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24 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinHandsOn 5h \ parent \ on: Hi! I'm Morgen Rochard, I am a bitcoin financial planner, AMA AMA
I agree with you that the learning curve for bitcoin self custody can be intimidating.
Two weeks ago I published a book that aims to make the process of learning and practicing how to do self custody easier, and less anxiety-provoking:
Bitcoin, Hands On! 28 “learn-by-doing” exercises to master the basics of managing your own Bitcoin, including wallets, transactions, and self custody
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4SZSCH8
I wrote the book because self custody with bitcoin can be very challenging. The combination of unfamiliar software and technology--along with the knowledge that a mistake could cause you to lose your nest egg--often leads to either analysis paralysis, or the decision to keep bitcoin on an exchange or an ETF.
I'd be happy to send a free copy - contact me at feedback@BitcoinHandsOn.com
I hope my just published book Bitcoin Hands-On will get popular and introduce people to holding their own keys.
It's amazing how rare self custody seems to be. Whenever I run into anyone "in the wild" (i.e. not at a bitcoin event), if they make any reference to bitcoin at all, it's ALWAYS via an EFT.
Maybe they're practicing good opsec...
I just published my book
Bitcoin Hands-On! 28 “learn by doing” exercises to master the basics of managing your own Bitcoin, including wallets, transactions, and self custody https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4SZSCH8.
I'm happy about that, but sales are very slow, I gotta hussle on marketing.
In order to do that, I will finish a 1 page website (bitcoinhandson.com). It'll be something I can point people to, for promotion, instead of always having them go to the Amazon link.
It'll be very basic, and I'm not a web dev, but it'll be something other than the "coming soon" page, which is what I have right now.
Thanks for the motivation, and the prod to get really specific!
I'm working on getting the word out on my new book Bitcoin Hands-On! 28 “learn by doing” exercises to master the basics of managing your own Bitcoin, including wallets, transactions, and self custody
I sent out a lot of emails the other day to university professors who appeared to be teaching bitcoin-related classes, I posted about that here Universities are STILL offering only courses on Blockchain, instead of Bitcoin.
I did get one expression of interest, there's a bitcoin class at the University of Austin (https://www.uaustin.org) and the professor was interested.
Any marketing thoughts/tips are welcome!
In my mind, the "blockchain is the real thing of value" idea is from 5 to 10 years ago. Even though Bitcoin is in the news all the time (at least to my skewed eyes), universities still haven't moved on.
The downsides are that it's quite a bit less straightforward than buying with something like Strike, etc. And you need bitcoin to start, for the bond.
Unless you're really motivated, Robosats is for people who are fairly technically adept OR are willing to do some research when the inevitable problems and questions occur.
The upside, of course, is that it's not KYC.
If you use the term "third party custody", then who's the second party?
Say you're renting an apartment. You're the renter (first party), then there's the apartment owner (second party), and then the third party is the security deposit escrow service.
You're welcome! I also always got confused on this issue.
I had actually tried to come up with some better names. Below are my notes from trying to come up with terms. I think the term I found on that forum post, of Delegated Custody, is much better than what I came up with.
hosted wallet (positive spin) on "not your keys"
controlled wallet - negative spin
custodian controlled wallet
external-control wallet
external-custody wallet
vs
self-custody wallet
Yeah, I think that's it. I sent in some more to get it above 1000, and was able to send out.
I'd suggest that you make the send button clickable, but then when someone clicks on it, tell them that they need to have more than 1000 sats to send.
Otherwise, it's confusing, you don't know why you can't send.
I do have funds on it, not much, but I should be able to send. And the Send is grayed out. The receive is clickable (that's how I got the funds there).
No, I don't have Bitcoin in the list.
I was just confused that a list like this would contain
Liquid
Testnet
Regtest
It would make more sense to me if it were
Liquid (Mainnet)
Liquid (Testnet)
Liquid (Regtest)
I guess if you know that there's a Liquid version of Mainnet, it makes sense. I didn't know that.
Here's some feedback, just from working with it a bit.
- You go to the main site and click on Open app. That takes you to a website with dev in the name https://helm-wallet.pages.dev/. That makes me think it's just for dev. Maybe have 2 separate links?
- I see that further down in the Try It area, you specify mainnet or testnet. But when you click on those links, it turns out the network settings are identical in the pages that come up.
- I don't understand the listings in the Network section. You have Liquid, Mainnet and Testnet. So when you choose Liquid, you're choosing plain Liquid (does it have a testnet equivalent?). And then the other options are Mainnet and Testnet - so at that point, you're actually using Bitcoin, instead of Liquid?
- When I create a wallet, then tried to restore it, I was very confused. You see, when I first wrote down the seed words, you have them in this order:
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10
11 12
I was expecting it to be like this
1 7
2 8
3 9
4 10
5 11
6 12
...And I actually numbered and wrote it down that way. Then when restoring, I saw it was different, and had to fix up my seed word list, because it was in the wrong order. I'm guessing that MOST people would expect it to be the way I thought it would be.
-
You may want to be more explicit about the password, in terms of what it actually is. I wasn't sure if it was like a bitcoin passphrase (does Liquid even have that?) or it was just a password for that instance of Helm Wallet. It turns out it's for the later, because you can restore from one browser to another, just with the seed phrase. You may want to have more info on this.
-
Why is Send grayed out? Looks like I can receive, but not send?
I like the very straightforward design in general. What are your future plans for it? Is it most similar to Aqua?
Do you have any support or chat (like telegram, discord, simplex?) where people can provide feedback?
It looks promising. I have a couple thoughts on it.
On your website, it says
You can try it (testnet is available)
So, can you use real sats on it, or is just for testnet?
Thank you, I hope it's useful to people. I think self custody is a lot more intimidating to people than old-time bitcoiners realize.
The combo of strange new tech, and the fact that you can lose real money, both combine to ratchet up the apprehension. My goal is to lead newbies step by step through the basics of self custody.
Anyone who's interested in taking a look at it, I'll send you a free copy - just email me at feedback@BitcoinHandsOn.com