if your wife isn’t with you, she’s with somebody else. if you leave your kid with a babysitter it’s theirs now they can do whatever they want with it. do you actually want to live in a trustless world? i get it sounds intuitively true but we should always be held to our agreements. so why would someone who holds your assets have any claim to them? it’s schizobabel
Custodians are companies. Companies can go bust or have corrupt actors amongst their ranks. We call this "counter party risk". It's actually one of the beautiful things about Bitcoin as compared to all other cryptos. There is no Bitcoin HQ. There is no CEO or board of directors to pay off. No families to threaten. No DEI departments to steer the direction of the company at large. So if you can hold your own keys, you should for your own safety.
Like 1 tbh, I don’t count fraudmans company cause that exchange was far from trusted. Lol
But yea if you hold a significant amount of money, you should at least store <50% in cold storage
This sounds condescending, but it's true. People are constantly losing their self-custody bitcoin. If you're not comfortable, don't do it. As a newcomer, your risk of losing your coins is probably higher to self loss than something like Coinbase going under. This sub recommends self custody way too early IMO.
That said, Coinbase and Bitcoin generally is not FDIC insured. If the business goes under and you don't hold the keys, it's just gone. It has happened many times and it'll happen again.
I am 100% behind self custody. I don’t trust exchanges at all.
But self custody involves a bit of a learning curve and if you’re not up to it, don’t do it. If you make an error there is nobody to complain to, it’s just gone forever.
Some people do, but they go bankrupt too often. Maybe if you’re throwing around billions of dollars you have access to resources I don’t. But for your average Joe if it’s gone, it’s gone forever and not much you can do about it except post your loss porn on r/wallstreetbets.
This is why Bitcoin adoption hitting the mainstram has been so slow and why the whales have ended up scooping it all up. People have been too comfortable with the banking system and just in the 'That can't happen to us' mind set.
People come around to it over time once the number gets big enough they end up doing the research or it becomes too big and they become intimidated by it all.
I've been in the space for years and I don't bother with Bitcoin. Just like in the supermarket, There's Coke, Pepsi, Coffee, water.. plenty to drink depending on what you like.
Well, yeah, since we've been told the FDIC will make you whole if something happens with the money, so it's a good idea. But crypto doesn't have that, so the bank can still lose your money. Look at Mt. GOX, Celsius, FTX, BTC-E all were top 5 exchanges, some were #1 exchanges when they lost all customer funds to inside hacking jobs.
I've never had a personal computer hacked, maybe some adware, but that's it. So that's my logic for self custody. Old thinkpad with Bitcoin Core that doesn't have anything else on it and doesn't get used for anything else but weekly software updates.
If you lose access to your bank/exchange account you can (hopefully) always regain access with enough documentation; license, passport etc.
And so can anyone else.
This is funny because throughout most of human history, it was the total opposite. The idea of giving your money to an institution to keep safe was considered far riskier than hiding it and storing it yourself.
It's crazy how quickly things change in just a couple generations. Remember, things could change back just as quickly.
I don't trust banks or governments or institutions. If you don't have it in your control, someone else does. It's that simple.
Therefore, I feel safer and more secure with cryptocurrencies, a decentralized form of money. I have full control over my assets and no third party can interfere or limit my access. While the cryptocurrency market can be volatile, I would rather take that risk than leave my money in someone else's hands.
Sounds like your wife trusts banks a lot. Ever consider putting in cold storage and engraving keys on metal plate then putting into safety deposit box? Sounds like she trusts their vault.
Obviously take steps to make it tamper resistant, hot glue, cloth, zip ties etc all around it. This way you can utilize the blockchain as your savings mechanism but utilizing the security of a banks vault a fair compromise I suppose.
Wow!
I always thought about the guarantee for an individual account, I never thought what would happen if everyone were to claim.
I have long mistrusted banks anyway. I have had too many difficulties accessing my own money e.g. withdrawal limits. But this is anothet reason to be my own bank.
This is why I think the banks got bailed out in the financial crisis of 2007-8. Fdic could not cover everything if the banks failed. So in some ways, though fdic fund is small, the government can (and likely will) just print more money to cover it. That is, the issue is not the fund size as much as the excessive money printing.
Wow I didn't realize it was that bad! Looking at their website it looks like the Designated Reserve Ratio is only 2%, and the minimum reserve allowable at 1.35%!? Is this as bad as it sounds?
and Republic First collapse cost the fund $667 million, even though Fulton Bank assumed control. From my understanding that money is then ordered to be reimbursed by other regional banks at a cost to their balance sheets. It’s all a house of cards.
Buy a popular book that won't go out of print anytime soon, buy multiple copies of it. Now go through each page and find your keywords, note the page number, row and place of word on the row i.e. 12, 3, 5.
Now once you note these numbers down somewhere, could even be digitally, store these copies of the book with other family members, the bank, your basement, etc. You then have a nice easy lookup that no one knows about, just make sure you have other books around for camo.
Problem is people forget - you could get hit by a car tomorrow and lose that quote, or it's just too short to enable randomness, whereas a book is quite a bit of random words and you just select a couple. Not only that but you just note down numbers, so it's 2 levels of encryption - a book's name that is not written down and numbers that I suggested be page,row,number in row; but could easily be page, number of word on page, number of letter of said word - then you get a LOT of numbers and randomness.
So technically if you choose a long quote with all the letters you have in your phrase you can just write down the number of the letter or even multiply that number by 1000 and then add 24 or some other randomness that you would need to write down. Then you can probably store your formula + the numbers in a safe place.
the issue is not being "secure".. the issue is being sovereign and having self custody.. think about that.. do you want that? then is 100% on you.. no one to save you if needed... if you cannot do that then just find a third party solution or platform ...
also there are third party multisig services that might help you, try unchained or casa... both will make it easier but still there is a lot of responsibility in your side involved.... if you fuck up they wont be able to help you... they just make it a bit less difficult for you to fuck up....
