7 ms·

Hardly surprising. It's hard to steal a truck of gold, especially considering the mens with guns which are typically around. It's hard to mess up physical secu

by 21 9y ago

Hardly surprising. It's hard to steal a truck of gold, especially considering the mens with guns which are typically around. It's hard to mess up physical security of a truck (not even to mention a vault), and even if you lose it, the thief still has a big and heavy problem on his hands. Real world police is good at these things. And unlike bitcoin, gold can't just teleport to Russia (using a generic non-cooperative country here) Stealing bitcoin requires just one tiny mistake in a miriad of places (starting with random number generation, ...), and then you are done with no other recourse.

justincormack 9y ago
You don't have any trucks involved when you buy gold, just some entries in a ledger changed. Some gold funds buy futures not physical gold too.
- EugeneAZ 9y ago
  People also buy shares which don't give them substantial dividends. Many wrong things are overvalued nowadays. See my comments.
  - sambe 9y ago
    Why would one care about whether a dividend is paid? Tax treatment?
DennisP 9y ago
Coinbase uses redundant hardware wallets in geographically-distributed safe deposit boxes for their cold storage. It's very unlikely that they'll have a major theft from that, and their hot wallet funds are insured. Personally I think hardware wallet random numbers are safe but anyone technical who's worried about that could generate their own from von Neumann coin flips, and turn that into a 24-word seed for setting up a hardware wallet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_coin#Fair_results_from_a_biased_coin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_coin#Fair_results_from_a_... I wouldn't say this is more difficult than securing a large amount of gold. If someone gets into your safe deposit they can just take your gold. With a hardware wallet you get three guesses of a 4 to 8 digit PIN and then it wipes itself. And you can't store gold redundantly to protect from loss.
- pjc50 9y ago
  How bug-free is the "hardware" wallet though? Especially given that we recently saw a weak key issue force Estonia to re-issue all its PKI ID cards ...
  - DennisP 9y ago
    To avoid any possibility of weak key issues, flip the coins. Key generation from the random seed uses a standard algorithm that has been public for years, with billions of dollars available for anyone who breaks it. You can check the implementation by entering your seed into other software to make sure it generates the same addresses.
- vasco 9y ago
  > With a hardware wallet you get three guesses of a 4 to 8 digit PIN and then it wipes itself > wipes itself Now that seems like a really shitty security feature. Whoever finds it can just wipe out your funds?
  - hamilyon2 9y ago
    > Now that seems like a really shitty security feature. Whoever finds it can just wipe out your funds? That is good for someone who have several secure redundant copies.
  - diggan 9y ago
    Usually you have a group of "recovery phrases" that once entered into the device, it restores itself so you can still access the funds. There is more information how this works on a Ledger Nano S for example here: https://medium.com/@trionkidnapper/ledger-nano-s-restoring-a-device-using-recovery-phrase-d80051ecf17a https://medium.com/@trionkidnapper/ledger-nano-s-restoring-a...
  - josephg 9y ago
    Its a great feature. I have a ledger nano S. It looks like a big USB key, so it would be really easy to lose. Or it could break or malfunction or get stolen or something. I don't want to risk a significant chunk of my assets on the off chance that happens, so I store the recovery keys in a safe place as a backup. Now, given that I have recovery keys stored in a safe place anyway, the ledger itself is somewhat disposable. Its still a great way to actually access my money, but if something happens to it I can just get a new ledger. So, yes, I want it to wipe itself if the wrong PIN is entered a few times. That feature means if I lose the ledger I can relax knowing my money is still safe even if somebody finds it.

by 21 9y ago

justincormack 9y ago

You don't have any trucks involved when you buy gold, just some entries in a ledger changed. Some gold funds buy futures not physical gold too.

EugeneAZ 9y ago
People also buy shares which don't give them substantial dividends. Many wrong things are overvalued nowadays. See my comments.
- sambe 9y ago
  Why would one care about whether a dividend is paid? Tax treatment?

DennisP 9y ago

Coinbase uses redundant hardware wallets in geographically-distributed safe deposit boxes for their cold storage. It's very unlikely that they'll have a major theft from that, and their hot wallet funds are insured. Personally I think hardware wallet random numbers are safe but anyone technical who's worried about that could generate their own from von Neumann coin flips, and turn that into a 24-word seed for setting up a hardware wallet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_coin#Fair_results_from_a_biased_coin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_coin#Fair_results_from_a_... I wouldn't say this is more difficult than securing a large amount of gold. If someone gets into your safe deposit they can just take your gold. With a hardware wallet you get three guesses of a 4 to 8 digit PIN and then it wipes itself. And you can't store gold redundantly to protect from loss.

pjc50 9y ago
How bug-free is the "hardware" wallet though? Especially given that we recently saw a weak key issue force Estonia to re-issue all its PKI ID cards ...
- DennisP 9y ago
  To avoid any possibility of weak key issues, flip the coins. Key generation from the random seed uses a standard algorithm that has been public for years, with billions of dollars available for anyone who breaks it. You can check the implementation by entering your seed into other software to make sure it generates the same addresses.
vasco 9y ago
> With a hardware wallet you get three guesses of a 4 to 8 digit PIN and then it wipes itself > wipes itself Now that seems like a really shitty security feature. Whoever finds it can just wipe out your funds?
- hamilyon2 9y ago
  > Now that seems like a really shitty security feature. Whoever finds it can just wipe out your funds? That is good for someone who have several secure redundant copies.
- diggan 9y ago
  Usually you have a group of "recovery phrases" that once entered into the device, it restores itself so you can still access the funds. There is more information how this works on a Ledger Nano S for example here: https://medium.com/@trionkidnapper/ledger-nano-s-restoring-a-device-using-recovery-phrase-d80051ecf17a https://medium.com/@trionkidnapper/ledger-nano-s-restoring-a...
- josephg 9y ago
  Its a great feature. I have a ledger nano S. It looks like a big USB key, so it would be really easy to lose. Or it could break or malfunction or get stolen or something. I don't want to risk a significant chunk of my assets on the off chance that happens, so I store the recovery keys in a safe place as a backup. Now, given that I have recovery keys stored in a safe place anyway, the ledger itself is somewhat disposable. Its still a great way to actually access my money, but if something happens to it I can just get a new ledger. So, yes, I want it to wipe itself if the wrong PIN is entered a few times. That feature means if I lose the ledger I can relax knowing my money is still safe even if somebody finds it.