/biz/ - Business & Finance

a cold wallet is just any piece of hardware for processing keys or transactions that is not networked to other machines, and is not connected to any machines that are.

hardware wallets aren't cold wallets by themselves, but can be used as cold wallets, it's just mostly redundant because you must already have a secure disconnected machine to use it with. they're not standalone.

Yes.

>>51394448
stfu nerd

>>51394448
>hardware wallets aren't cold wallets by themselves, but can be used as cold wallets, it's just mostly redundant because you must already have a secure disconnected machine to use it with. they're not standalone.
this.
I'd say 99.9% of all the hardware wallets are hot wallets. only a schizo would attach those on offline machines and sign + transact there.

>>51394410
I gave one word from my private key to 12 different people so that if I need to access my wallet I have to painstakingly call 12 of my friends and get them to go look at the word they wrote down 4 years ago

my bitcoins rely on their ability to not lose those pieces of paper, but I am unhackable

>>51394581
>I gave one word from my private key to 12 different
i hope you are kidding. those words are lost 100%.

>>51394615
They are trustworthy people, it sounds so ridiculous but it’s the safest thing I could think of
I had to do it a few months ago after I moved apartments and it worked perfectly, I felt like I was in a spy movie

Can some kind anon share the pasta for properly air gapping a computer?

>>51394410
Check

To me the entire concept of cold and hot and software and hardware wallets is just bullshit semantics. 95% of the people that lose their wallet lose it because they forget how to recover their keys. And the more shizo you are about „security“ the more likely if is that this happens.
The other 4.999% get phished by an obvious scam and cry about getting hacked.
For everybody else it really doesn’t matter what the fuck you do because nobody is going to go through some elaborate plan to gain access to specifically YOUR keys no matter where they are unless you are Vitalik or you have the keys to a 9 figure DAO or something.

>>51394633
>use laptop/computer without wifi/cable
>work within hidden tc/vc volume
>use actual sensible password
>dont be a retard
>spread tc volume on many usbdrives around safeplaces

>>51394626
>whats with (retards name) and his spyshit?
>must be seedphrase spread over his only 12 friends
>henlo, this is whatsapp group (12 users)
>fuck that dumbass
>'my word is x'
>'my word is y'
only 12! possibilities. python script. friends/family get your phrase after seconds

>>51394410
hardware wallets are a meme. if you arent a brainlet ITlet then you don't need one. protip: if you use windows you are a brainlet ITlet

>>51394581
lmaooo you really couldn't think about anything better ? absolute brainlet. sub 100 IQ for sure

>>51394410
I hid a piece of paper with my private keys in my parents house. Even they don't know it is there.

>>51394581

>>51394626
incase you are not trolling and wondering if we are just mean because this is 4chan or fr. you really fucked up. better transfer that funny internet money to a new seedphrase no cap bruh. this is actual advice from everybody

A friend of mine has an interesting way of storing his keys offline, but always having them on him. At DEFCON, they sell implantable chips that are writable by the owner, with special write-once protected memory. He stores his keys in the write-once protected memory and has it all encrypted with passwords that are memorized. Externalizing the password outside your mind is an avenue for exploitation. The only way they should be able to get your password is through torturing you.

>>51395105
Challenge accepted

>>51394794
the point is there's no elaborate plan needed if you use a commodity hardware wallet, or metamask, or any other default hot wallet. everyone is running the same software, and you only have to break it once to attack everyone.

>>51394940
This

What if they forget or misplace their word?

>>51394633
>1. don't plug it in

>>51395105
what he has is a brain wallet with the added inconvenience of an implanted chip. might as well memorize the seed phrase itself and skip the middleman if you want your memory to be a single point of failure.

What if you tattoo your seed phrase on inside of your anus and when you need it again, you just get a nigger* to prolapse your anus and then you can read it in a mirror.
*It has to be a nigger for security, because niggers can't read

>>51395323
Thats never happened though. That’s exactly the point. 100% of exploits are retards getting scammed „validating“ their wallet or connecting to a smart contract promising free money. Nobody has ever been „hacked“ using metamask to transfer coins they own from one Wallet to another.

>>51395555
there's been plenty of wallet hacks over the years

>Be me
>To protect my 24 seed phrase, I gave one word to each of my 24 friends
>All my friends live inside my head

>>51394581
> one person does you lose all your crypto
If I was your friend I’d make you pay me 50% of your BTC or eth for the word I know. Anyway I store my recovery phrases on 3 AES encrypted hard drives, each in safes in 3 different locations, one being a bank. I also have a paper printout in a safe in a bank.

