5 ms·
1. Send it to a hardware wallet address.
by the__alchemist 4y ago
1. Send it to a hardware wallet address.
- infotogivenm 4y agoSend what from where? Consider: You had to send fiat to an exchange to buy the coin. Unfortunately before you have a chance to spend it, the exchange halts all withdrawals. How did your hardware wallet help you here?
- the__alchemist 4y agoYou click a few things on the Coinbase page and copy+paste the address now; don't wait for the halt.
- __dundernull__ 4y agoWhat in the world are you talking about? There is a period of waiting for confirmation, but after that you will have custody of your coins. It’s the users call whether they leave coins on the exchange or move them. The chance of an exchange going down during a transaction that is planned to be outgoing from the exchange is slim, even for nefarious exchanges. Just move your coins after you buy them, don’t leave them on the exchange.
- infotogivenm 4y agoCorrect. Anytime an exchange becomes insolvent, some number of people end up losing everything - just by trying to onboard their money into the system (even if they plant to move it to hardware wallet ASAP). By your own admission, there is often even a mandatory waiting period here. The point being: “good. not your keys not your coins” is not an appropriate response to exchange insolvency, and further makes you sound like a complete asshat. “just avoid the insolvency window!” is better advice (edit to add an explicit “/s” on this last sentence. Dunno what is with these downvotes).
- __dundernull__ 4y agoI think the key point here is that the insolvency window is not an obvious thing to avoid, however you can always check to see if you have the keys, regardless of the state of the exchange. So without considering the insolvency of the exchange, if you don’t have the keys, a user shouldn’t think they have singular access to those coins. For this reason, I don’t think it makes you an asshat to assert that if you don’t have the keys you don’t have the coins. It’s meant to be a warning of something to avoid. Also how do you propose one avoid the insolvency window? It’s something that’s defined post-action, whereas evaluating ownership of the keys can be accomplished at any time.
- infotogivenm 4y agoI 100% agree with you that this is what OP intended. My point is it’s a base trivialization of the facts, and regardless of whether you use your own wallet or not exchange insolvency is a viable risk to users of the ecosystem. There is nothing “good” about it, and further making broad generalizations like this about financial victims that are not 100% correct is, indeed, asshat-ery. But the latter is merely an opinion and precludes how one treats others. > Also how do you propose one avoid the insolvency window? I do not propose it can be addressed, but maybe someone else has ideas.
- garbagetime 4y agoI don't think you have a good point. There are two separate things at play here. The first is having an organisation that can't be trusted hold "your" coins for a long period of time. It is a bad idea because you could hold the coins yourself (that is, there is a less-bad alternative). The second is buying coins from that same organisation. This may not be a bad idea, because the risks involved in the short transaction may be very low, and you may not have a better alternative.
- infotogivenm 4y agoYes, correct analysis. Again, my point is that regardless of whether either of these things is a “good idea” or “bad idea”, it is not fair to call exchange insolvency a good thing; *one* reason here being that the second “thing” “has to exist” for the ecosystem to work. I really did not expect this to be so controversial a point, but I suppose I haven’t done the best job expressing it.
- carewell 4y agoI don't think you understand how foreign this concept is to the vast majority of ordinary people. Buying a trusted hardware wallet, setting it up, moving their crypto, storing keys somewhere, storing the hardware wallet somewhere, etc. Plus most investors/wallets own far less than 1 BTC.
- __dundernull__ 4y agoThis is dead simple for anyone who does the research even without a hardware wallet. Use a usb based OS like tails, make an address, write down the 24 words or memorize them.
- sillysaurusx 4y agoAh yes, tails, the most user friendly and accessible of all OS’es. :) I think you’re right that it’s still simple, but what’s lacking is a “follow these exact steps” guide. People don’t want to think too much about it, they just want to throw money at crypto. Something like: 1. Buy X hardware wallet 2. Open account at X bank, store seed phrase in the vault. If your house burns down, your money is safe. 3. Here’s exactly how to use the hardware wallet for all common operations. Do this (and nothing else), and your money is safe. If it was wrapped up in a nice package with a pretty red bow on it, people would buy into it. But I’d say I’m more crypto-inclined than most tech people, yet I’m still nervous. I was already burned by Gox and not eager to repeat that, so Coinbase is out. Which leaves hardware wallets, which I know nothing about.
- echelon 4y agoThis works for the 0.001% of the population that understands how to use PGP and sign their own email. For the bitcoin economy to hold any significant value whatsoever, you need the people who are using exchanges and "banks". If it works for only a handful of people, you may as well trade unsealed copies of "Zelda II" between each other.
- beambot 4y agoHardware doesn't have an indefinite shelf life either. Are people also keeping engravings & whatnot as ultimate backup?
- bb88 4y agoBTC will change sooner by politics than the shelf life of hardware.
- RustyRussell 4y agoActually, there are a whole range of metal seed backup systems available! But seriously, write down the 12 seed words, keep it somewhere safe. Make another copy, tear it in half (6 words each) and keep one with a relative and one at work. Check them at 1, 2, 4, then every 6 months. But for most people this is all overkill: just use a mobile wallet.
- throwup 4y ago> tear it in half (6 words each) This isn't a good idea; every word an attacker knows makes the remaining words exponentially easier to brute force. if you're going to split your key into pieces, you should use something like https://linux.die.net/man/1/ssss https://linux.die.net/man/1/ssss