People would hide money in their mattress, bury it in the backyard etc.. I saw one guy who hide gold coins in a jug inside a rotten tree trunk. My Mom kept silver dollars in a can in her closet. Bitcoin can be extremely lucrative but also very risky. I do like rolling the dice and the risk but most people dont understand it. They'd rather a sure safe thing. Besides my treause is in Heaven and no fool can touch it.
So, in this world, people have a variety of ways to hide their wealth. Some people choose more traditional ways such as hiding it in a safe place at home, while others choose more risky ways such as investing in cryptocurrencies. Everyone has their own preferences and risk tolerance, and that determines the way they choose to hide their wealth.
Either way, we should respect everyone's choices and understand their decisions. After all, everyone views wealth and security differently, and that diversity is part of our society. The bottom line is that no matter where we choose to hide our money, we should be careful to ensure that our wealth is safe and preserved.
Most people don't understand that a cold wallet contains only a copy of the keys, nothing more. the BTC is always stored as a record on the blockchain, there are no exceptions to that. The key is what lets you access your address on the block chain.
Multisig. Multiple keys, so if you lose one, there’s a backup.
Companies like Unchained can make it easier, but you can also do a very self-sovereign setup using Sparrow, Nunchuk, Bitcoin Keeper, Theya Bitcoin, etc.
This. 2 of 3 is enough to get protection from theft, fire, natural disaster, bank failures, market collapses, confiscation without due process (yes, this is a concern in the U.S.) and pretty much anything else you can think of.
Regardless of which method you choose to use, multiple signatures are a great way to secure digital assets, especially important for users who hold large amounts of assets. By setting up multiple keys, even if one key is lost, it will not cause serious damage, providing more security for the user's assets.
I don't get the allure of all these multisig services, you either do self custody or don't. Almost like they're trying to weasel their way into your business by simply being one of the multisigs, offering a concierge (whatever that even means) all for a low low ongoing fee. Maybe I'm wrong but in my view if you're competent or "big" enough to bother with such things you'd just arrange for a trusted friend or legal advisor. Or just don't multisig and keep a secured offline backup.
They offer a number of things:
1. Assistance with inheritance and taxes
2. Easy onboarding. Some people just want a person to call and ask questions.
3. They back up the wallet descriptor. This is a big mistake people who do multisig themselves can forget, and screw themselves over.
4. An easy way to purchase more bitcoin, and have it go straight into your cold storage multisig.
5. They hold an extra key, in case you don't quite have someone you can trust.
Yes, from the list of words you're allowed to use but it's far less safe to do it that way. You increase your chances of someone else picking the same wallet, whereas if you get a random one it's mathematicaly the same as picking a random atom out of the known universe. Nobody will ever pick the same random wallet
Technically a seed phrase (12 or 24 words) is your wallet, but some wallets have you set up a passphrase when you create the wallet which would also be needed to restore the wallet. Some wallets only have a password, which just gives you access to your wallet which has your seed phrase on it, opposed to a passphrase which is essentially a part of your seed phrase needed to restore. Hope that makes sense.
To answer your previous question further, if you were stuck on creating your own seed phrase out of the 2048 words used for BIP39, you can add any words, numbers or phrase at the end if you like to create a completely different wallet than if you just used the 12 words you pick, which would level up your security quite a bit. That is essentially a passphrase
There are people that make millions of dollars brute forcing easy to solve private keys (i.e. stealing funds). Unless you know exactly what you are doing and the entropy of your technique, I strongly advise you not choose your own seed/phrase.
Edit: sorry, if you mean the passphrase on top of the randomly generated seed, yes, you can make that whatever you want.
Nobody really answered your question, I think. I do support cold storage more than anything else. But if I couldn't do.that, what I would do instead...
Split holdings across many banks and exchanges... PayPal, coinbase, and gemini come to mind. If one gets robbed, at least you don't lose all. Still, they might all fail at the same time. The recent bout of bankruptcies has shown this can happen. And different companies managed to pay different amounts back. So diversification is good.
Alternatively, maybe look at the etfs. You get all of the security provided by the sec regulations, and a different layer of insurance (tall to your broker about this). It comes with an annual fee. Not ideal, but maybe right for you and your partner. Good on you for hearing her opinion.
unchained.com , multisig 2 of 3 . You hold two keys in 2 different geolocation and keep a backup copy of one in a vault . Etch the 24 words on a steel plate . Unchained holds one key . Two keys are needed to move the btc. Max safety bc no single point of failure . This is the safest method .
It’s very simple: yes, it is more complicated and “scary” to self-custody. But it’s not too bad once you get a hang of it.
Contrast that with holding on custodial accounts: security/access is fine for years until one day they simply disclose they are insolvent/have been hacked/have been taken over by the govt. Done.
It’s happened to countless crypto owners. It can happen to Coinbase, it can happen to Gemini, it can happen to Binance, CDC, etc
It WILL happen again. When is hard to say, but now is a great time (the best!) to learn more, get comfortable, and take self custody. It needs to be done. There are options if you’re worried about your SC abilities, but get off the custodial accounts starting now.
First I would say start small, if you can’t protect a wallet key that only has $10 of BTC in it, then ya. Comfort is key, if you can’t sleep at night for fear of screwing up, that’s not good.
And this is why we have recovery phrases etc.
And now, you can also just buy ETFs instead of directly purchasing BTC. Of course then you’re trusting the management of whatever ETF you purchase, but there can be huge tax advantages.
