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This sounds like a straw man argument. It is simple to store and secure your cryptocurrency in a cold wallet. 1) Buy a Ledger* for $80 2) Make new 24 word pa

This sounds like a straw man argument. It is simple to store and secure your cryptocurrency in a cold wallet. 1) Buy a Ledger* for $80 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. 3) Copy your deposit address. 4) Reset the Ledger. Hot wallets are harder and should never be more that 1-10% of your holdings. Most are safe using a combination of lit exchanges, like Coinbase and a phone wallet for their spending money. You are GREATLY exaggerating the compelxity. * https://shop.ledger.com/products/ledger-nano-s-plus/ruby-red https://shop.ledger.com/products/ledger-nano-s-plus/ruby-red

jgalt212 3y ago
> 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. What are you rain man?
thih9 3y ago
Perhaps it’s not complex. Still, it’s not easy. It’s hard to know what approach to pick, or even which source to trust, especially when you’re starting. And it’s extra hard to continuously manage and improve your security; even moving coins to cold storage.
- lxgr 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure (at least I really hope) that GP was kidding. Single-shot memorizing 24 words is utterly out of the question for almost everybody.
  - thih9 3y ago
    It’s doable, e.g. you could take the names of twelve months in two languages; maybe even backwards and interspersed. Still, the challenge is to live with that long term. E.g. to not write it down. Or to write it down in a sufficiently cryptic way. But not too cryptic because you still need to remember it. Also you shouldn’t reuse this system. And every now and then you should check that it continues to work as you expect. And…
    - lxgr 3y ago
      > you could take the names of twelve months in two languages For the unlikely case that you're not trolling: Don't do this. You're gonna end up on the list of people that had their very clever brainwallets drained sooner or later. Let alone that a BIP39-compliant wallet wouldn't even accept words not on the canonical word list.
      - thih9 3y ago
        Not trolling, just unfamiliar with crypto. Perhaps this proves my point that security, especially long term, is hard.
        lxgr 3y ago
        Oh, thanks for the reply and sorry for the accusation then. Well, just to reiterate – if you need to hold crypto, and if you're doing self-custody for it (no recommendation for either), don't come up with your own recovery phrase. Use a reputable wallet (again, I won't recommend one here) and make sure you have a backup plan that works, ideally offline and in multiple locations. And to reiterate: Even doing that, people lose their funds all the time. Opsec is hard, doubly so when literal money is at stake. The human mind is quite bad at true randomness, but very good at coming up with puzzles that it perceives to be unsolvable (but that others can crack trivially).
deprecative 3y ago
> 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. How easy! Just have an Eidetic memory,
landemva 3y ago
Or get started cheaper and use an old phone on which you do a factory reset and leave it in airplane mode.
- thih9 3y ago
  This multitude of options and approaches reminds me of my ever breaking emacs config.
  - landemva 3y ago
    Or put everything on paper in a safe. Maybe self-sovereign transportable wealth is not for you. And I prefer vi, or now vim tiny.
kkielhofner 3y ago
You just described a serious of steps the average person has no chance of completing. The average person also makes mistakes, forgets things, and loses stuff. In fact, everyone does. Ledger fails, gets lost, etc? Sorry, all gone. With the financial system outside of crypto I could lose everything I own in a house fire, get a government ID back, and walk into a bank and walk out with a debit card in minutes. Same thing applies if I get brain damage (`rm -rf /`) and forget how to do anything, or you know, simple stuff like dying unexpectedly and handling this in very straightforward means within the existing legal and financial system. People make mistakes and these things (and more) happen in the real world. I swear this entire space is made of up aliens because they don't understand anything about humans or the real world. These kinds of counter-arguments from those in the space only further prove my point.

jgalt212 3y ago

> 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. What are you rain man?

thih9 3y ago

Perhaps it’s not complex. Still, it’s not easy. It’s hard to know what approach to pick, or even which source to trust, especially when you’re starting. And it’s extra hard to continuously manage and improve your security; even moving coins to cold storage.

lxgr 3y ago
I'm pretty sure (at least I really hope) that GP was kidding. Single-shot memorizing 24 words is utterly out of the question for almost everybody.
- thih9 3y ago
  It’s doable, e.g. you could take the names of twelve months in two languages; maybe even backwards and interspersed. Still, the challenge is to live with that long term. E.g. to not write it down. Or to write it down in a sufficiently cryptic way. But not too cryptic because you still need to remember it. Also you shouldn’t reuse this system. And every now and then you should check that it continues to work as you expect. And…
  - lxgr 3y ago
    > you could take the names of twelve months in two languages For the unlikely case that you're not trolling: Don't do this. You're gonna end up on the list of people that had their very clever brainwallets drained sooner or later. Let alone that a BIP39-compliant wallet wouldn't even accept words not on the canonical word list.
    - thih9 3y ago
      Not trolling, just unfamiliar with crypto. Perhaps this proves my point that security, especially long term, is hard.
      - lxgr 3y ago
        Oh, thanks for the reply and sorry for the accusation then. Well, just to reiterate – if you need to hold crypto, and if you're doing self-custody for it (no recommendation for either), don't come up with your own recovery phrase. Use a reputable wallet (again, I won't recommend one here) and make sure you have a backup plan that works, ideally offline and in multiple locations. And to reiterate: Even doing that, people lose their funds all the time. Opsec is hard, doubly so when literal money is at stake. The human mind is quite bad at true randomness, but very good at coming up with puzzles that it perceives to be unsolvable (but that others can crack trivially).

deprecative 3y ago

> 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. How easy! Just have an Eidetic memory,

landemva 3y ago

Or get started cheaper and use an old phone on which you do a factory reset and leave it in airplane mode.

thih9 3y ago
This multitude of options and approaches reminds me of my ever breaking emacs config.
- landemva 3y ago
  Or put everything on paper in a safe. Maybe self-sovereign transportable wealth is not for you. And I prefer vi, or now vim tiny.

kkielhofner 3y ago

You just described a serious of steps the average person has no chance of completing. The average person also makes mistakes, forgets things, and loses stuff. In fact, everyone does. Ledger fails, gets lost, etc? Sorry, all gone. With the financial system outside of crypto I could lose everything I own in a house fire, get a government ID back, and walk into a bank and walk out with a debit card in minutes. Same thing applies if I get brain damage (`rm -rf /`) and forget how to do anything, or you know, simple stuff like dying unexpectedly and handling this in very straightforward means within the existing legal and financial system. People make mistakes and these things (and more) happen in the real world. I swear this entire space is made of up aliens because they don't understand anything about humans or the real world. These kinds of counter-arguments from those in the space only further prove my point.