Nostr Web Client

If I wasn’t working on ecash, I’d be working on making seed phrases obsolete. They’re the worst possible UX imaginable.

"Hey, we have the best engineered money in human history…but before you can use it, you have to grab a piece of paper and write down 12 random words. BTW if anyone ever finds this paper, they can steal your money forever."

Deeply unserious UX.

I think seed phrases are the best solution we have right now. But it’s naive and short sighted to think they’ll remain the standard for self custody / backup, or that we can’t design something 10x better and just as secure.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

edouard 4mo ago

Seed phrase are useful and difficult to replace for cold storage usage for store of value purpose

They are not really needed for hot wallets where you leave little money, you should not care too much about them then

erik 4mo ago

More or less agree on the first point. I think something like Ledger's idea of NFC recovery back up keys are a step in the right direction.

100% agree on the second point.

Jeroen Ubbink 4mo ago

I think NFC needs a lot of infrastructure if you are recovering from a larger catastrophe where a seed phrase and mathematical formulas could basically restore your private key on a piece of paper.

Jeroen Ubbink 4mo ago

Any thoughts on this are appreciated for sure.

What i would say seed phrases do have going for them is:

- You can write them down on a piece of paper and because they are words they are much easier to type over and restore like that.

- You can keep them away from the digital realm ensuring higher safety

- With good practice you can learn them by heart and they can live in just your head, although they may live and die with you and your mental health.

I think a big consideration is that for most of our existence we had to protect physical goods, which you can only store in physical space. Storing and securing non-physical items is quite new.

I wonder what people can come up with which would make this easier.

erik 4mo ago

I think something like the Ledger Recovery NFC key is a step in the right direction. Would like to see this idea explored more. Fully open source and vendor agnostic.

https://www.ledger.com/academy/topics/ledgersolutions/what-is-ledger-recovery-key

Trazyn 4mo ago

It's crazy, humans have never had to remember important things like this before.

Except, names

Addresses

phone numbers

Safe combinations

Email addresses

passwords

I could go on.

Instead of trying to fix the UX, we should be educating people on novel ways to take personal responsibility and commit things like this to memory.

Leo Wandersleb 4mo ago

None of your examples is close to as important as your seed phrase if you have a meaningful amount of BTC.

Names ... I forget all the time. Yeah, it sucks but not the end of the world.

Addresses ... I know people that found home only after the police picked them up but they found home.

Phone numbers ... who remembers phone numbers nowadays?

Safe combinations ... if you forget your safe combination, you still will get in eventually.

Email addresses ... boring.

Passwords ... most passwords are recoverable. You just have to convince somebody that you're entitled to access that account. Full disk encryption is an exception here but that's very technical, so most people don't use that.

Schroedinger 4mo ago

iirc correctly you can use NFC cards to backup your seed in nostr:nprofile1qqsg8k9myvegcelvu2klzvrdh9lr7qnms57chkhjymgpcts09n4dutspzemhxue69uhkummnw3ezumtfd3hh2tnvdakz7qghwaehxw309aux6u3ww4ek2mn0wd68ytn0wfnj7qgmwaehxw309aex2mrp0yhx7unpdenk2urfd3kzuer9wchs3ct77k newly released passport prime. This is a good way to avoid stamping your seed in steel.

An encrypted backup on a SD card (or multiple for redundancy) is a good way as well. Using SD cards is less obvious than plain text words

Chip 4mo ago

agreed. And also, I think “find me on Nostr” xjfbwbsocueba3xbdot34 is worse.

₿k 4mo ago

For nostr, NIP05 solved it. They can find you at chipnl@nostrplebs.com

Chip 4mo ago

Interesting… is the extension able to be altered? Am I a pleb forever?

₿k 4mo ago

It can be altered

ruben 4mo ago

codex32 seems cool if the ux becomes better and signing devices implement it.

Chris Krause 4mo ago

It's very valuable to have an analog backup.

79f866aa... 4mo ago

To save your Seed ... there are several forms ... in metal are forever .... little risk of loss

Milan Ljepoja 4mo ago

Interesting take curious to see what solutions might replace them in the future. ⚡

Jor 4mo ago

Encryption is the best solution to date

Bilthon 4mo ago

I've heard this so many times before 🙄. But what's the alternative really? Let's see, the idea is to have an analogous backup because you don't want to trust an electronic device that WILL break down eventually. And the seed phrase has to be as random as possible. Having to write down words IMO is the lowest we can place the bar at. What age do you need to be in order to fail this?

Gunn 4mo ago

What do you think of Bitkey's 2 out of 3 solution? https://bitkey.world/

Sondre | satoshiconsult.com 4mo ago

How about connecting a working LN-address, which will enable plebs to zap you freedom money?

Gunn 4mo ago

Thanks for the attempt. This may (or may not) work now. 😅

Sondre | satoshiconsult.com 4mo ago

I’m glad you’re working on it.

But you still can’t receive freedom money through zaps.