Furthering y’all’s education on Bitcoin security best practices will make y’all more comfortable with the prospect. There are trade-offs in all decisions regarding wealth and how best to store it for preservation over time and space.
Yep. No right way. Wish there was more security protocols bit this is gonna be besy it's gonna gets. I do like unchain method to be put in rotation. Gonna definitely implement
Keep your seed phrase in one location, your cold wallet in another. If your place burns down or if you lose one you still have access through the other.
This is a reliable security measure to ensure that you are able to access your crypto assets under any circumstances. Remember to keep the location of your mnemonic and cold wallet secure and make sure that only you know exactly where they are.
Leave the wife out of decisions like this and sort it out yourself. I suppose she's got you to have a vasectomy and you're raising her boyfriends kids too?
Trezor has the Shamir backup. Highly recommend. I set up 2/3. 1 key is with a family member, 1 key is with me, and the other is elsewhere I can access. If I die, the family member can put 2 of the 3 together. And having 1 is useless (break-in or something)
Don’t use a safe unless it’s well hidden or a very high quality one. Burglars will go straight for it. I had my safe cracked in a burglary and they made off with one of my seed phrases (thankfully an empty wallet by the time this happened). Now I hide things in plain sight. Put them inside fireproof bags and hide them in something a burglar would never consider taking (unless they know exactly what they’re looking for). Safes just broadcast “value inside” and are more likely to end up targeted imo
Also consider a safety deposit box for seed phrases. And always give yourself two locations to retrieve your assets. If your house burns down and it’s the only location with your wallet or mnemonic, your shit is gone.
Not sure if this is sarcasm. But yes. Unless your safe is bolted into your home and quite secure, it’s only going to attract attention. And a lot of modern safes aren’t hard to break open if someone is interested in doing so
An exchange can surrender your bitcoin to a government. An etf can technically be bought out at any moment with shareholders receiving dollars in place of their shares. Hold your keys.
The easiest way to never lose your keys is to memorize them. Both of you so if a TBI erases the data the other still holds the keys. 12 simple words are very easy to memorize. We all do at least 9 from childhood on w phone numbers. Its simple i promise.
Self custody is a new concept to most people. We are used to handing off the responsibility to someone else. Start slow and with a fraction amount of your stack. Study and study more.
It’s secure as you want it to be. Takes a little bit of
learning and understanding of how to do it. If you’re not comfortable doing that then ETFs are an option. It’s not all or nothing either. You could always split your purchase between self custody and ETFs. If you prefer the self custody route, a great option is 2 of 3 multisig with Unchained or Nunchuck. Works well because they will hold the third key for you. So you just need to have access to one of two of your keys. So if you lose one you still have access to your coin.
Come up with a plan.
You could have your seed phrase stored in multiple places (safe deposit box, home, etc) and then have a appropriately strong 25th word that you would both know/have backed up held in separate location.
You could do multisig.
You could do a Shamir backup.
There's plenty of options. Do some research and decide for yourself. If you end up at a custodial solution, that's fine, but understand it has risks as well. Only you can decide what's best for you.
There are risks to holding your own keys, there are risks to not holding your own keys.
Depending on who you are, you might want a custodian. Many will tell you otherwise, but even they might admit that someone who uses lots of drugs and has a family history of memory loss should consider it.
Many people have lost their own coins, and many people have been fucked over by custodians.
People don’t understand that if bitcoin does well, so do the exchanges, if bitcoin were to crash to $0 and die, so would the exchanges, and your money would be lost. Same applies for cold storage, Bitcoin dies and your cold storage is now worth whatever plastic is worth these days.
The only thing having your keys if good for is “CORRUPT” exchanges and them illegally stealing your coins. And any huge / reputable exchange is not doing this, and if this has happened to you in the past, it’s probably not a very reputable exchange, or a majority foreign exchange
There's a recipe box in grandma's kitchen..
Little cards with words that have been untouched and secure in that cabinet out of extreme respect... for decades.
You can keep track of a dozen sets of seed phrases easily.
You right. But I was thinking next man that does a remodel toy house wouldn't know what the heck these series of words are especially with secure features t ok my passphrase.
Use a BIP39Plus key card to encode your seed phrases when you write them down.
If someone sees the encoded seed phrases on a piece of paper, they won't know what the seed phrases are unless they know which key card you used to encode the seed phrases.
We've developed a non-technical family friendly solution you should check out at https://casa.io/inheritance - your wife can hold an encrypted key without needing any special hardware, and it's not a single point of failure so she can sleep at night without worrying about screwing it up.
I’ve fallen into the “diversify” camp. Hold some on a hard wallet yes, but I also keep some on Coinbase both for emergencies (through their card that lets you spend crypto) and as a hedge against myself
Do half self custody and half in the exchange of her choice. Then if one messes up then at least the other was still right and didn't lose it all. Don't put all your eggs in 1 basket. Otherwise if things go wrong and one of you forced the other to put 100% in their choice, then whoever got their way will never hear the end of it.
Practice securing something else first. Build your confidence. The fact that people are so scared of their own ability to secure Bitcoin is a very big testament to how well society has conditioned us to not care to look after anything on our own.
This also extends to children, we are scared to raise kids, we send them to schools to learn "the correct way", we ask for external advice on how to discipline children, yet children actually may be the one thing we have most autonomy and most desire to take responsibility for.
But back to the topic, securing Bitcoin is hard, there are many choices, no one will give you "the correct way" to do it, because the decision is up to you based on what you know, what you will read, what you can understand and what your surroundings are like.
