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There are lots of risks of hot wallets, Apple or Google committing seppuku by pushing an update that confiscates their users’ money (LOL) is probably the literal least likely way you can lose money from hot wallets.

Balaji is suggesting that hot wallets are necessary for a bitcoin economy and that’s why we need technological and political solutions. He’s right that hot wallets would indeed be a long term risk. iOS and Android could be a huge single point of failure in a political attack on bitcoin. But the answer is not developing ways to securely store keys on iOS and Android devices. The answer is never storing keys on iOS and Android devices.

You can already use iOS and Android to conveniently interact with bitcoin while never storing a private key on the device itself. See Ledger Nano X w/ Bluetooth and Block’s forthcoming BitKey.

porter 2y ago

If your key is stored on a device that has an internet connection, you are trusting a third party not to confiscate your keys. You’re also playing a lottery with whether or not that device is exposed to attackers. Never store keys to bitcoin you absolutely don’t want to lose on a hot device, period. Why is Balaji not just saying that?

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porter 2y ago

(The answer is that alluding to technically-possible drama of an Apple-Google-USG conspiracy to attack bitcoin holders will get way more engagement.)