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The same could be said for any form of cash. Probably you wouldn't keep large amounts of money in any form where you don't trust it to remain safely.

by x1798DE 11y ago

davidw 11y ago
Hence the modern banking system.
ori_b 11y ago
That's why "I've shoved my life savings in my mattress" isn't a very popular form of banking.
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
  Depends on the country
  - fixermark 11y ago
    ... in the United States, where real banks are FDIC-insured. If this crap had happened to an institution that was audited, protected, and enumerated in US dollars, this whole fiasco would be only a bad day for the Cryptsy owners, not the depositors also. But you get what you get when you go with a non-fiat currency. It's interesting to me to watch people in the BTC space re-learn the lessons learned by financial systems since the dawn of currencies; at least they're learning them faster in the digital age.
matt_wulfeck 11y ago
I agree in principle, but in practice I would say it's a lot easier to hack my father's computer than to break into his house and steal his safe.
- sirsar 11y ago
  You can store bitcoins on paper. I've done it for years. With multisig, the paper can even be split between, say, your safe, your safe deposit box, and your wallet, with 2-of-3 required.
  - matt_wulfeck 11y ago
    I like this idea. Do you have documentation for how to do it? I'm assuming it uses Shamir's secret.
    - sirsar 11y ago
      Sure thing. Using the bitcoin client directly: the addmultisigaddress command. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature Using bitaddress.org, an "Open Source JavaScript Client-Side Bitcoin Wallet Generator". Makes use of Shamir's. https://bitaddress.org https://bitaddress.org (save the page locally and run it while disconnected) Using Shamir's directly. Split one private key into multiple points. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=393159.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=393159.0 There is one nice thing about bitcoin multisig as opposed to running ssss on a private key. With multisig, you can generate three keypairs on three computers, then combine their public keys into a (say) 2-of-3 multisig. I'm pretty sure that using ssss would require the full-authority key to exist on a single computer at creation time, and it would be split afterwards, which is less secure.
    - um_ya 11y ago
      Shamir's secret isn't safe because it requires you to have both parts of the key and put them together on the same server. Standard bitcoin multisig does not use Shamir's secret, it does a pay to script hash transaction which is safer. You can try it out yourself here https://bitcore.io/api/lib/transaction https://bitcore.io/api/lib/transaction

The same could be said for any form of cash. Probably you wouldn't keep large amounts of money in any form where you don't trust it to remain safely.

by x1798DE 11y ago

The same could be said for any form of cash. Probably you wouldn't keep large amounts of money in any form where you don't trust it to remain safely.

davidw 11y ago

Hence the modern banking system.

ori_b 11y ago

That's why "I've shoved my life savings in my mattress" isn't a very popular form of banking.

CyberDildonics 11y ago
Depends on the country
- fixermark 11y ago
  ... in the United States, where real banks are FDIC-insured. If this crap had happened to an institution that was audited, protected, and enumerated in US dollars, this whole fiasco would be only a bad day for the Cryptsy owners, not the depositors also. But you get what you get when you go with a non-fiat currency. It's interesting to me to watch people in the BTC space re-learn the lessons learned by financial systems since the dawn of currencies; at least they're learning them faster in the digital age.

matt_wulfeck 11y ago

I agree in principle, but in practice I would say it's a lot easier to hack my father's computer than to break into his house and steal his safe.

sirsar 11y ago
You can store bitcoins on paper. I've done it for years. With multisig, the paper can even be split between, say, your safe, your safe deposit box, and your wallet, with 2-of-3 required.
- matt_wulfeck 11y ago
  I like this idea. Do you have documentation for how to do it? I'm assuming it uses Shamir's secret.
  - sirsar 11y ago
    Sure thing. Using the bitcoin client directly: the addmultisigaddress command. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature Using bitaddress.org, an "Open Source JavaScript Client-Side Bitcoin Wallet Generator". Makes use of Shamir's. https://bitaddress.org https://bitaddress.org (save the page locally and run it while disconnected) Using Shamir's directly. Split one private key into multiple points. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=393159.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=393159.0 There is one nice thing about bitcoin multisig as opposed to running ssss on a private key. With multisig, you can generate three keypairs on three computers, then combine their public keys into a (say) 2-of-3 multisig. I'm pretty sure that using ssss would require the full-authority key to exist on a single computer at creation time, and it would be split afterwards, which is less secure.
  - um_ya 11y ago
    Shamir's secret isn't safe because it requires you to have both parts of the key and put them together on the same server. Standard bitcoin multisig does not use Shamir's secret, it does a pay to script hash transaction which is safer. You can try it out yourself here https://bitcore.io/api/lib/transaction https://bitcore.io/api/lib/transaction