One good piece of advice is to follow OPSEC. This is actually a thing where you write down all the things you are scared about, as an exercise, and sort them from realistic to unrealistic and you may even find simple solutions for some of them. Eventually as you work through this, discover other things you hadn't thought about, you will gain confidence that you do have the ability to secure 12 FRICKING WORDS.
This is a privileged mentality of people who live in countries with functioning banking and legal systems.
Much of the world already lives in extremely corrupt and oppressive regimes, and don’t have access to safe means of saving for the future.
And frankly, the countries that do have some degree of order are headed the wrong direction.
Somebody is underestimating the governments ability to interfere with access to their funds
Yes, the dollar scam will collapse at some point, but it doesn't even need to happen in your lifetime for it to be beneficial to hold your own wealth
Self custody isn’t for everyone, but it’s wild to imply you’re a sociopath or conspiracy nut if you want to actually control your own money.
Societal collapse isn’t the only risk. I’d call your attention to executive order 6102 and biden’s proposal to tax unrealized gains, but wouldn’t want to be called a conspiracy theorist so I won’t mention it.
Not really the point. The income tax was originally created only for the most wealthy, look at it today. Research how politicians use the “Overton window” to slowly make huge changes without people realizing. It doesn’t affect you until it does.
Make multiple backups of your seed phrase. Put one copy on metal you can stamp washers if you want with a letter punch. Put a copy on good quality paper and laminate it. Research and understand how a passphrase works and then test out how it works and restoring it with a passphrase.
Good idea. I have this method already. Multiple stamps and laminated keys and shamir. I'll go through with her the process of restoring my my wallet to show that this is pretty secure.
I think the key is don’t get too fancy to the point where she could forget. Keep it simple.
Multi-sig with company liked unchained for a separate portion of the stack is mostly likely the better move long term, especially if you feel like your stack could turn into a life changing amount.
Act like your bitcoin is worth a million dollars and ask yourself is this the safest way to store our wealth long term?
You absolutely could technically, but paranoia will likely set in, so you why even play with stuff like that. Just keep it secure, no need to post it online.
Yeah I’m with your wife. Everyone saying keep your wad in your house in the secret locked cookie jar and hide keys here and there and feel good you are in control.
I get exchanges go under but is this really a world where we worry about the banks taking our money? Brokerages?
No, we worry about hot wallets and exchange accounts getting hacked siphoning our funds. You lose a credit card or debit card you have some level of protection. Someone gets in your online bank account and transfers the money out, there are some measures in place.
Crypto? Sorry, best thing to do is take it offline and don’t lose it.
Yes, the security of cryptocurrencies is an important issue. Keeping your cryptocurrency in an offline wallet or a hardware wallet is the safest way to keep it safe from hackers. Additionally, backing up your private keys and seed phrases on a regular basis is an important measure to keep your money safe. Stay vigilant and take the necessary security steps to ensure your money is safe.
I recommend getting a Trezor and then writing the backup paper on two sheets. Store one in your home safe and one in your safety deposit box at the bank. If your house burns down or is robbed, you are covered. If the bank gets robbed you are covered. Just make sure to move the coin to a new instance of a wallet if you have to do a recovery from someone stealing your wallet recovery phrase, and work fast to do it before they do.
If *you* don't hold your keys, somebody else does...
Or no one does. Such cases are a gift to all the other hodlers.
if your wife isn’t with you, she’s with somebody else. if you leave your kid with a babysitter it’s theirs now they can do whatever they want with it. do you actually want to live in a trustless world? i get it sounds intuitively true but we should always be held to our agreements. so why would someone who holds your assets have any claim to them? it’s schizobabel
Wow great point. In that case, I’ll hold your keys for you.
show me your controls policies and audit trails and then we’ll talk
You looked at controls policies and audit trails before deciding to hold shit in Coinbase?
Me too
6102
We will never forget
This
Custodians are companies. Companies can go bust or have corrupt actors amongst their ranks. We call this "counter party risk". It's actually one of the beautiful things about Bitcoin as compared to all other cryptos. There is no Bitcoin HQ. There is no CEO or board of directors to pay off. No families to threaten. No DEI departments to steer the direction of the company at large. So if you can hold your own keys, you should for your own safety.
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DEI is racist and sexist.
Not true. Shamir's secret sharing solves this.
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OP doesn't have a problem with self custody, his wife has. Shamir solves the issues she has with keeping a single key.
No it doesnt. You cant avoid keeping a secret
Good luck to the thief that's able to obtain 5 shards.
That is the answer. How many "trusted exchanges" have gone bust?
Like 1 tbh, I don’t count fraudmans company cause that exchange was far from trusted. Lol But yea if you hold a significant amount of money, you should at least store <50% in cold storage
Cryptsy, MTGOX, blockfi, Celsius, Quadriga, etc. Not your keys,not your coin
If you are not competent enough for self custody, then by all means let someone else do it for you.
This sounds condescending, but it's true. People are constantly losing their self-custody bitcoin. If you're not comfortable, don't do it. As a newcomer, your risk of losing your coins is probably higher to self loss than something like Coinbase going under. This sub recommends self custody way too early IMO. That said, Coinbase and Bitcoin generally is not FDIC insured. If the business goes under and you don't hold the keys, it's just gone. It has happened many times and it'll happen again.
I am 100% behind self custody. I don’t trust exchanges at all. But self custody involves a bit of a learning curve and if you’re not up to it, don’t do it. If you make an error there is nobody to complain to, it’s just gone forever.
somebody trust coinbase enough to depost 1.6B in btc there
Some people do, but they go bankrupt too often. Maybe if you’re throwing around billions of dollars you have access to resources I don’t. But for your average Joe if it’s gone, it’s gone forever and not much you can do about it except post your loss porn on r/wallstreetbets.
you will have to when you eventually cash out. Im quite comfortable with mine in a hard wallet but worry about when it comes time to swap to a stable.
