Say you've done everything right and used 3 coldcards spread across 3 geographic locations using 2of3 multisig.

You're feeling pretty proud of yourself, your coins are super safe.

Then it turns out the RNG in the coldcard mk2 was badly/maliciously implemented and is completely insecure. You need to move your coins right now.

You can probably see the issue

> if the judge says that the transaction must be reversed, you get it reversed, even if that means delivering cash in briefcases or something like that

So if I pay cash for something, I can get it back if a judge orders the counterparty to do so.

Why is cryptocurrency not the same? Can I not go to a court and get an order, exactly the same?

Of course I may not know the counterparty's identity or they may be in a hostile jurisdiction, but how is that different to cash that has escaped my jurisdiction?

> If the North Koreans take your money, your money is taken

If you wire your money to North Korea, forget about it for a week, and then ask a court to intervene you aren’t getting your funds back.

> In systems with a basis in technology, final means final. If the North Koreans take your money, your money is taken.

This seems obviously not true. If someone in New York steals your money then courts in New York can order them to give it back even if it's Bitcoin. If they don't comply then they get held in contempt until they do or the police seize their computer with the keys on it etc.

If the person who stole it is in North Korea then the courts with jurisdiction would be the ones in North Korea, which may not be to your advantage, but how is it any different from what happens after the money was transferred to a bank in North Korea? Or, for that matter, what happens if someone in North Korea has the stolen money deposited into a US account and then spends it before you get around to reversing the transaction?

The problem isn't what kind of technology you use, it's that someone can transfer stolen assets into a jurisdiction that won't help you get them back. Regardless of what payment system you use, they can get the same effect by using the stolen money to buy gold bullion or similar and have it shipped to them in their jurisdiction, and once it crosses the border they're not giving it back.

And if you do feel confident, you probably shouldn't own crypto either.

Even if you are not hacked, or otherwise lose access to the funds, they are not unlikely to become worthless simply due to the system with the stable coins collapsing.

The liquidity can easily disappear, much more so than with Fiat currency or other assets linked to real economies.

You cannot protect yourself from being scammed in that way, even if you do hold on to your keys.

I’m not saying they are perfect, but on aggregate they are better than hardware wallets. Legally they will be responsible if your money is lost. They are about as close as you can get to the type of legal assurances provided by a bank.

If you sell a device specifically for storing large amounts of liquid assets, that puts a huge target on that device. You are basically asking for supply chain attacks

An ordinary MacBook does not have that issue. If you are a high-value target, you can further decrease your risk profile by buying it from a random physical store, further preventing targeted attacks.

The post you're replying to is arguing that it wouldn't be feasible to do that with a MacBook (at least if you buy it off the shelf at Best Buy).

Boy that was a slog, to dig deep enough through the slop to find the technical details…

In retrospect @gigachad’s summary is worth as much as both articles combined, but for the Clauded technical source (with pictures!) that Ledger’s Claude-release refers to: https://www.tibane.net/research/ledger-nano-x-implant

>Hardware wallets are air-gapped.

The ones with hidden eSIMs aren't!

Nobody said hardware wallets aren't air-gapped. They said take something normal and usual enough not to be an attractive target for bespoke crypto stealers, and then airgap that to make your wallet.

The sensitivity of my bank password is much lower than a seed phrase because most bank transactions can be reversed as long as I notice them in time and prove my identity to my bank.

With bitcoin nothing is reversible so every step of the process is a huge security risk where you can fall off a cliff and experience financial permadeath of "your" crypto, assuming a sufficiently motivated attacker.

Even banks find it hard to recover: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Bank_robbery

Caused by an account take over? This is letter of the law stuff and something bank (and other financial firms) employees receive specific training on. The customers loss is capped and their bank is on the hook.

For inter-bank transactions involving a scam that causes the customer to “voluntarily” send money it depends on the rail. But US ACH rules cover reversals due to fraud and have pretty substantial rules about it.

Usually how it goes is if someone hacks your account or steals credit card info. You get refunded. If a scammer convinces you to willingly send the money, you’re out of luck.

The truth is that banks often have pretty bad security and customer service, but the risk of getting caught after stealing crypto is virtually zero when compared to scamming someone’s bank account balance.

Because the scammers are instructing victims to use methods that are difficult or impossible to reverse, such as gift cards or cryptocurrency.

yet