>>51395739
Oh and I have a copy of war and peace and I highlighted the words to my recovery phrase on different pages in chronological order. Anyway that was my first attempt before I decided encryption was easier.

>>51395739
if you know the order you can lose up to four words and just brute force them

>>51395739
>>51395062
>>51394975
>>51394940
>>51394615
you guys just don’t understand it, why entrust myself (1 person) when I can trust 12 people

>>51396051
Because you can be blackmailed for the words faggots , but hey it’s your money do as you please

>>51396051
because its at least 4x the risk

>>51396126
wrong, it’s actually 12x safer

>>51396155
you're basically running an 8-9/12 multisig, so you're at the mercy of at least 8-9 people all remembering their part.

>>51394410
Hardware wallets being used for cold storage is the biggest misconception in the crypto space that never seems to get corrected.

Hardware wallets are designed for "hot wallet" usage. You can use it on any computer to SPEND your coins, even computers filled with viruses, and you won't get your coins stolen.

The REAL cold storage has always been your seed words. Store it on metal, and have a long unguessable passphrase you won't forget, and you're set.

If you use your hardware wallet as your sole "cold storage", you're in for a surprise when the flash memory fails.

>>51396428
What’s the best way to get it on metal though? I don’t want to take my phrase to an engraver as they might know what it is and then steal my shit.

>>51396498
Metal stamper
https://safu.ninja came up with this idea and it's cheap and easy

>>51396524
Smart anon. Probably going to do this to replace the paper copies I have now in a bank safe.

>>51396428
cold storage and a cold wallet are two different concepts

>>51396498
>>51396524
And if you're wondering how to fit a long word on a washer, seed words are chosen so that the first 4 letters are unique, so all you really need is the first 4 letters.

If you doubt it and think it's a ploy from anon to get you to lose your keys because you only put in 4 letters, google it or check out a complete list of all possible seed words.

>>51396282
this
>>51396051
I'm an DevOps engineer. you don't understand that what you did is pretty ... idk.. stupid in my opinion.

>>51396524
Looks good. Thanks. On the subject hardware wallet imo is good for wallets that you use a lot. You can sign a tx without worrying about your other hardware being compromised. For cold storage I prefer some type of a paper wallet. Or something like in this anons pic. Just personal preferences

cold wallets are a tech scam for boomers and newbies to crypto who think you can download your crypto to an USB key and put it in a safe.
It's pretty pointless irl

>ITT: poorfag cope

>>51394626
bruh if you are trolling then grats.
but if you are serious, and i've seen people lose what is now quite literally tens of billions total over the years, you need a do over here while still can.
there's quite a few reasons why this is bad. but the general idea is not necessarily bad, but you need to do it in a different way, not like this. research shamir's secret sharing(or secret sharing in general) and threshold signatures(or just simple multisig) to start.

>>51395378
A physical copy is always a good backup and it’s always on him. What happens in the case of memory loss? You won’t always have your memory at full capacity.

>>51395646
Let’s hope they don’t hate one another.

>>51397820
.. he has to remember the pasphrase.

>>51395739
Hard drives are not long term cold storage media devices.

>>51397820
>What happens in the case of memory loss?
he forgets his passphrase, which has become his key with extra steps.

>>51397848
He’s a smart person. He has contingencies most likely.

>>51394410
I fell for the hardware wallet meme. I think you should get one when you have some SERIOUS cash in crypto. Like probably high 6-7 figures (i.e. 100k LINK), not like me who only has 5 figures in crypto right now, it’s just a waste. But I do have peace of mind that my coins will be there when I log back into metamask, so there’s that. Also, don’t get those cryptosteel capsules that have washers with letters on them. I bought one and it’s the most retarded way to store your seed phrase. It’s tedious and takes a long time to make and when you have to enter your seed phrase it even takes just as long. The only time when you need this is if the apocalypse happens or a nuclear fallout destroys half the world, which you’ll most likely be dead anyways so what’s the point. Just write your seed phrase on a piece of paper or do google drive encryption method.

>>51396719
stfu devops fag, there's no need to be a devops engineer to know what he did is retarded, fucking faggot trying to humble brag

>>51394410
I store my long term gems on cold wallet. Like ETH BTC QANX. No meme coins allowed.

>>51397971
Btw, I use trezor + metamask

>>51397971
Cryptosteel capsules are the best way to go. Yes, their long and tedious to setup. It's an infinitely lasting, weather & fire proof backup. Your seed is the life kernal of your entire financial life. You want safety.