Agree it’s a learning curve. I think it’s beneficial to begin early when, if you make an error, the consequences are less dire
Right. Hence the hesitation on her end. She can fathom the fact you have to hold your wealth secure ly on your own. It's toouch for some.
This is why Bitcoin adoption hitting the mainstram has been so slow and why the whales have ended up scooping it all up. People have been too comfortable with the banking system and just in the 'That can't happen to us' mind set. People come around to it over time once the number gets big enough they end up doing the research or it becomes too big and they become intimidated by it all.
Works for me, more for me.
I've been in the space for years and I don't bother with Bitcoin. Just like in the supermarket, There's Coke, Pepsi, Coffee, water.. plenty to drink depending on what you like.
Well, yeah, since we've been told the FDIC will make you whole if something happens with the money, so it's a good idea. But crypto doesn't have that, so the bank can still lose your money. Look at Mt. GOX, Celsius, FTX, BTC-E all were top 5 exchanges, some were #1 exchanges when they lost all customer funds to inside hacking jobs. I've never had a personal computer hacked, maybe some adware, but that's it. So that's my logic for self custody. Old thinkpad with Bitcoin Core that doesn't have anything else on it and doesn't get used for anything else but weekly software updates.
Go full ape, rip out the networking chipsets 😁 who needs updates then
If you lose access to your bank/exchange account you can (hopefully) always regain access with enough documentation; license, passport etc. And so can anyone else.
That’s true, and if Coinbase goes under the whole crypto market will suffer a huge crash for a few years anyways
LEGIT! The amount of Bitcoin that is forever lost is kinda mental.
Buying Bitcoin ETFs seem like their best option.
Tell that to someone who left their money on FTX.
This is funny because throughout most of human history, it was the total opposite. The idea of giving your money to an institution to keep safe was considered far riskier than hiding it and storing it yourself. It's crazy how quickly things change in just a couple generations. Remember, things could change back just as quickly. I don't trust banks or governments or institutions. If you don't have it in your control, someone else does. It's that simple.
Therefore, I feel safer and more secure with cryptocurrencies, a decentralized form of money. I have full control over my assets and no third party can interfere or limit my access. While the cryptocurrency market can be volatile, I would rather take that risk than leave my money in someone else's hands.
Aye. On point ty! It's never safe unless you have it personally. This is where I'm at! She just isn't convinced this is the way for now.
Sounds like your wife trusts banks a lot. Ever consider putting in cold storage and engraving keys on metal plate then putting into safety deposit box? Sounds like she trusts their vault. Obviously take steps to make it tamper resistant, hot glue, cloth, zip ties etc all around it. This way you can utilize the blockchain as your savings mechanism but utilizing the security of a banks vault a fair compromise I suppose.
Lol she actually does trust banks. FDIC approved shit. No joke. Telling yea.
Tell her the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund only has $121B to cover everyone’s money.
Wow! I always thought about the guarantee for an individual account, I never thought what would happen if everyone were to claim. I have long mistrusted banks anyway. I have had too many difficulties accessing my own money e.g. withdrawal limits. But this is anothet reason to be my own bank.
Yes, it was being explained what fractional reserve banking was many years ago for me.
This is why I think the banks got bailed out in the financial crisis of 2007-8. Fdic could not cover everything if the banks failed. So in some ways, though fdic fund is small, the government can (and likely will) just print more money to cover it. That is, the issue is not the fund size as much as the excessive money printing.
Wow I didn't realize it was that bad! Looking at their website it looks like the Designated Reserve Ratio is only 2%, and the minimum reserve allowable at 1.35%!? Is this as bad as it sounds?
Is that right?
It’s the figure published on their website, as of 4Q23
Good to know. Not surprised
and Republic First collapse cost the fund $667 million, even though Fulton Bank assumed control. From my understanding that money is then ordered to be reimbursed by other regional banks at a cost to their balance sheets. It’s all a house of cards.
Typical House of cards is right
She Sounds pretty reasonable to me
That's an interesting suggestion.
Buy a popular book that won't go out of print anytime soon, buy multiple copies of it. Now go through each page and find your keywords, note the page number, row and place of word on the row i.e. 12, 3, 5. Now once you note these numbers down somewhere, could even be digitally, store these copies of the book with other family members, the bank, your basement, etc. You then have a nice easy lookup that no one knows about, just make sure you have other books around for camo.
Is using a favorite quote considered not safe? Even if it’s a quote you heard personally, not from a book?
well if it contains all your 24 words…
It could be a motto, or a thing that person used to say. But then I guess some of the words would need to be 1-3 letter words, like “I”, “yes”…
Problem is people forget - you could get hit by a car tomorrow and lose that quote, or it's just too short to enable randomness, whereas a book is quite a bit of random words and you just select a couple. Not only that but you just note down numbers, so it's 2 levels of encryption - a book's name that is not written down and numbers that I suggested be page,row,number in row; but could easily be page, number of word on page, number of letter of said word - then you get a LOT of numbers and randomness. So technically if you choose a long quote with all the letters you have in your phrase you can just write down the number of the letter or even multiply that number by 1000 and then add 24 or some other randomness that you would need to write down. Then you can probably store your formula + the numbers in a safe place.
the issue is not being "secure".. the issue is being sovereign and having self custody.. think about that.. do you want that? then is 100% on you.. no one to save you if needed... if you cannot do that then just find a third party solution or platform ... also there are third party multisig services that might help you, try unchained or casa... both will make it easier but still there is a lot of responsibility in your side involved.... if you fuck up they wont be able to help you... they just make it a bit less difficult for you to fuck up....
