6 ms·
That's a bit weird. Can't you just print a paper wallet. Put that in a safety deposit box. Once locked up nice and tight, transfer bitcoin to it.
by Lerc 9y ago
That's a bit weird.
Can't you just print a paper wallet. Put that in a safety deposit box. Once locked up nice and tight, transfer bitcoin to it.
- charlesdm 9y agoA pension fund, which is run by a board of directors and manages $400bn, is not going to print a paper wallet to hold $2bn worth of Bitcoin. They have more important things to worry about, like investing their $400bn and achieving a decent return on their entire holdings. Second to that (or maybe even more importantly), it's ass covering. Imagine the headlines: "CALPERS INVESTS $2BN IN BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM, AND LOSES ACCESS KEYS". If you're managing a fund, you just don't risk that. These custodian fees (which will come down eventually) are a cost of doing business to access the asset class. I would assume those entire crypto holdings also to be insured as part of said fee, in the event something does go wrong.
- pishpash 9y agoStill, how is that more expensive than keeping physical gold?
- charlesdm 9y agoIts 1.2% a year -- that's expensive. He states Gold ETFs pay approx. 0.08% per year to store bullion (no idea whether that's a correct number though). But hey, it's better than paying a 2-20% fee to a hedge fund vehicle. Fees are already coming down!
- alex_young 9y agoWhy not cast the hashes inside gold bars? Then just keep storing the gold. Btc storage for free.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- garmaine 9y agoLike this? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196320.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196320.0
- knocte 9y agoThis is why multi-sig exists. Put the funds in a 6-of-10 account, done. You would need a 60% attack (60% of the executives to collude/conspire, or 60% being hacked/kidnapped) to be robbed.
- charlesdm 9y agoYes, if you're a $10m hedge fund or a small family office. But not if you need to manage $400bn; then you (really) want a custodian. These people allocate and mostly invest in funds with exposure to certain asset classes (private equity, VC, hedge funds, equity and bond funds, etc).
- knocte 9y ago> you (really) want a custodian Are you really referring to a single (non-plural) custodian...?
- wmf 9y agoA custodian company, not a person.
- knocte 9y agoAh, sure, and that custodian company will most likely hold the bitcoins in a multisig account. Now you have to pay a company for this service and also have counter-party risk. Great. Maybe the risk and cost is not worth it and setting up a multi-sig inhouse is worth it?
- asadlionpk 9y agoLooks like most don't think this way. They think that they don't have the 'expertise' in-house for maintaining multisig account. So they will just have to hire an 'expert' custodian to reduce risk.
- 9y ago
- rakoo 9y agoSo it's not "more expensive to keep safe", it's "more expensive to use as a trading asset", which is completely different.
- charlesdm 9y agoIt's expensive if you lose it -- which is all that matters to these people.
- rebuilder 9y agoI can't see "CALPERS INVESTS $2BN IN CRYPTO AND GETS SCAMMED" being any better, honestly. I'm sure you can insure crypto holdings, but considering the risks, the cost must be exorbitant.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- synicalx 9y agoBut then, at the very least, that's no less expensive than securing gold. You still have a physical object that you need to secure and protect.
- __s 9y agoThe physical object however takes up much less space & through a multisig address breaching one storage point is insufficient
- synicalx 9y agoA bit less space, unless you're talking about storing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars worth of gold. Not to mention for a common thief it's a little hard to turn gold into cash anonymously whereas that's very easy to do with BTC.
- jstanley 9y agoIt's not easy to do it with BTC. If you have contacts that can do it for BTC they can most likely do the same for gold.
- canoebuilder 9y agoIn most cases the unwieldiness of a ton of gold compared to X number of crypto-coins serves as a superior security mechanism for a 'store of value.' A ton of gold exists in a single time and space, meaning security measures are highly localized and conveyance to another location requires a non-trivial energy expenditure. The more or less "pure information" basis of crypto-currencies mean the security mechanisms surrounding them must be "global," they can be potentially accessed unauthorized by someone anywhere on the planet through means of social engineering, exploiting faulty code, or similar. And once accessed the "pure information" can vanish from the reach of the ostensible owner with just a few electrons cycling through a few circuits. In fact what percentage of the total supply of bitcoin were acquired in just such a manner?
- Lazare 9y agoCorrect. You can also just shove the gold bars in a safety deposit box too, so from a certain point of view both are free (or $100/year for the safety deposit box, whatever). But if you have a significant amount of gold or bitcoin (ie, 7+ figures when expressed as USD), a safety deposit box is not going to cut it. You have way too much risk (thieves, fraud, losing the key, securing the key, insurance, liability, etc., etc., etc.) You want someone else to store your gold (or bitcoins). And people charge 15 times more to store Bitcoin than gold.
- charlesdm 9y agoTo be honest: it's much easier for someone to steal $100m in Bitcoin than it is to steal $100m in gold.
- canoebuilder 9y agoThat's a very good point, people like to paint the hyper-mobility of transference of crypto-currencies as superior to precious metals. But for most people seeking a "store of value" they are more interested in having that value sit somewhere safe and undisturbed. And from this point of view the propensity for a crypto-currency to suddenly vanish if every 'i' is not dotted and every 't' not carefully crossed, is rightly seen as a liability for the 'store of value' game. Also interesting to consider is the kind of security precaution spread that exists between between various value levels in precious metals, vs. crypto-currencies. For example, consider the difference in security mechanisms employed by someone storing a couple gold coins in a box in their house, vs. Fort Knox. Whereas your security precautions for storing $10, or $1,000,000 in crypto-currency are not a whole lot different.
- Lazare 9y agoQuite right, which is the point of the linked article I think. Storing very valuable, very portable things is hard. And few are harder than bitcoin. Saying "just get a safety deposit box" isn't a great answer.
- givehimagun 9y agoCrazy idea - if you're paranoid enough, could you print your BTC on real metal that could last as long as our physical currency does? It loses its liquidity, but it gains permanence.
- fragsworth 9y agoThat doesn't make any sense. What are you trying to accomplish? I have a feeling you are misunderstanding how these things work.
- rwmj 9y ago(Not the original poster) I suppose it's cold storage, but on something which is more permanent than paper. Of course it's a bit pointless since even the cheapest most acidic paper should last for 20 years or so which is long enough for storing bitcoins for the vast majority of funds.
- garmaine 9y agoGoogle “crypto steel”
- 21 9y agoAnd then you are vulnerable to a single guy with a phone camera. If I take a picture of your gold stash it doesn't become mine.