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Here's an unrelated but related question: How do you store your wallet / private keys where you would be comfortable storing an amount of money that's importan
by nickjj 5y ago
Here's an unrelated but related question:
How do you store your wallet / private keys where you would be comfortable storing an amount of money that's important to you?
It feels like a bunch of consumer grade options we have are kind of flaky:
Flash drives are extremely undependable. I've had a few fail to read after sitting in a closet for a year.
SSDs can supposedly have data loss pretty quickly if left unpowered (days to months).
DVDs have decent lasting power (I have some CDs that still work after 15 years) but this makes me nervous because it's so susceptible to damage.
HDDs also make me think what would happen if it's not powered on for 5-10+ years (it's mechanical, does it use some type of oil internally to keep friction down?).
Putting it on the cloud seems risky, even with encryption at rest and now we need to backup the encryption keys.
I guess tape is still our best bet?
I would also think if you have a decent amount of crypto you'd likely want to have 3 backups in your apartment along with 3 offsite backups, perhaps lock boxes in a few different banks in different towns (or even hundreds of miles apart).
Basically it still feels like a huge pain in the butt to keep digital currency secure and available. The more backups you have, the more risk you have around being compromised but the less backups you have the more susceptible you are to data loss and losing everything.
- topranks 5y agoWhile “being your own bank”, aka keeping all your savings in a shoe box under the bed, is idiotic, you can simply write the seed phrases down in ink on paper. So you don’t necessarily need some digital storage to keep them.
- ur-whale 5y agoJameson Lopp has a ton of resources on the topic (bitcoin centric, but lots of it translates immediately to other cryptos): https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/security.html https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/security.html
- CydeWeys 5y agoPaper backups are the best option for this. Private keys are simple enough that a whole wallet can be printed to a single piece of paper using an OCR-friendly font.
- robbiepapiere 5y agoI wouldn‘t send it to a printer (and certainly not generate the passphrase on a computer that is connected to the internet). Write by hand, it is only 12 to 24 words.
- jethro_tell 5y agoYou can get a printer without a network port. You can skip the hardware wallet and print the whole key as a qr code or just text in an ocr font. Then there's no chance for hardware failure.
- SamReidHughes 5y agoA copy could end up stored on the printer's hard drive. Figuring out whether you have a printer where that's possible is more work than writing it by hand.
- detaro 5y agokeys are small, so you can just write them on paper or other material.
- SamReidHughes 5y agoYou write down the N different Shamir passphrases of your hierarchical deterministic wallet on paper and store them in N different locations. Or for longevity and fire resistance, use metal foil and a punch.
- tinco 5y ago-
- thro3489438934 5y agoThis is the kind of information you shouldn't post online, especially when it can be traced to your real identity.
- tinco 5y agoIt's in the past, but sure you're right I'll delete it.
- svnpenn 5y agoSame as everything else, safe deposit box https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_deposit_box https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_deposit_box
- ozim 5y agoEven on Wikipedia they write it is a "legacy service" so it is more like movie gimmick than something useful.
- Willamin 5y agoI use a seed phrase for wallets that I care to backup. I print or write the phrase on paper, then store it in a safe physical place. This has the added benefit that you can trivially create offsite backups as well: print or write another copy.
- Rastonbury 5y agoThis is what stresses me out the most about crypto. The supposed gold standard is a hardware wallet and access is done via 12-word recovery phrase but even that is sketchy. If I'm not wrong all an attack has to do is get recovery phrase and load it into another hardware wallet if they don't have mine, this is functionality is there if the hardware wallet fails. If I've been doxxed and have several mil in crypto, thieves can break into my house steal and crack my safe or hold me at knifepoint and ask me to open it. I'd want to keep it on in encrypted file but even that is sketchy if I have to have in on multiple clouds.
- instagraham 5y ago> thieves can break into my house steal and crack my safe or hold me at knifepoint and ask me to open it. you: "sorry, i have a multi-sign wallet and the other signatory lives at the other end of the world" thieves: understandable, have a nice day
- shadowgovt 5y agoActual thieves: "Cool. We're going to kidnap you and beat you until your other signatory coughs up access."
- ttfkam 5y ago+1 Something something xkcd $5 wrench
- njarboe 5y agoMany people are very rich and don't own crypto. You can kidnap them also and do the same thing. This is common in many parts of the world. The US used to have this problem also and got it under control by the state focusing on capturing kidnappers and putting them in jail. Crypto does make the transfer of anonymous money a bit easier, but so does motor vehicles.
- pjc50 5y agothieves: it's fine, you can ring them and explain the situation as we remove your fingernails (This technique has been used in real bank robberies; both of the people required to open Northern Bank had their families taken hostage https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/oct/09/northernbankrobbery.background https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/oct/09/northernbankrobbe... , and that was for a mere £28m in easily traceable physical money!)
