Remix.run Logo
▲ nkrisc a day ago

Then can you give an example of what you would consider a solution, whether hypothetical or real?

▲fps-hero a day ago | parent | next [-]

Banks and payment providers (Visa Mastercard AMX) provide services beyond simply a store of wealth and a mechanism to transfer it.

Actually 2FA, hardware biometrics, behaviour based fraud prevention and personal confirmation of suspicious transactions. If you’re using credit they can refund fraudulent transactions, and there is the chargeback mechanism. This is probably banking system dependent, but in AUS there is a refund mechanism for mistaken/fraudulent traditional bank transactions.

BTC has effectively none of the safety net, and humans are fallible. We need the safety net. It’s the hugest barrier to adoption. Exchanges do a far better job of managing the risks than trusting your wealth to a hardware wallet.

▲miki123211 a day ago | parent | next [-]

In financial systems with a basis in law, no transaction is ever final. It doesn't matter what the protocol says or what the technology is capable of, 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.

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

This piece from Patrick mcKenzie explains this well https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/the-900m-wire...

▲rlpb 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> 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?

▲JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> 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.

▲kasey_junk an hour ago | parent [-]

Are there any American banks that will let you wire money to North Korea?

▲JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

No. But pretty much any American bank will let you wire to a new Chinese or Singaporean account that sweeps funds every evening to other jurisdiction.

▲AnthonyMouse 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 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.

▲lrvick a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have worked for and/or audited the majority of exchanges, that mostly white-label a much smaller number of players.

I have yet to see a single one, not one, that had a system of custody that did not allow any one of hundreds of people, most not even employees, to walk away with all of the funds.

There are no standards for security that apply to crypto custodians and the mostly fail to do the bare minimums.

If you use even a top ten custodian, operate under the assumption that the funds are in multi billion dollar plaintext wallets sitting on AWS servers the whole team has ssh access to from the same laptops they "npm install" random shit to all day.

Honestly if you do not feel confident custodying crypto yourself, you should probably not own any.

▲user43928 3 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

▲lrvick 13 minutes ago | parent [-]

Good to hedge bets. The value of Fiat can go to zero at any time too. Especially when leadership is always talking about printing trillions of dollars to give every citizen checks.

▲ameliaquining a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The safety net makes you less secure against the U.S. government, but more secure against everyone else. That's the right choice for almost all users, but I still think it's at least kind of good that people have a choice.

▲motionlessveloc a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You sure about that last sentence?

https://de.fi/rekt-database

▲fps-hero a day ago | parent [-]

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.

▲fps-hero a day ago | parent [-]

Anacdote, I have a friend who is a locksmith. I needed his services one day, gave him a call, and it turned out his day job had evolved since I last talked to him 5 years ago.

Basically, he was now just a safe cracker. He is a a locksmith, but 100% of his full time hours are cracking safes. He didn’t even carry around the stuff in his van to repin a lock. He gave me mates rates but the shop had to do it.

This man was attending multiple callouts, per day, to crack into a safe. Because of, you guessed it, human fallibility.

In a city with with millions of people, basically a hundreds of people needed a single locksmiths service because they had locked themselves out of there own “personal store of wealth”.

I’ve heard zero such examples through traditional banking, with the exception of stolen cards.

▲eichin 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

... this sounds like the "use random password, discard it, always log in via the email-recovery path" approach, applied to the physical world :-)

▲ 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
▲ a day ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
▲whywhywhywhy a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Use a device that’s mass produced enough it can’t be targeted e.g a MacBook, then keep it airgapped and don’t do normal computing on it.

▲Gigachad a day ago | parent | next [-]

Hardware wallets are air-gapped. The issue here was a distributor got acquired and then snuck a chip in that could read the spi link between the microcontroller and the screen. The chip had its own cellular modem and could send the passphrase that was shown on the screen to the attackers.

▲wongarsu a day ago | parent | next [-]

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.

▲ameliaquining a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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).

▲alwa a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

▲throwawayfifo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Hardware wallets are air-gapped.

The ones with hidden eSIMs aren't!

▲LoganDark a day ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

▲QuadmasterXLII a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

airgapped pre crypto devices are extra safe: break out the ti82! don’t buy a ti82 for this purpose, it has to be one you had in your closet. If a blog post describes how to code it in TiBasic then affiliate links a calculator in ebay, well…

▲fsflover 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Qubes OS can be more secure than airgapping in some cases: https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/introduction/faq.html#how...

▲mattmaroon a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Using the banking system instead of crypto.

▲ArtTimeInvestor a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is none yet.

If there was one, someone would write down the steps necessary and put them on the internet. But I have never seen a sound description of how to self-custody Bitcoin in a safe way.

The hardest part seems to not even be the one that currently creates all those problems - the hardware and software used. The hardest part is storing the key (for example a seed phrase). If anyone says they know a way to safely store Bitcoin, my first question is: How do you store the key?

▲floss_silicate 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There are a few out there, but this is probably the best: https://github.com/bowlarbear/yeti-2.0

▲skinfaxi a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Where do you store your bank password? Couldn't the same be used for a seed phrase?

▲rspeele 2 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

▲everyday7732 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

remember it? Write it down somewhere hidden if you have to.

▲littlecranky67 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

get a brand new, cheap laptop or machine (even a raspberry pi works) that you randomly pickup at the store (no delivery order). Install debian 13, install electrum, airgap the device, reboot and generate 1-of-2 your wallet keys.

The wipe the device, use any non-debian other linux (or BSD) to generated the 2-of-2 wallet key.

▲0cf8612b2e1e 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Why would you ever connect it to the internet? Air gap forever. Physically rip out the radio, only load software by CD (ideally not through a USB interface).

▲pants2 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

MPC or multi-sig is a pretty good solution, you can require a 2/3 sign off from different custody solutions (ie. a hardware, desktop, and mobile wallet)

▲notyourwork a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The existing financial system which provides protection to consumers. Crypto doesn’t solve the problem the general public assumes it does and hype has inflated its value dramatically.