fear mongering seed phrases is a disappointing move
new users are already intimidated by self custody
now many are panicked even more, pushing them into etfs
Discussion
It's what they're hoping for by doing these things. Push people to paper #Bitcoin ETFs not their own sovereign #Bitcoin held in cold storage.
It was a very disappointing response!
12 familiar words are not complicated. The fear etc comes from the idea of losing them, but this just the same with whatever you trade them for.
If you donāt have something critical you can lose them you donāt have self custody. And better the something you do have be a robust standard.
If I am a newbie now what do you advise me to do?
i like phoenix wallet for beginners, can download it in the app store
then when the amount gets larger and you need a more secure offline setup you can upgrade to a coldcard
full guide here: https://werunbtc.com/coldcard
Awesome! I generally tell beginners to buy via strike - when too much šstore on Muun - once too much šmove to coldcard or ledger. I understand ledger is no longer to be trusted since private codeā¦ I got some funds there. Maybe time to move it š¤
nostr:nprofile1qqsgydql3q4ka27d9wnlrmus4tvkrnc8ftc4h8h5fgyln54gl0a7dgspxdmhxue69uhkuamr9ec8y6tdv9kzumn9wshkz7tkdfkx26tvd4urqctvxa4ryur3wsergut9vsch5dmp8pesz9rhwden5te0wfjkccte9ejxzmt4wvhxjmchztzjn is advertising a seedless wallet. Not sure here. Seems risky? Trust to acceessā¦ seems like what we were going against in the first place.
solid advice
my main issue with ledger is its complicated because of all the shitcoin support and the auto wipe after three incorrect pin entries have caused a lot of problems for people
the bitkey is fine, its very easy to use and reasonably secure, middle ground between a phone wallet and cold storage
Isnāt the real issue with bitkey that your data is shared and youāre locked in by the vendorā¦ there are phone wallets with seedwords and the choice to connect to your node. In the spectrum of privacy and usability across wallets bitkey is clearly positioning themselves outside of the bitcoin ecosystem.
You can connect your node to Bitkey. Iām 99% sure they also have sovereign recovery. It would be nice if you could use their hardware with Sparrow, but they offer enough value that the trade off makes sense for a lot of people
They have your xpubā¦ and just look at their app privacy in the App Storeā¦
Thereās an aspect to this discussion which is often overlooked: Weāre all going to die one day.
While an individual might quickly learn to secure a seed phrase and use a hardware wallet, what do their heirs do after they drop dead? Solutions like Bitkey help mitigate this.
I think all the smart engineers working on Bitcoin will come up with increasingly innovative ways to hold bitcoin. With all due respect to current products, we are currently in the 1974 Altair 8800 days of bitcoin wallets but quickly approaching a 2007 iPhone launch.
The seed phrase was the revolution, donāt fear it, embrace itā¦ā¦..
Almost as if it is by design.
Grandmas can do seed phrase. It is that intuitive.
Those with the gumption to dig deeper will see the veil and learn to ignore it. The best and brightest will move to the new standard. The rest will drown in the insolvency of wallstreet.
May the waters rise high and quickly š„
A real man holds both a seed phrase-backed cold wallet and a multi-sig wallet. one for sovereignty, the other for security and control. true self custody embodies both because you need a layered defense mechanism. having both a coldcard and bitkey is a smart move. stack sats and stay humble lads. may god bless all bitcoiners and naysayers.
Canāt find any scenario in which having a bitkey is a smart moveā¦
Same. How could letting Block hold one of your keys ever be a smart decision?
do you have the same energy for other multi sig or just them?
Just look at the app privacy in the App Store.
First one is bitkey by block, other ones are Nunchuk and Keeper, though phone coordinators are always a bad idea privacy wise. If you really want privacy use sparrow or nostr:npub1ejkyx6hvrs0v9tj3ft0qhpjwxdasfnfsessu2rtnuzhtp4866u2s00expu
what's your opinion on cold cards? and thank you for the insight i'll take all this into serious consideration. sincerely mean this and im not trolling.
Our opinion is that every system has trade offs, you should just be aware of them. Coldcard doesnāt push vendor lock in, pushes you to learn about privacy and sovereingty while not having to go the hard way. You can make it easy for yourself.
Other great wallets are nostr:npub17tyke9lkgxd98ruyeul6wt3pj3s9uxzgp9hxu5tsenjmweue6sqq4y3mgl nostr:npub1tg779rlap8t4qm8lpgn89k7mr7pkxpaulupp0nq5faywr8h28llsj3cxmt and some others we sell. Itās important that the devices are open source / source verifiable and easily usable with preferably nostr:npub1ejkyx6hvrs0v9tj3ft0qhpjwxdasfnfsessu2rtnuzhtp4866u2s00expu / sparrow wallet.
Securing a seed phrase without relying on third parties (bank deposit box, family member, etc.) is not a trivial thing that you can just recommend to Bob down the street, especially if they are not to keep it at home.
If my life depended on a normie or non-tech-savvy family member keeping Bitcoin safe for 10 years, I would not hesitate to recommend Bitkey over Coldcard with a seed phrase stored somewhere in their house.
Jack is not serving you or me, even tho I think there is a use case for expert users. He knows the audience he is going after, which is +90% of people.
i understand why the bitkey exists, itās strengths, and their goals
fear mongering seeds is not helpful
The marketing is bringing people in that would otherwise use an ETF rather than pushing hard-core bitcoiners away from using a seed phrase, imo.
But I see the concern
Isnāt that objectively true tho?