- ______-_-______ 5y agoThe classic 3-2-1 backup rule applies here too. But in this case, the stakes are much higher :) I personally use: - Primary -- hardware wallet with memorized PIN - Backup -- seed phrase memorized - Backup -- seed phrase written on paper - Backup -- seed phrase split into pieces using Shamir's Secret Sharing, written on paper, stored with friends and family members
- UncleMeat 5y agoI think that a ton of people are going to find out that their SSS technique fails when they don't use k-of-n and then one of their friends loses the piece of paper. I have a hard enough time keeping my "absolutely critical credentials" doc safe through things like house moves. I can't imagine relying on several different people to all do this perfectly for wealth that isn't actually theirs. SSS is precisely the sort of "wow sounds awesome" thing that would capture the attention of geeks without really deeply thinking about the most likely failure modes.
- pjkundert 5y agoUse SLIP-39, and a hardware wallet that allows recovery from SLIP-39 shards (eg. a Trezor). With BIP-39, you are simply going to lose your wallet, eventually. It's almost inevitable. Either because you lose the 12- or 24-word passphrase, OR because someone else finds one of your backups. I've written a decent Python implementation, here, which is simple enough to review: https://github.com/pjkundert/python-slip39/ https://github.com/pjkundert/python-slip39/
- lottin 5y agoWelcome to 'being your own bank'.
- ajross 5y agoThere's a misconception here, I think. "Backups" are the problem, not the solution. Once any one of them is compromised, the money is gone. Having more backups increases your risk. I don't play in this world, but if I did, I'd note that the actual keys required to define a wallet are trivially small and comparatively easily re-entered at a keyboard by hand. If you're got millions in this stuff that you need to park, delete it from the internet, print it out, and stick it in a safe.
- ozim 5y agoAre lock boxes in banks still a thing in the US? In Europe you have to go to some central bank to get such a service, I don't think medium cities branches do that.
- emteycz 5y ago> In Europe you have to go to some central bank to get such a service, I don't think medium cities branches do that. What? No. It's absolutely normal even in very small towns (~ 5k). Also, post offices offer the service.
- ozim 5y agoWhich country? You can get a PO box but it is not a safe deposit and would not keep there anything valuable for longer that a day or two. Getting a box in the bank on the other hand was tough as I was looking for it in Poland/Netherlands/Germany, banks don't care and it is more hassle for them than it is worth.
- hansvm 5y agoThey are, but your protections are pretty minimal. We have more theft by our government (civil asset forfeiture) than by actual thieves. Not just that, banks themselves have proven to be unreliable with boxes independent of government theft. Example CAF case: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-19/fbi-seizure-cash-beverly-hills-vault-spawns-epic-court-battle%3f_amp=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/california/stor... Example bank fuck-up: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box...
- pjc50 5y ago> where you would be comfortable storing an amount of money that's important to you? I wouldn't. I'd give it to an insured institution in my local jurisdiction to look after. It's not a perfect solution but it doesn't rely on the horrible impermanence of IT.
- sfe22 5y agoBut then cash, gold, stocks are all better options to hold, since you lose the only apparent benefit of crypto.
- hogrider 5y agoBut there's no exchange that will hold my funds and is insured like this right? Makes me wonder if El Salvador is requiring something like that, BTC being legal tender and all.
- TingPing 5y agoIt would be years before an SSD starts degrading.
- mgerdts 5y agoBut that's not the standard to which solid state storage is tested. See slide 27 of https://www.snia.org/sites/default/files/SSSI/NVMe_SAS_SATA_Endurance_White_Paper.pdf https://www.snia.org/sites/default/files/SSSI/NVMe_SAS_SATA_...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- danielvf 5y agoI work for a crypto company. This is actually a solved problem. The solution is to use multi-sig wallets - at least for amounts that would be missed. A company might have a "5 of 8" multi-sig. This means that to move money, five of the eight team member accounts with keys have to agree and sign off on each transaction. This is massively better than secret sharing - once a secret is put together, that secret then works for all time and could be stole by the person that put it together. By using multi-sigs, every new transactions has to be agreed on. With a multi-sig, if you forgot your hardware wallet's PIN, or lost it, then other team members can remove the old account from the multi-sig and add the new account. You are back in business. When you backup a single account's key to paper or other computers, then anyone getting access to one backup compromises the entire thing. However, with a multi-sig, an attacker would have to gain access to many of the signing account keys to steal funds. This scheme works for individuals too. You could have a 2 of 4 multi-sig wallet, two hardware wallets that you usually use for authentication, and then two backup paper keys stored in different locations. For your normal use, you just use your two hardware wallets. If you forget a password / lose one, then you can use one of the paper wallets, plus your remaining hardware wallet to get it back. If you loose both, use both paper keys. You can also rotate the paper key backups if you want, by removing the old and adding the new.
- Geee 5y agoCryptocurrencies use mnemonic phrases as a master key for a wallet. All the private keys are generated deterministically from the master key. BIP-39 mnemonic phrase is a list of 12 or 24 words. It is quite easy to write down on a piece of paper or metal, and/or memorize. Offline hardware wallet is usually used to securely generate and use the key for signing transactions.