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I 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

I 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 ago
This 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 ago
  Ah 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.
  - carewell 4y ago
    I have a hardware wallet and to be honest I am more paranoid about it than about my Coinbase account.
    - MrMan 4y ago
      this is a proper risk assessment
  - robcohen 4y ago
    You do know that hardware wallets come with instructions, right?
- diab0lic 4y ago
  I can’t tell if you’re serious or sarcastic but there’s no way my mother or father would be able to do this. My wife could but would but would find it annoying enough to feign ignorance and make me do it if I told her it had to be done. I’ve got crypto enthusiast friends who refuse to use hardware wallets because of the inconvenience.
- bb88 4y ago
  Simpler than opening a fiat wallet and pulling out an Andrew Jackson to pay anonymously for my burrito? Because that's what you're competing with.
- carewell 4y ago
  I appreciate your sense of humor. Setting up a Linux distro on a USB dongle and memorizing 24 words is definitely the most user friendly crypto wallet solution I have heard about.
- Vanit 4y ago
  If this is a requirement of crypto it will never be anything but a speculation vehicle.
Operative0198 4y ago
People need to be discouraged from trusting third parties in "holding" "their" Bitcoin. Ftx debacle was a Darwin moment for a lot of nonchalant investors.
- chx 4y ago
  No, people need to be discouraged from participating in the scam. All crypto"currencies" are a scam, they have never been anything else and for the foreseeable future they can't be anything else either. Even calling them "currencies" was a genius strike of marketing because they are so obviously not one but it helps building the hype. Which is all there is.
  - Operative0198 4y ago
    Unfortunately, as long as there is some potential profit to be made by normies on crypto, it probably won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Though to give Bitcoin some of the (marketing) credit, we get Blockchain, DEFIs, DAOs and soon CBDCs out of it. So, there's some massive innovation to be had in that sector.
    - chx 4y ago
      All of that is just smoke and mirrors over the fundamental scam of it. Try to understand this: all of crypto is a scam. They can not be anything else. Not for now.
      - Operative0198 4y ago
        Sounds like you are making an emotional argument here. Outright scams do exist in the crypto arena since we are in the early days. But 2-3 decades from now, I can see crypto (or some version of it) being robust and ubiquitous.
        chx 4y ago
        No, it's a mathematical argument often made and rarely understood: due to transaction fees crypto is a negative sum game and that is all.
2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
There was a time then most people couldn’t use a keyboard either. Many software developers still can’t touch type correctly. Eventually everyone either learned or found their own way, died, or is simply locked out of modern technology. If crypto is “the way of the future”, and it some how catches on, then people are simply going to learn how it works or get locked out of future markets. Due to the seemingly large number of crypto scams, a lot of people will lose their money along the way. Not that I think it should succeed, but if there is a truly compelling use case for everyone to switch over, I don’t think we’ll let the complexity stop us.
- carewell 4y ago
  That's an oversimplification. I would argue that the more technologically complex inventions had to go through multiple rounds of adjustments in order to be able to appeal to the masses. And those inventions that could not do that effectively remained very niche. Having a hardware wallet solves very little for small-time investors (the 99%) as they are in this to speculate, not to keep their savings for the next several decades. With everything moving online, it's close to impossible to convince even more tech-savvy people to plug in a USB dongle every time they want to make a transaction. You could say that then it's their own fault if something goes wrong as they "don't own the keys", but historically this type of blame-game did not last. Government regulation and insurance is a much more effective way forward.
serf 4y ago
>I don't think you understand how foreign this concept is to the vast majority of ordinary people. I don't expect the vast majority of ordinary people to have any interest whatsoever in crypto. I would expect someone that has their entire net worth in paper currency to take steps similar to a bank in order to secure it -- a safe is safer than a mattress, a vault is safer than a safe -- I don't think that it's asking much for someone that is in a similar situation with cryptocurrency to take similarly large precautions. It takes effort and study to understand how to better secure one's life, this is no different.
- carewell 4y ago
  It takes no effort to keep your savings in a bank account. Literally no effort: no knowledge of the financial system, no specialized device ownership, no additional investment.
  - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
    It takes lots of effort to store money in a bank savings account: You need to send them info, and sign documents, and you need ID. I'm told lots of people can't get ID and don't know where the DMV is. That's why KYC is racist.
    - carewell 4y ago
      Are you assuming that people of only a specific race don't know where the DMV is? Now that's racist.
      - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
        I don't assume, just going by what college graduates have said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk
        carewell 4y ago
xtracto 4y ago
People in Mexico have been using PKI for more than 10 years. The Mexican IRS defined a system requiring everyone to get a private/public keypair and a certificate. (Including generating a cert rquest). Everyone does it, including the most computer illiterate people. Gosh, accountants are super familiar with invoices generated as signed XMLs. If a very inefficient and corrupt government could do it , I'm positive a private company could find the way. It's just a matter of finding the right analogies and encapsulating the complexity for people.
- carewell 4y ago
  Are they using these small pieces of hardware that look like a calculator? Something similar is offered by several UK banks (slide your card in, enter code, sign a transaction). Again, not sure if you understand the vast gap between this and the work required to handle a hardware wallet. As a counterargument: many more complex financial instruments existed for decades now and are not widely adopted because of both the cognitive load and the specialized software needed for participation. Adding hardware to this mix does not seem like a step in the direction of mass adoption. Just to be clear, I am not saying we should not innovate in this space. On the contrary, the current state of hardware wallets is unacceptable. The only way to make this a viable option is drastic innovation. Just repeating "not your keys, not your crypto" and "get a hardware wallet" is disingenuous.

