Wait, do you mean to tell me that showing your addresses does not introduce additional risk as long as you've got good key management?
Twenty One's Proof of Reserves is live.
Anyone in the world can now audit and verify that we own the #Bitcoin we say we do.
You can’t do this with gold. #Bitcoin is the best money in human history.
At Twenty One, we are bringing #Bitcoin to the capital markets.
https://blossom.primal.net/658f561f7b542ea6af5e809d8a2ce51b6eb1338c285765164db3d456ed26d9cb.mov
Discussion
Show us your address, Ben. I’m sure you have key good management, so there is no additional risk in doing so.
*for public companies
The different is that I haven't previously publicly revealed my net worth.
Ok. The donations you have received from HRF and others are public, reveal those addresses.
I've coinjoined those, as they were subsequently comingled with funds I previously owned.
Again, there's a big different between a public company trying to be transparent about THE ENTIRELY of their holdings vs a private individual who is beholden to only themselves.
If my net worth were public and all finances were transparently reported moving forward, then there would be no ADDITIONAL risk posed by making addresses public. All the risk would already be taken on by announcing the amounts publicly in the first place.
Btw just got off a 10hr flight and am jet lagged... Thus the horrendous spelling mistakes. I trust you'll infer what I meant.
No worries. I got your point.
I hope my response clearly explains why Saylor and possibly other corporations are hesitant to do PoR.
As a public figure receiving grants from organizations you could choose to be transparent with those donations too
Even in that hypothetical scenario where you decide to be transparent with your finances and you received Bitcoin from a wallet linked to a terrorist organization like Hamas, do you genuinely believe this wouldn’t cause problems? It could trigger legal investigations, reputational damage, and public backlash. The same is true for corporations. If one of these UTXOs associated with sanctioned countries like Russia or Iran were sent to, say, TwentyOne Capital. This wouldn’t just “raise questions”—it could ignite a PR nightmare, attract regulatory scrutiny, and draw unwanted government attention. Ignoring this risk is naive.
Suppose a company uses coinjoin to enhance privacy. Publishing their addresses would defeat the entire purpose of that privacy measure. Worse, it could expose this activity to governments that might view coinjoin as suspicious or even illegal in their jurisdictions. This contradiction undermines the company’s operational security and invites regulatory headaches.
Imagine someone sends a large amount of Bitcoin (or any amount) to one of these published addresses. This would create a discrepancy between what the company publicly reports in its reserves and what the PoR addresses show. Such a mismatch could cast doubt on the company’s competence, erode investor trust, and invite scrutiny from regulators and shareholders who might question why the company can’t accurately disclose its Bitcoin holdings. It’s a self-inflicted wound that PoR amplifies, not mitigates.
I can keep going, but these are just a few situations that illustrate the downside of Prof of Reserves.
Proof of Reserve is often just theater, a performative gesture to appease a niche group of Bitcoiners (OPs) who likely wouldn’t invest in securities anyway, alongside unsophisticated investors who don’t grasp its limitations. For a public company, PoR introduces disruptions and distractions that outweigh any marginal benefits. It’s less about meaningful transparency and more about pandering to a vocal minority.
So people can better see what that company then does with the btc. Maybe they want to sell some and send it to an exchange. You can then front-run that.
And do you want the precedent of having public companies disclosing their addresses? Do you want to have authorities tell you : "if big companies can do it, why can't you?". Do you want to have to argue about that?
I can't stop them from disclosing their addresses. But I certainly won't be recommending that or praising companies for doing that.
It's a bad precedent and a bad idea.
I disagree entirely. I think those tasked with managing the wealth of others (govs, public co's, etc) should be held to the upper-most height of scrutiny and transparency.
I believe that those dealing with their own personal finances should be afforded the maximum privacy.
With Bitcoin we have the ability to do both, if the market so demands.
They are audited by the big 4 accounting firms, and companies announce their buys publicly. Every measure to be transparent without putting the company at additional risk, many of which I listed in my other reply, has been taken. Every shareholder should rest easy knowing Saylor is not running a Ledger Nano S from the back of a Taco Bell.
I went back and forth on your arguments for a while.
- I don't think govs should have reserves. If they can save, it just means they stole too much and should give it back. If they insist on pumping my bags, I'll take it, but I wouldn't vote for that.
- For public corporations : I would just abolish securities laws. I would let the private market figure it out. And since I'm really not someone who would ever invest in a public corporation, I guess it's hard to imagine what I would prefer to invest in.
But proof of reserves means publishing the public key, which is a security risk if you have billions sitting on that address. If you say you'll move the funds afterwards, it defeats the purpose because it could just be moving funds around (people do that all the time in the fiat world to qualify for mortgages or visas, etc).
And again, it's not proof of liabilities.
Even more importantly, it's not proof of the "legalese". I can control an address but have signed a contract that makes that bitcoin vulnerable to The Great Taking (David Webb explains really well the interaction of UCC section 8 and bankruptcies).
Basically, it's security theater.