The Pixel 7a is $50 off for Amazon Prime Day. If you're looking to get started with a Android, this phone has great battery life, a great camera, and supports Graphene OS.
Discussion
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What do you think of putting graphene OS on this and using it as a cold wallet?
Is it still better to go with a coldcard?
both coldcard and Google have proprietary hardware / proprietary secure element.
I don't recommend either of those options if you are serious about safeguarding your Bitcoin.
What would you recommend?
anything that is fully open source hardware that you can use with your software wallet of choice. Trezor Model T with Sparrow Wallet interface connected to your own Full Node is a great option. Before anyone talks about the physical access hack, yes you should always use a passphrase with any wallet. Basics 101 lol
For Mobile, use Sentinel to read your Xpub from Sparrow and connect your Full Node using Samourai DoJo.
Anyway this seems to be the "best" setup out there.
Thanks for getting back to me
but if you only have those two choices hypothetically, then going with the cold card is the better choice.
I'd go with a Coldcard and truly airgapped. It's cheaper too. If you already have an old phone that would be a good option. You'd want to run it in airplane mode and essentially never use it, making it a "warm" wallet.
That’s 150k more sats I could’ve donated to #grapheneos if they accepted #lightning payments. 
They accept XMR it is more private then lightning network, it only settles slower but especially for donations it does not matter.
The fees are also negligible like lightning.
I wouldn’t know because I don’t shitcoin brother, but you do you! 🤙🏻⚡️
The Graphene OS team does not shitcoin and neither do I we use tech to serve us. We do not serve tech. :)
The moment #Bitcoin will achieve full privacy again as it was thought to have in the beginning #Monero will be only there to push the technology further keeping #Bitcoin safe from risky upgrades.
Do not shitcoin, keep your mind open and do good also for the amazing #Bitcoin community understanding it's flaws.
You took Satoshi as a nickname, he himself mentioned in some of his last posts some of the future that #Bitcoin could implement and now #Monero has those futures while unfortunatelt #Bitcoin does not.
#Bitcoin is king and we all must protect it from the myriad of shitcoins around, but we all need #Monero too. A future with only #Bitcoin and no #Monero with 0 financial privacy would be dystopian.
Tell me you’re not a shitcoiner by telling me you’re a shitcoiner. Smooth.
Listen, MoNeRo is a shitcoin. That’s all. If you’re too dense to understand how to use #bitcoin pseudonymously or too lazy to learn how, just say so and ask for help. Don’t try to feed us a line of bullshit that your shitcoin of choice is something special.
Isn’t there a corner of #nostr for you guys to discuss #mOnErO? BTW - open minds are for people that lack knowledge and conviction.
All the opposite my close minded friend. I know too much to believe that you can't use #Bitcoin pseudonimously unless you use #Monero to anonymize it. Mixing it won't cut it, you end up with grey or black #Bitcoin.
Here is a post where Satoshi being a geniuous was open minded about improvements and was discussing features that then were implemented on #Monero.
Ill ask. How can i use bitcoin more privately? I know Lightning helps but its not enough right?
You can swap to #monero and then swap back into #bitcoin on a completely separate wallet. Then your transactions from that wallet will be "pseudonymous" which means they will be identifiable as coming from that wallet, but if no transaction coming from that wallet is connected with any KYC service then any expert eye will be only able to see what you are doing with that wallet without knowing it is you.
If you want to transact with cryptocurrency anonymously so that no transactions can be linked with each other, no amounts of transactions are visible except to sender and receiver who have necessary keys you can just use #monero to transact.
My sound advice would be to anonymize your wealth changing to #monero and then to #bitcoin and store #bitcoin in cold storage.
Then move much smaller amounts to #monero to transact anonymously and with peace of mind with others.
#Monero at the moment is the simplest solution, hopefully #bitcoin will implement these features AFTER it gets mass adoption so there will be no excuse for government criminals to obstruct the growth of #bitcoin.
nostr:npub168ru0yfmxud7m9hcrnrtre6j3xp68u8kkd0vw20zjrwmpjw9y9zqden9jtwould tell you that you have to mix your coins and pay insane fees with very good wallets such as Samourai Wallet.
Do not use Wasabi Wallet for mixing as they already betrayed their users.
No need to be a maxi, you can just understand the pros and cons of each technology and use it to your advantage.
God speed brother.
I don't think I would advise going from "btc -> xmr -> btc" because it is trivial to trace by timing and/or amounts and figure out it was the same person with high probability. This would be much better:
1. btc -> xmr -> spend xmr
2. btc -> coinjoin -> spend btc
But if you still want to, you can do a few things to make it much more difficult to trace:
1) Wait at least a day before swapping back into btc, but the longer the better.
2) Do not send the same amount back into btc in one go. Break it up into chunks. DO NOT consolidate after.
3) For the first swap (btc -> xmr) do on exchange A, for the second swap (xmr -> btc) do on exchange B.
4) Do all this behind tor/i2p or at least a good VPN (mullvad, ivpn, safingIO spn). Change your tor identity or vpn server for each swap.
Thanks for clarifying. Yes timing attack is a thing, better to wait between one swap and another. The best thing to swap BTC to XMR and then again to BTC would be to break the amount into pieces and send use different services to swap the different pieces.
You also should use a VPN or Tor constantly and change often the IP you are using.
That sounds very time consuming and tedious unfortunately.
Lightning is is enough, IMO.
The ecash idea is cool but makes me worried I’m gonna make a mistake and get rekt.
Spend more time and money coinjoining to attain and maintain inferior privacy. In addition to taking on the mental burden of coin control and accidental consolidation and second guessing if you did it correctly.
Or simply use a better tool for this, Monero, while continuing to save in Bitcoin.
Do Monero zaps exist? I wanted to zap you and I see you did not set up a lightning address.
No argument. Just another braindead npc btc maxi parrot.
I know this is your enitre world, but average people aren't going to read a 274 page manual to transact "privately" on bitcoin. They have lives and other interests. Money has to just work.
Monero obfuscates sender and IP. Reciever and amounts dont appear on the blockchain at all. I send you Monero, done. No 20 pound tome required. Superior MoE vs Bitcoin. Cheaper, easier, more private, and actually fungible (ideal quality of money)
And get this - You can still continue hodling in Bitcoin 😱!!!
Dude maxis are like nationalists; no brain power upstairs.
They just parrot rhetoric.
what’s the camera like with graphene?
I think the major OSs’ do a bunch of software processing in the camera these days - assuming you lose that? 🤔
I haven't used it, but apparently it's good. Is it just as good? Can it do computational photography? I don't know. I haven't ran Graphene in several years. That would be a drawback for me since Google's camera is the best on the market.
You can use the google camera if it's important with sandboxed google play - just disable all the permissions for camera and google play services
nostr:note1ug5xsp5j8p22eutvtg6u04mag90mdl2jwdfw6luy4rvg0qth4vmsm2u7h0 This is a great deal on the first step in reigning in your privacy right now. Grab a Pixel 7a, and web install GrapheneOS from the jump.
i’ve been heavily considering switching is to pixels from iphone and running graphene. one of my only hang ups is iOS’s shared albums, which i use to share photos of my family with other family/close friends. anyone got any ideas of how to replicate this outside of the apple ecosystem?
Google Photos is fantastic, but I don't know if something as good of you want to stay outside of Google's ecosystem.
You can set up a group chat on Element with your family and share the pictures with each other there. Each of you will download what they like and you can have a laugh on the chat about them. Apple will not scan them all of the conversation is encrypted and if you wish you can have the images compressed when sending them if you want to send them in full size you can as well.
That sounds like its almost a deal.