use this to store the local wallet password and my wallet seed.
• Electrum-LTC – Litecoin wallet (there’s also an Electrum version for Bitcoin)
• Coinbase.com – very easy to use site for buying Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Ethereum

The basic steps to getting setup will be:

• Download and verify KeePass and Electrum-LTC
• Setup both of the above tools
• Receive and send some Litecoin

That’s it for this post. If any of this sounds interesting to you, then stick around for another write-up where I’ll have details about each of the steps above.