He is not saying seedless is more sovereign. Most of the Bitcoin is lost not rugged by multiple parties conspiring
i do not think āseedless is saferā is objectively true
depends on technical competence and threat model
Right, but we already agreed on who his target audience is and is not.
If we put his tweet in that context, then I would say it is objectively true.
Yeah, be curious to hear where Jack's coming from. He makes a lot of sense to me most of the time. Being that this is a kyc situation with my name and address of the order probably easy to hack... What kind of thread scenario does this become?
You can buy at Best Buy if youāre concerned about that
But youāll have to give up a name and your address for any other hardware wallet you buy online anyway. Being able to buy a Bitkey at a brick and mortar is an improvement and so far unique to them.
That's cool. I already ordered mine some months ago and that's why this comes to mind.
And yes, when I was in El Salvador I picked up a few tips, though I haven't implemented, just learning, around setting up less trackable situations. I hung out a bunch at the nostr:nprofile1qqs07xnwzjee7f2meh30phlug2j4c8p0au5048qtsd2j4vvrqh6guaspzdmhxue69uhhwmm59e6hg7r09ehkuef05pq9z5 with a bunch of cool bitcoiners in El Zonte.
Unless youāre in a unique circumstance with heightened threat models, then you should be fine with the Bitkey.
Just make sure not to tell people where you have it or, ideally, that you have it. There is no way to delay access to the funds if an attacker catches you with the Bitkey in the same location.
I decided not to use it. I thought I'd be into it for the inheritance feature I was hearing about but as I sat with it more I felt it may not be that safe. But I am now totally forgetting how it functions... I never really used it. Is it basically because it doesn't have a seed phrase (does it?) and it's operated from an app, so a wrench attacker would just get in my phone and can access it if in the same location?
It doesn't use a seed phrase. Block holds a backup wallet for you. Therefore, if you lose both your phone and Bitkey, you must contact Block customer support to receive your lost funds. In short, not having a seed makes you completely reliant on Block and doesn't teach anyone anything about independent financial security. It just grants more unneeded convenience. Convenience >>> laziness.
If you lose the two other keys, Block holding the third key doesn't help. If you have a Bitkey, anyone attacking you will know that you must have a second key.
Not exactly right. If you lose your phone and hardware you can recover without Block with the cloud backup and trusted contact. Block just helps with the delay and notification, and if they are not available you have the Emergency Kit to do a sovereign recovery
The inheritance feature is a huge value added imo
The product is by no means unsafe. If youāre Snowden or a high profile public figure maybe you look somewhere else, but for the vast majority of people the security model is more than sufficient.
The user does not interact with a seed phrase for the recovery process. This is a benefit to most people if we are being honest. Thereās a small group of people for which this is a dealbreaker as a primary wallet.
An attacker can force you to create a transaction and steal your bitcoin, but this is no different to most alternatives. This weakness is not unique to Bitkey. This is why itās probably a good idea to keep the hardware in a separate location from your phone (locker, safety deposit box, etc.) if youāre gonna store most of your bitcoin there. This best practice apply to all HWWs, however. Products like the ColdCard have trick pins and login countdowns that protect against this scenarios, but those products are more complex and less user friendly than Bitkey.
Cool thanks for sharing. I by no means am any high profile public figure or have a lot of Bitcoin either...(I'd love to) But for whatever reasons and now it's been a few months so I am likely forgetting the whole reason why I decided to pause activating it. I think intuitively I want to learn the non mainstream pathways to pass onto folks. I think I was asking questions on here and it ultimately was not the right move at the time. It felt like I needed to sit on it and wait for more clarity.
Also it's seems like the inheritance feature would be useful if you put all or most of your Bitcoin there to pass it on?
Youāre welcome. Itās a unique architecture, but I think itās an all-around good product. If you have kids or a spouse, I would make sure whatever solution you choose has a robust and easy-to-access inheritance plan if you plan on storing a meaningful amount (which doesnāt take much if we think Bitcoin is going to $10M). I like Bitkey for most people because it is easy to use and has a free inheritance plan. The popular alternatives (Casa, Unchained, Nunchuk) have paid inheritance features.
I encourage you to set up the Bitkey if you already have it and play with it. And do the same with other products if you feel the need or want, and then it will be easier to decide what works best for you.
Thank you! All right, that's a solid advice.
Would love to hear him on Citadel Dispatch elaborating on that statement
i will fondly remember what Jack did for nostr.
Same thing happened to gold. Itās dangerous to store your gold. Wall Street wants to capture all wealth.
this is 100% spot on. i donāt get the obsession with making bitcoin āfor everyoneā. itās been battle-tested for over a decade now. seed phrases and sats got us here. why change what already works? there are so many other things that we can work on to increase bitcoin adoption. i just donāt think these two will make any significant difference.
Is 2-of-3 across trusted family and a secure institution the best move?
The best is dependent on the individual circumstances of that wallet. There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
That said, that setup is likely to work well for many.
If you can drive a carā¦ š
New users should 1) download a phone wallet, 2) write the seed words on a piece of paper and 3) store that in their file cabinet where they keep other important papers. That's it. It's not that hard.
Exactly. I agree it isnāt that hard, and was exactly what I did, before I upgraded to cold storage
Those pesky activists investors again........
YOU CAN JUST PUT EVERYTHING ON COMPACT DISCS (BUT YOU SHOULDN'T)
levels not FUD lol
paper bitcoin
custodial
collab custody
cold storage
Who is fear mongering seed phrases? I missed it.