__dundernull__ 4y ago

This 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 ago
Ah 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.
- carewell 4y ago
  I have a hardware wallet and to be honest I am more paranoid about it than about my Coinbase account.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    this is a proper risk assessment
- robcohen 4y ago
  You do know that hardware wallets come with instructions, right?
diab0lic 4y ago
I can’t tell if you’re serious or sarcastic but there’s no way my mother or father would be able to do this. My wife could but would but would find it annoying enough to feign ignorance and make me do it if I told her it had to be done. I’ve got crypto enthusiast friends who refuse to use hardware wallets because of the inconvenience.
bb88 4y ago
Simpler than opening a fiat wallet and pulling out an Andrew Jackson to pay anonymously for my burrito? Because that's what you're competing with.
carewell 4y ago
I appreciate your sense of humor. Setting up a Linux distro on a USB dongle and memorizing 24 words is definitely the most user friendly crypto wallet solution I have heard about.
Vanit 4y ago
If this is a requirement of crypto it will never be anything but a speculation vehicle.

Operative0198 4y ago

People need to be discouraged from trusting third parties in "holding" "their" Bitcoin. Ftx debacle was a Darwin moment for a lot of nonchalant investors.

chx 4y ago
No, people need to be discouraged from participating in the scam. All crypto"currencies" are a scam, they have never been anything else and for the foreseeable future they can't be anything else either. Even calling them "currencies" was a genius strike of marketing because they are so obviously not one but it helps building the hype. Which is all there is.
- Operative0198 4y ago
  Unfortunately, as long as there is some potential profit to be made by normies on crypto, it probably won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Though to give Bitcoin some of the (marketing) credit, we get Blockchain, DEFIs, DAOs and soon CBDCs out of it. So, there's some massive innovation to be had in that sector.
  - chx 4y ago
    All of that is just smoke and mirrors over the fundamental scam of it. Try to understand this: all of crypto is a scam. They can not be anything else. Not for now.
    - Operative0198 4y ago
      Sounds like you are making an emotional argument here. Outright scams do exist in the crypto arena since we are in the early days. But 2-3 decades from now, I can see crypto (or some version of it) being robust and ubiquitous.
      - chx 4y ago
        No, it's a mathematical argument often made and rarely understood: due to transaction fees crypto is a negative sum game and that is all.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago

There was a time then most people couldn’t use a keyboard either. Many software developers still can’t touch type correctly. Eventually everyone either learned or found their own way, died, or is simply locked out of modern technology. If crypto is “the way of the future”, and it some how catches on, then people are simply going to learn how it works or get locked out of future markets. Due to the seemingly large number of crypto scams, a lot of people will lose their money along the way. Not that I think it should succeed, but if there is a truly compelling use case for everyone to switch over, I don’t think we’ll let the complexity stop us.

carewell 4y ago
That's an oversimplification. I would argue that the more technologically complex inventions had to go through multiple rounds of adjustments in order to be able to appeal to the masses. And those inventions that could not do that effectively remained very niche. Having a hardware wallet solves very little for small-time investors (the 99%) as they are in this to speculate, not to keep their savings for the next several decades. With everything moving online, it's close to impossible to convince even more tech-savvy people to plug in a USB dongle every time they want to make a transaction. You could say that then it's their own fault if something goes wrong as they "don't own the keys", but historically this type of blame-game did not last. Government regulation and insurance is a much more effective way forward.

serf 4y ago

>I don't think you understand how foreign this concept is to the vast majority of ordinary people. I don't expect the vast majority of ordinary people to have any interest whatsoever in crypto. I would expect someone that has their entire net worth in paper currency to take steps similar to a bank in order to secure it -- a safe is safer than a mattress, a vault is safer than a safe -- I don't think that it's asking much for someone that is in a similar situation with cryptocurrency to take similarly large precautions. It takes effort and study to understand how to better secure one's life, this is no different.

carewell 4y ago
It takes no effort to keep your savings in a bank account. Literally no effort: no knowledge of the financial system, no specialized device ownership, no additional investment.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  It takes lots of effort to store money in a bank savings account: You need to send them info, and sign documents, and you need ID. I'm told lots of people can't get ID and don't know where the DMV is. That's why KYC is racist.
  - carewell 4y ago
    Are you assuming that people of only a specific race don't know where the DMV is? Now that's racist.
    - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
      I don't assume, just going by what college graduates have said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW2LpFkVfYk
      - carewell 4y ago

xtracto 4y ago

People in Mexico have been using PKI for more than 10 years. The Mexican IRS defined a system requiring everyone to get a private/public keypair and a certificate. (Including generating a cert rquest). Everyone does it, including the most computer illiterate people. Gosh, accountants are super familiar with invoices generated as signed XMLs. If a very inefficient and corrupt government could do it , I'm positive a private company could find the way. It's just a matter of finding the right analogies and encapsulating the complexity for people.

carewell 4y ago
Are they using these small pieces of hardware that look like a calculator? Something similar is offered by several UK banks (slide your card in, enter code, sign a transaction). Again, not sure if you understand the vast gap between this and the work required to handle a hardware wallet. As a counterargument: many more complex financial instruments existed for decades now and are not widely adopted because of both the cognitive load and the specialized software needed for participation. Adding hardware to this mix does not seem like a step in the direction of mass adoption. Just to be clear, I am not saying we should not innovate in this space. On the contrary, the current state of hardware wallets is unacceptable. The only way to make this a viable option is drastic innovation. Just repeating "not your keys, not your crypto" and "get a hardware wallet" is disingenuous.