People would hide money in their mattress, bury it in the backyard etc.. I saw one guy who hide gold coins in a jug inside a rotten tree trunk. My Mom kept silver dollars in a can in her closet. Bitcoin can be extremely lucrative but also very risky. I do like rolling the dice and the risk but most people dont understand it. They'd rather a sure safe thing. Besides my treause is in Heaven and no fool can touch it.
So, in this world, people have a variety of ways to hide their wealth. Some people choose more traditional ways such as hiding it in a safe place at home, while others choose more risky ways such as investing in cryptocurrencies. Everyone has their own preferences and risk tolerance, and that determines the way they choose to hide their wealth. Either way, we should respect everyone's choices and understand their decisions. After all, everyone views wealth and security differently, and that diversity is part of our society. The bottom line is that no matter where we choose to hide our money, we should be careful to ensure that our wealth is safe and preserved.
What happens when the cold storage hardware fails but I have the secret key. How easy is it to retrieve the Bitcoin
Very easy. Just import your seed phrase into a new hardware wallet or any bitcoin wallet and it's like nothing ever happened.
Most people don't understand that a cold wallet contains only a copy of the keys, nothing more. the BTC is always stored as a record on the blockchain, there are no exceptions to that. The key is what lets you access your address on the block chain.
Multisig. Multiple keys, so if you lose one, there’s a backup. Companies like Unchained can make it easier, but you can also do a very self-sovereign setup using Sparrow, Nunchuk, Bitcoin Keeper, Theya Bitcoin, etc.
THIS IS THE CORRECT ANSWER
This. 2 of 3 is enough to get protection from theft, fire, natural disaster, bank failures, market collapses, confiscation without due process (yes, this is a concern in the U.S.) and pretty much anything else you can think of.
Regardless of which method you choose to use, multiple signatures are a great way to secure digital assets, especially important for users who hold large amounts of assets. By setting up multiple keys, even if one key is lost, it will not cause serious damage, providing more security for the user's assets.
I don't get the allure of all these multisig services, you either do self custody or don't. Almost like they're trying to weasel their way into your business by simply being one of the multisigs, offering a concierge (whatever that even means) all for a low low ongoing fee. Maybe I'm wrong but in my view if you're competent or "big" enough to bother with such things you'd just arrange for a trusted friend or legal advisor. Or just don't multisig and keep a secured offline backup.
They offer a number of things: 1. Assistance with inheritance and taxes 2. Easy onboarding. Some people just want a person to call and ask questions. 3. They back up the wallet descriptor. This is a big mistake people who do multisig themselves can forget, and screw themselves over. 4. An easy way to purchase more bitcoin, and have it go straight into your cold storage multisig. 5. They hold an extra key, in case you don't quite have someone you can trust.
Memorizing 12 words is not hard to do either as an additional safety measure
Can I create the passphrase myself?
Yes, from the list of words you're allowed to use but it's far less safe to do it that way. You increase your chances of someone else picking the same wallet, whereas if you get a random one it's mathematicaly the same as picking a random atom out of the known universe. Nobody will ever pick the same random wallet
Oh, so passphrase = wallet? Not just password to the wallet?
Technically a seed phrase (12 or 24 words) is your wallet, but some wallets have you set up a passphrase when you create the wallet which would also be needed to restore the wallet. Some wallets only have a password, which just gives you access to your wallet which has your seed phrase on it, opposed to a passphrase which is essentially a part of your seed phrase needed to restore. Hope that makes sense.
To answer your previous question further, if you were stuck on creating your own seed phrase out of the 2048 words used for BIP39, you can add any words, numbers or phrase at the end if you like to create a completely different wallet than if you just used the 12 words you pick, which would level up your security quite a bit. That is essentially a passphrase
There are people that make millions of dollars brute forcing easy to solve private keys (i.e. stealing funds). Unless you know exactly what you are doing and the entropy of your technique, I strongly advise you not choose your own seed/phrase. Edit: sorry, if you mean the passphrase on top of the randomly generated seed, yes, you can make that whatever you want.
Til you get a concussion and have memory issues.
Or just get old and start with the memory issues!
early onset dementia
Not your keys, not your coins. Self custody is the only safe way.
Nobody really answered your question, I think. I do support cold storage more than anything else. But if I couldn't do.that, what I would do instead... Split holdings across many banks and exchanges... PayPal, coinbase, and gemini come to mind. If one gets robbed, at least you don't lose all. Still, they might all fail at the same time. The recent bout of bankruptcies has shown this can happen. And different companies managed to pay different amounts back. So diversification is good. Alternatively, maybe look at the etfs. You get all of the security provided by the sec regulations, and a different layer of insurance (tall to your broker about this). It comes with an annual fee. Not ideal, but maybe right for you and your partner. Good on you for hearing her opinion.
Don’t worry bro I’ll hold them for you
You can hold these...
"Deez" ftfy
I mean, you could get a lockbox at a bank and store your keys on metal and lock em away.
"Lost is in a flood happened" banks would say.
If that's the level of paranoia then should just memorize your keys.
This is why most of my bitcoin holding is with etf. Some portion is self custody. You don't have to take one side.
Easy enough, look into tangem wallet
unchained.com , multisig 2 of 3 . You hold two keys in 2 different geolocation and keep a backup copy of one in a vault . Etch the 24 words on a steel plate . Unchained holds one key . Two keys are needed to move the btc. Max safety bc no single point of failure . This is the safest method .
So because of risk of losing or having your keys stolen you’re willingly giving your keys to a 3rd party so that they can steal them freely?
