user115353: Presently I have some BTC in a custodial wallet which I want to transfer out. I don't want a use a wallet at all. Neither hardware nor software.
If I install Electrum on a live Ubuntu session, create a wallet, transfer BTC to it, note down the seed phrase and terminate the live session, will I still be able to recover my wallet with coins several years from now?
What are the downsides of this method over a cold storage wallet?

user26873: 
If I install Electrum on a live Ubuntu session, create a wallet, transfer BTC to it, note down the seed phrase and terminate the live session, will I still be able to recover my wallet with coins several years from now?

Yes. Your mnemonic phrase is all you need to store to recover your funds and your passphrase if you added one.

What are the downsides of this method over a cold storage wallet?

I mean technically what you are describing is a cold storage wallet, it's a cold Hierarchal Deterministic wallet with a bip39 mnemonic backup. The wallet being electrum which you used to derive a bip39 mnemonic. Since the backup method is a popular standard even if Electrum disappears you can be sure you will be able to recover your coins several years from now.

115353: <p>Presently I have some BTC in a custodial wallet which I want to transfer out. I don't want a use a wallet at all. Neither hardware nor software.</p>
<p>If I install Electrum on a live Ubuntu session, create a wallet, transfer BTC to it, note down the seed phrase and terminate the live session, will I still be able to recover my wallet with coins several years from now?</p>
<p>What are the downsides of this method over a cold storage wallet?</p>
 26873: <blockquote>
<p>If I install Electrum on a live Ubuntu session, create a wallet, transfer BTC to it, note down the seed phrase and terminate the live session, will I still be able to recover my wallet with coins several years from now?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes. Your mnemonic phrase is all you need to store to recover your funds and your passphrase if you added one.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What are the downsides of this method over a cold storage wallet?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I mean technically what you are describing is a cold storage wallet, it's a cold Hierarchal Deterministic wallet with a bip39 mnemonic backup. The wallet being electrum which you used to derive a bip39 mnemonic. Since the backup method is a popular standard even if Electrum disappears you can be sure you will be able to recover your coins several years from now.</p>
