As of 2020, what are the community-trusted desktop cold storage wallets?

Question

I'm looking to transfer some ETH from markets to a wallet. I see MyEtherWallet.com has a way to be run in a cold storage environment. However, the fact that they're Twitter account got hacked makes me wonder about their security. I also read some of the team left and made another product, which is fine, but sort of makes me feel uneasy about the fate of both products involved.

I also saw Atomic Wallet recommended in some places, but I discovered that it is not fully open source.

geth seems to be trickier to setup. It also requires one to have the full ledger locally, if I'm not mistaken.

So what's a good software to secure funds WITHOUT spending on hardware wallets? (I don't trust them because the hardware may break and then you're done)

Answer 1

You can run MyCrypto's desktop application fully offline, and sign transactions from your offline computer too. The application is fully open-source and available on GitHub here. There are instructions for compiling your own version if you'd like. Running it offline does not require a Geth node or any sort of hardware (except for a computer, of course). You can find instructions for using it offline here, and for sending offline transactions here.

Disclaimer: I am part of MyCrypto's team.

However, the fact that they're Twitter account got hacked makes me wonder about their security.

They lost access to their Twitter account due to the recent hack on Twitter themselves. Twitter blocked all verified accounts, in order to prevent any further damage.

I don't trust them because the hardware may break and then you're done

Hardware wallets like Trezor and Ledger give you a recovery phrase when setting them up. This is used as seed to derive all private keys, so even if the hardware breaks, you can use any other application that supports mnemonic phrases (like MyCrypto), or another Trezor or Ledger, and import the same mnemoinc phrase again, to get access to your funds.