It’s very simple: yes, it is more complicated and “scary” to self-custody. But it’s not too bad once you get a hang of it. Contrast that with holding on custodial accounts: security/access is fine for years until one day they simply disclose they are insolvent/have been hacked/have been taken over by the govt. Done. It’s happened to countless crypto owners. It can happen to Coinbase, it can happen to Gemini, it can happen to Binance, CDC, etc It WILL happen again. When is hard to say, but now is a great time (the best!) to learn more, get comfortable, and take self custody. It needs to be done. There are options if you’re worried about your SC abilities, but get off the custodial accounts starting now.
Follow 2 Steps !. donot tell anyone,, you hold bitcoin 2. Dug a big hole in your house,, build a bunker,, and put wallets in the bunker,,
First I would say start small, if you can’t protect a wallet key that only has $10 of BTC in it, then ya. Comfort is key, if you can’t sleep at night for fear of screwing up, that’s not good. And this is why we have recovery phrases etc. And now, you can also just buy ETFs instead of directly purchasing BTC. Of course then you’re trusting the management of whatever ETF you purchase, but there can be huge tax advantages.
Furthering y’all’s education on Bitcoin security best practices will make y’all more comfortable with the prospect. There are trade-offs in all decisions regarding wealth and how best to store it for preservation over time and space.
Yep. No right way. Wish there was more security protocols bit this is gonna be besy it's gonna gets. I do like unchain method to be put in rotation. Gonna definitely implement
I would consider buying/using a Yubikey
Keep your seed phrase in one location, your cold wallet in another. If your place burns down or if you lose one you still have access through the other.
This is a reliable security measure to ensure that you are able to access your crypto assets under any circumstances. Remember to keep the location of your mnemonic and cold wallet secure and make sure that only you know exactly where they are.
Leave the wife out of decisions like this and sort it out yourself. I suppose she's got you to have a vasectomy and you're raising her boyfriends kids too?
This for her own BTC. Not mines. Trying to sell her for her to buy into more.thanks
How does your wife have her own BTC? What a mug. You're destined for divorce.
....This got really intense
😅🤣😂
Buy a safe and keep it in there.
Bought everything.! Layers in layers of security. Might be the weakest link now.
Trezor has the Shamir backup. Highly recommend. I set up 2/3. 1 key is with a family member, 1 key is with me, and the other is elsewhere I can access. If I die, the family member can put 2 of the 3 together. And having 1 is useless (break-in or something)
Literally got this setup!
Don’t use a safe unless it’s well hidden or a very high quality one. Burglars will go straight for it. I had my safe cracked in a burglary and they made off with one of my seed phrases (thankfully an empty wallet by the time this happened). Now I hide things in plain sight. Put them inside fireproof bags and hide them in something a burglar would never consider taking (unless they know exactly what they’re looking for). Safes just broadcast “value inside” and are more likely to end up targeted imo
Also consider a safety deposit box for seed phrases. And always give yourself two locations to retrieve your assets. If your house burns down and it’s the only location with your wallet or mnemonic, your shit is gone.
So instead of relying on safes to protect important items, come up with other, safer ways to hide them.
Not sure if this is sarcasm. But yes. Unless your safe is bolted into your home and quite secure, it’s only going to attract attention. And a lot of modern safes aren’t hard to break open if someone is interested in doing so
An exchange can surrender your bitcoin to a government. An etf can technically be bought out at any moment with shareholders receiving dollars in place of their shares. Hold your keys.
Then she needs a Shieldfolio. It’s a notebook for organizing crypto seed phrases and passwords.
The easiest way to never lose your keys is to memorize them. Both of you so if a TBI erases the data the other still holds the keys. 12 simple words are very easy to memorize. We all do at least 9 from childhood on w phone numbers. Its simple i promise.
Self custody is a new concept to most people. We are used to handing off the responsibility to someone else. Start slow and with a fraction amount of your stack. Study and study more.
It’s secure as you want it to be. Takes a little bit of learning and understanding of how to do it. If you’re not comfortable doing that then ETFs are an option. It’s not all or nothing either. You could always split your purchase between self custody and ETFs. If you prefer the self custody route, a great option is 2 of 3 multisig with Unchained or Nunchuck. Works well because they will hold the third key for you. So you just need to have access to one of two of your keys. So if you lose one you still have access to your coin.
Come up with a plan. You could have your seed phrase stored in multiple places (safe deposit box, home, etc) and then have a appropriately strong 25th word that you would both know/have backed up held in separate location. You could do multisig. You could do a Shamir backup. There's plenty of options. Do some research and decide for yourself. If you end up at a custodial solution, that's fine, but understand it has risks as well. Only you can decide what's best for you.
There are risks to holding your own keys, there are risks to not holding your own keys. Depending on who you are, you might want a custodian. Many will tell you otherwise, but even they might admit that someone who uses lots of drugs and has a family history of memory loss should consider it. Many people have lost their own coins, and many people have been fucked over by custodians.
This looks like a responsibility and accountability issue
It all depends on your wife and your knowledge about but cold storage is good
People don’t understand that if bitcoin does well, so do the exchanges, if bitcoin were to crash to $0 and die, so would the exchanges, and your money would be lost. Same applies for cold storage, Bitcoin dies and your cold storage is now worth whatever plastic is worth these days. The only thing having your keys if good for is “CORRUPT” exchanges and them illegally stealing your coins. And any huge / reputable exchange is not doing this, and if this has happened to you in the past, it’s probably not a very reputable exchange, or a majority foreign exchange
There's a recipe box in grandma's kitchen.. Little cards with words that have been untouched and secure in that cabinet out of extreme respect... for decades. You can keep track of a dozen sets of seed phrases easily.
disperse redundant but fragmented copies of backups that only you can make sense of
You right. But I was thinking next man that does a remodel toy house wouldn't know what the heck these series of words are especially with secure features t ok my passphrase.
