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544 sats \ 4 replies \ @sime 14 Apr 2023 \ on: Can we please have inconspicuous hardware wallets? bitcoin
We live in an age of consumer tech. And consumer tech needs to look good and be distinguishable.
IMO one HWW manufacturer went too far with diamond studded editions, thus making it a fashion accessory.
Since HWW manufacturers want mass market adoption, some sort of branding is a prerequisite.
The problem comes down to cost. If you want a convert edition of a HWW wallet, someone has to produce that and sell it. What premium are you willing to pay for that?
My advice? Buy whatever hell you want, for me that is Trezor, and scratch the shit out of it with sandpaper. Tada! You have an unique convert HWW.
PS Why do you travel with your HWW?
For a moment, stop thinking of hwws as consumer electronics. Consider them electronic analogous to, well, cash wallets or bank cards.
Of course, some banks offer graphics customization options to their cards but vast majority of them is identical. Cash wallets have tons of variations and sure, there are some expensive fashionable ones but if you go through all common designs you realize there are just a few major types and they all look the same within the type. No one really keeps their wallets or cards in public view and branding is barely visible. How many cash wallets brands do you know?
And why do I travel with hww? Everyone has their own reasons. Maybe someone's job requires doing crypto transactions often, maybe someone is a crypto daytrader, maybe someone is just a digital nomad and moves around. I moved two countries last year, traveled with literally all my belongings. What should I do in such a case, throw away hww, travel only with seed phrases in my head? That's rather risky and definitely not a solution we should advise if we want mass adoption. Until crypto wallets are as popular and normal personal items as normal cash wallets, we need to hwws that can easy pretend to be something else.
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All legit reasons to travel with a HWW.
I'm not convinced that you can compare a cash wallet with HWW. The later can control an unlimited amount of funds.
And bank cards are branded to the nines. Not to mention platinum cards and what not.
Like in another thread on SN. If my threat model includes getting my HWW searched whilst traveling. I would consider a decoy passphrase wallet.
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And bank cards are branded to the nines. Not to mention platinum cards and what not.
They are branded but when was the last time you saw someone using a card that really caught your eye?
If my threat model includes getting my HWW searched whilst traveling. I would consider a decoy passphrase wallet.
Why not both? I mean, hww can have decoy passphrase or even start up to some dummy error screen until you e.g. quickly press a button 5 times or sth like that, but if it simply looks like a usb memory stick then you are most likely not going to even get in a situation when that other person starts properly investigating the device.
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Bitcoin is not consumer tech. That's precisely the error that people keep making over and over again, and it's an expensive error, in more than one way.
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