>>51397981
kek

not sure if they're a meme but they're overpriced for what they do. if you want a cold wallet, get an old phone, preferably with a broken screen so it's less attractive to burglars, download a wallet onto it, fetch the addresses of the cryptos you're interested in and lock it up, never connect it to the internet until you want to spend those coins.

this would be cumbersome if you want to stake and restake on some PoS blockchain though, but for hodlers, it works well

>>51398369
faggot

>>51397971
Why are you typing your seed back into the computer?

>>51397971
you've got it backwards. hardware wallets are for the middle-ground between too low to care phone/desktop wallets, and large amounts of wealth you should be using dedicated hardware for.

>>51394410
My hardware wallet is a USB stick with a portable version of Electrum and an encrypted wallet.dat on it. Never understood the need for that hardware mumbo jumbo. Heard one of those had their customer's data hacked, now you got people trying to scam you and possibly coming to your house with a baseball bat. That's much more likely to happen than you somehow getting hacked. No siree, not for me.
6 figures in crypto btw.

>>51398662
I have just 50k worth of crypto and I put that in my hardware wallet. That's a lot of money for me, and I only spent less than $100 for the stick.
I even get to stake UTK on maiar with my ledger, so I'm not mission out on anything good.

>>51394448
It's not redundant, if you set up your hardware wallet properly (as in didn't put your seed phrase elsewhere that can be stolen or recycle a seed phrase for it) then you need the physical hardware wallet to perform any transactions. The alternative is Metamask or something, which stores your seed phrase locally and potentially exploits your PC to steal it.

Or, they can install malware on your PC that tricks you into approving a TX other than you wanted by replacing the display text on a UI or whatever. A Hardware wallet mitigates this by showing you the actual transaction on the device, so even if your PC is showing "send ETH to dick.eth" your wallet will actually show that you're sending ETH to scammer.eth instead.


>>51394581
Just use Samir's Shared Secret by this point and split your phrases into 3 or 4 instead. 1 copy to your mom, 1 copy to your wife's boyfriend, and 1 copy hidden in your buttplug. You ned 2/3 to get into your wallet.

>>51395555
It has happened...why would you assume it hasn't? There's still some social engineering to make it work, but the most common way big dogs get their shit jacked is from a job offer or VC proposal or some shit that gets emailed to them. They open a PDF and there's a payload in it, now their shit is gone.

There are even instances of dumbass wallet devs literally storing seed phrases in plaintext so the most basic fucking malware can grab it easily:

https://twitter.com/SolportTom/status/1554609401369137152

Also here's a repository for open sourced malware that specifically jacks your Metamask. If you think people aren't using malware to steal funds then you're just as much of a retard as the people who fall for painfully obvious scam transactions:
https://twitter.com/wallet_guard/status/1551894224144138240

>>51398819
it's really for those that know what they're doing or have enough wealth that they don't feel comfortable having to trust another company. for 50k as long as you're a little careful when using it you should be fine.

>>51398863
read again: its redundant in cold wallet scenarios where you already need a piece of hardware that's isolated/secured in the first place. for hot wallet scenarios, 99.99% of hardware wallet use, it's obviously better.

>>51394410

>>51396051
>you guys just don’t understand it, why entrust myself (1 person) when I can trust 12 people

>>51398504
Depends on if you actually use crypto or just buy and hold as if they're stocks. But considering I'm on /biz/, 90% of you probably just hold shit like ICP or ADA that have like 3 transactions network wide per day so there's no reason for you to have a HW wallet.

no, but that pic touches on some truth, which is
>you are more likely to lose your own keys than have them stolen
see: >>51394581
cold wallets are absolutely a good thing to use, but they are NOT a substitute for responsible seed backups; they are for frequently, conveniently accessing a cold wallet w/o making it hot.

>>51399367
kekeroni

>>51394516

>>51394410
Can't you just take a desktop wallet, write down the private address, and just delete the desktop wallet? Seems like that would be as safe as any cold wallet.
Am I'm missing something?

>>51400388
you can, but that doesn't mean that key hasn't been seen. better is to boot up to some linux usb and do the same. best is to use a separate computer that doesn't have wifi like some raspberry pi like device

>>51394581
Did you frens suddenly get matching tattoo's last bullrun?

>>51395503
kek

>>51394794
hackers don't go after you personally they have programs that do this shit automatically

>>51394410
yes I keep my coins on the exchanges where they belong