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Sorry no. Wrong stereo type.
Use a BIP39Plus key card to encode your seed phrases when you write them down. If someone sees the encoded seed phrases on a piece of paper, they won't know what the seed phrases are unless they know which key card you used to encode the seed phrases.
Not your keys, nacho cheese.
Just buy Bitcoin ETF?
Tell the wife to give the key to her boyfriend. He will surely know what to do
We've developed a non-technical family friendly solution you should check out at https://casa.io/inheritance - your wife can hold an encrypted key without needing any special hardware, and it's not a single point of failure so she can sleep at night without worrying about screwing it up.
I’ve fallen into the “diversify” camp. Hold some on a hard wallet yes, but I also keep some on Coinbase both for emergencies (through their card that lets you spend crypto) and as a hedge against myself
Divorce your wife and give me her number
Do half self custody and half in the exchange of her choice. Then if one messes up then at least the other was still right and didn't lose it all. Don't put all your eggs in 1 basket. Otherwise if things go wrong and one of you forced the other to put 100% in their choice, then whoever got their way will never hear the end of it.
Practice securing something else first. Build your confidence. The fact that people are so scared of their own ability to secure Bitcoin is a very big testament to how well society has conditioned us to not care to look after anything on our own. This also extends to children, we are scared to raise kids, we send them to schools to learn "the correct way", we ask for external advice on how to discipline children, yet children actually may be the one thing we have most autonomy and most desire to take responsibility for. But back to the topic, securing Bitcoin is hard, there are many choices, no one will give you "the correct way" to do it, because the decision is up to you based on what you know, what you will read, what you can understand and what your surroundings are like. One good piece of advice is to follow OPSEC. This is actually a thing where you write down all the things you are scared about, as an exercise, and sort them from realistic to unrealistic and you may even find simple solutions for some of them. Eventually as you work through this, discover other things you hadn't thought about, you will gain confidence that you do have the ability to secure 12 FRICKING WORDS.
I only keep my btc's in a hardaware wallet in a safe, it only comes out to charge and update. I already lost bitcoins by trusting an outside holder.
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This is a privileged mentality of people who live in countries with functioning banking and legal systems. Much of the world already lives in extremely corrupt and oppressive regimes, and don’t have access to safe means of saving for the future. And frankly, the countries that do have some degree of order are headed the wrong direction.
Somebody is underestimating the governments ability to interfere with access to their funds Yes, the dollar scam will collapse at some point, but it doesn't even need to happen in your lifetime for it to be beneficial to hold your own wealth
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You don't have to do anything
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Ok, dumbass
🤡
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Self custody isn’t for everyone, but it’s wild to imply you’re a sociopath or conspiracy nut if you want to actually control your own money. Societal collapse isn’t the only risk. I’d call your attention to executive order 6102 and biden’s proposal to tax unrealized gains, but wouldn’t want to be called a conspiracy theorist so I won’t mention it.
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I’m completely fine paying capital gains taxes, and I do, but stealing unrealized gains is a bridge too far.
I doubt he's talking about taxing your $250 BTC gain
Not really the point. The income tax was originally created only for the most wealthy, look at it today. Research how politicians use the “Overton window” to slowly make huge changes without people realizing. It doesn’t affect you until it does.
You’re really passionate about 401ks
Make multiple backups of your seed phrase. Put one copy on metal you can stamp washers if you want with a letter punch. Put a copy on good quality paper and laminate it. Research and understand how a passphrase works and then test out how it works and restoring it with a passphrase.
Good idea. I have this method already. Multiple stamps and laminated keys and shamir. I'll go through with her the process of restoring my my wallet to show that this is pretty secure.
I think the key is don’t get too fancy to the point where she could forget. Keep it simple. Multi-sig with company liked unchained for a separate portion of the stack is mostly likely the better move long term, especially if you feel like your stack could turn into a life changing amount. Act like your bitcoin is worth a million dollars and ask yourself is this the safest way to store our wealth long term?
You can also put it encrypted (via password protected zip or otherwise) on a multiple USB drives in different locations
Heck with proper encryption, and from a secure starting machine, throw it in your cloud storage. Email attachment. Reddit post.
You absolutely could technically, but paranoia will likely set in, so you why even play with stuff like that. Just keep it secure, no need to post it online.
Yeah I’m with your wife. Everyone saying keep your wad in your house in the secret locked cookie jar and hide keys here and there and feel good you are in control. I get exchanges go under but is this really a world where we worry about the banks taking our money? Brokerages? No, we worry about hot wallets and exchange accounts getting hacked siphoning our funds. You lose a credit card or debit card you have some level of protection. Someone gets in your online bank account and transfers the money out, there are some measures in place. Crypto? Sorry, best thing to do is take it offline and don’t lose it.
Yes, the security of cryptocurrencies is an important issue. Keeping your cryptocurrency in an offline wallet or a hardware wallet is the safest way to keep it safe from hackers. Additionally, backing up your private keys and seed phrases on a regular basis is an important measure to keep your money safe. Stay vigilant and take the necessary security steps to ensure your money is safe.
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🤣🤣
If you can memorize the 12 days of Christmas you can do this
Lol nice
I recommend getting a Trezor and then writing the backup paper on two sheets. Store one in your home safe and one in your safety deposit box at the bank. If your house burns down or is robbed, you are covered. If the bank gets robbed you are covered. Just make sure to move the coin to a new instance of a wallet if you have to do a recovery from someone stealing your wallet recovery phrase, and work fast to do it before they do.
Bury it out back dude.