I always read about public keys,private keys and speedphrases that you need to store them in a paper wallet or hardware wallet. The only thing I ever stored are the passphrases (those 12 or 24 words) I get from metamask or other wallet provider in the beginning of creating a wallet. Is this enough when I write them down and secure them?
why dont you like hw wallets?
with your other steps, everything would have been fine, but you connected your pc unpatched / no virus scanner to the internet to dl metamask to create a wallet, and yeah its windows…
how ever unlikely it may be, you may have been subjected to a virus / keylogger while your unpatched windows machine got metamask… at hte time of the install
even if there was a 0.00001% chance your pc was compromised. imagine you had your life savings on a potentially compromised wallet where some bad actor had a keylogger on your pass phrase. sure its been 2 years, but maybe the hackers are waiting
This guy created the most unnecessary, slow, impractical and unsecure method to safeguard his crypto to avoid paying $70 to Ledger/Trezor.
not to mention greatly flawed by being internet connected