I'm Andreas Griffin, creator of Bitcoin Safe, AMA! \ stacker news ~AMA

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I'm Andreas Griffin, creator of Bitcoin Safe, AMA!

2430 sats \ 32 comments \ @Andreasgriffin 2h AMA

I'm the dev behind Bitcoin Safe, a desktop wallet to manage cold storage bitcoin for individuals and organizations.

AMA

Available in lots of languages and with powerful features: www.bitcoin-safe.org Latest release introduced Compact Block Filters for a speedy and private wallet sync. This eliminates the privacy leak to electrum servers, if you don't run your own.

Links: github, bdk compact block filter client

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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cleophas 1h

The revenue model for self-custody wallets seems to be pretty challenging, especially for FOSS. Do you plan on staying non-profit or do you see a path to a sustainable business model for a cold storage wallet?

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

Working on it to find a sustainable way to keep development of Bitcoin Safe up. Right now funding is provided by opensats https://opensats.org/blog/tenth-wave-of-bitcoin-grants#bitcoin-safe

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @jakoyoh629 1h

Is multi-wallet RPC integration for Bitcoinsafe being planned?

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

Bitcoin Safe had RPC connection to bitcoin core in the past (with the old BDK version). However the current BDK version doesnt have python bindings for the RPC client, and therefore Bitcoin Safe currently doesnt have RPC.
This would be a nice feature I'd like back too ;-)

You could ask nicely on https://github.com/bitcoindevkit/bdk-ffi to also create FFI-bindings for the RPC client. Maybe we get it :-)

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby 1h

Do you think you will ever build a mobile version? Or too much of a security problem?

102 sats \ 2 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

The focus for Bitcoin Safe is managing cold storage for individuals and organizations. While a mobile version might be useful for some, the biggest user group probably wants to manage these amounts of money on a desktop computer.

A desktop computer offers more time and space to focus, review, and slow down on such important transactions.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 1h

That makes a lot of sense. I doubt I'd ever use mobile for my cold storage stack.

However, I wonder if the masses will move to adopt a desktop-only app.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

Thanks for your feedback.

There are other phone wallets that offer great tradeoffs for payments and lower amounts of money.

0 sats \ 10 replies \ @jakoyoh629 2h

Good job! How long are we talking for install and sync? Can we hook up to this node with other wallets?

45 sats \ 9 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 2h

Bitcoin Safe is a wallet which can connect to electrum/esplora/Compact Block Filters to sync the wallet state.

Sync times are detailed here: https://bitcoin-safe.org/en/knowledge/compact-block-filters/#what-to-expect-when-syncing Quick summary: First time setup/recovery of a wallet , about 30min. All other cases <30 seconds sync time.

0 sats \ 8 replies \ @jakoyoh629 2h

30 minutes for all the Compact Block Filters?

21 sats \ 7 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 2h

For a segwit wallet, on a normal internet connection. The developer of the BDK Compact Block Filter client https://github.com/rustaceanrob/ has done an awesome job!

10 sats \ 6 replies \ @jakoyoh629 1h

That's impressive. From your perspective, could downloading Compact Block Filters be a security issue? Or are the CBFs calculated locally?

21 sats \ 4 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

CBFs are calculated and served by full-nodes. They are a summary of a blocks content. Bitcoin Safe downloads all of them (for the initial sync). Downloading them reveals nothing about your wallet.
If a relevant transaction could be identified in the CBF, then whole block is downloaded from a random connected node.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @jakoyoh629 1h

get it. There's still a tiny chance of a privacy fault, but it definitely levels up compared to basic wallets. Is downloading the whole damn blockchain still the best setup for privacy?

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

If you download a block from a random node, you have the anonymity set of all transactions in the block (so about 2000). To get even better you have to download more and more irrelevant blocks, with the upper limit of the whole blockchain.

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

Bitcoin Safe also supports testnet4, signet,.. , so feel free to test Bitcoin Safe first with test coins.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 1h

In your opinion is Linux (debian) better for running a desktop/laptop cold wallet than windows or apple?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 57m

Linux is definitely a great choice for an OS. However different users are feeling at home in different OS. That's why Bitcoin Safe provides binaries for Win, Linux, and Mac.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @wackster 1h

Mempools aren't exactly packed, downloads for most of the cold storage apps number in the hundreds or thousands, not tens of thousands. Do you think self-custody will ever be widespread?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

Self-custody is incredibly important for individual freedoms and also for the long-term survival of Bitcoin. We can only make the tools good enough and hope people use them. Self-custody is the goal and Bitcoin Safe pushes on this front:

For individuals Bitcoin Safe offers a wallet setup wizard https://bitcoin-safe.org/en/knowledge/setup-multisig-wallet/ to make larger savings with singlesig and multisig easier and safer to setup.
For organizations Bitcoin Safe offers multi-party multisig tools like Chat&Sync to synchronize labels and sign PSBTs remotely: https://bitcoin-safe.org/en/features/collaboration/

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @030e0dca83 1h

What is the best juiciness for you?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Andreasgriffin OP 1h

lol

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @030e0dca83 1h

"lol" - the answer I deserve. OK

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 2h

How do you see the user experience for bitcoin wallets changing over the next 10-20 years?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 2h

We can already see that with the growing user base of Bitcoin, also wallets specialize in certain areas to offer the best experience.
This will continue and Bitcoin Safe is focussing on making self-custody cold storage easier and safer for individuals and organizations.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 2h

What do you find to be the biggest challenge of building/competing in the bitcoin wallet space right now?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 2h

The balance between providing features and at the same time making them accessible in an intuitive and user friendly way is challenging (but also super fascinating, and we are learning a LOT).

And there is no shortage of cool features that could be included in Bitcoin Safe.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 2h

What has been the most rewarding part of developing this wallet?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Andreasgriffin OP 2h

Super rewarding is all the feedback from users of Bitcoin Safe. Additionally from a dev point of view, getting to know the people behind BDK is a awesome!