I'm Rob Hamilton Co-Founder & CEO of AnchorWatch AMA \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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I'm Rob Hamilton Co-Founder & CEO of AnchorWatch AMA

17.6k sats \ 47 comments \ @Rob1Ham 29 Aug 2023 bitcoin

zaps forwarded to @DarthCoin (20%) @kerooke (20%) @TonyGiorgio (20%) @Car (20%) @supertestnet (20%)

Hey Stackers!

Long time listener to Stacker News Live and lurker on stacker.news, its good to be here!

For the past 18 months our team has been building out AnchorWatch (AnchorWatch.com), our goal is to provide quality insurance for Bitcoin held in cold storage. Currently, institutional bitcoin holders are often not able to self custody their bitcoin, and as a result have to keep their coins on sole custodians. Many custodians have no insurance, and those that do have weak coverages which often do not cover the risks you are actually concerned about.

We believe there is a better way to do this, and its done by leveraging the native properties of Bitcoin as programmable money. We have been building a wallet coordinator called Trident, which leverages miniscript to do more advanced bitcoin native smart contracts without requiring a fork. Miniscript came from the research team in Blockstream back in 2019, and it allows for more approachable ways of using timelocks and signatures in a way where we can have a transparent and auditable way of interacting with more advanced scripting schemes.

With respect to insurance, this allows our company to be a required signer for the duration of the insurance policy, but when we are no longer holding risk, we are able to allow users to withdraw from vaults without needing to talk to us. This is able to mitigate risks such as theft, natural disasters, lost keys and more. Unlike other custodians, we are able to only have influence over the length of the insurance policy, you don't have to trust us that we will give you access to your coins again.

For a pleb, you can construct more robust security schemes, when compared to legacy multisig (2 of 3, 3 of 5 etc). Some examples of this are 2 of 3 which will become a 1 of 3 if the funds have not moved in a year. Alternatively you could have a 2 of 3, which maybe becomes a 2 of 4, and you can add an additional emergency backup key to the quorum. I'd recommend checking out the Wizardsardine team and their Liana wallet if you want to play around with this on mainnet today. I'm a big proponent of miniscript and believe it will make bespoke security arrangements much more approachable to everyone that uses Bitcoin today.

Trident currently works with Ledger, Coldcard MK4 (with their edge firmware), and SpecterDIY. The Bitbox02 team just added miniscript support last week, and the Blockstream Jade is coming soon. We built Trident to help remove the UX friction associated with multisigs (constructing output descriptors, sharing xpubs, generating PSBTs, requesting signatures, etc). For example, you can upload an XPUB with a signing device to Trident, and then share it with another user of Trident. Or, you can request a key from someone to let them share their XPUB with you. This allows you to be signers in each others bitcoins security without having to coordinate each time you want to create a new vault. Once a vault is created, the vault owner can create a spend, and then request signers within the vault to sign off on the transaction. The goal is for groups of people to be able to coordinate around bitcoin vaults that abstract away the technical details while still being able to remain sovereign and audit any individual step if you so wish.

Miniscript output descriptors can be loaded into core, so even in the event Trident ceases to exist, if you back up your output descriptor you are able to load it into a bitcoin core wallet and still maintain access to the funds (as of version 25 of Core).

Trident will be entering open beta at the end of this week (locked to testnet), and I'll make another post once live for everyone to go check it out!

(Saw a cool feature where I can forward sats to other stacker.news users, I picked some of my favorite stackers to pass the sats onto, i'm passing along 100% of sats to them)

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187 sats \ 1 reply \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

Oh cool, I already have a cowboy hat, yee haw Car!

1000 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 29 Aug 2023

See car, it ain't that hard

1953 sats \ 1 reply \ @tenderscore 29 Aug 2023 freebie

Miniscripting very underrated and in the first inning.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

few understand this

1065 sats \ 1 reply \ @birdeye21 29 Aug 2023

What was the hardest part about getting AnchorWatch started?

158 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

Stepping into the role as a founder. As a first time founder, it was a new way to look at working a job, and looking back on it now its not something you can prepare for until you are in the driver seat. Looking back on it though, its fundamentally changed my life for the better and don't regret it!

1350 sats \ 4 replies \ @anon 29 Aug 2023

Zerg, Protoss, or Terran?

20 sats \ 2 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

I always rotated between zerg and terran. I enjoyed Terran more but much easier to cheese and have strong early/mid game with zerg.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @juanito 29 Aug 2023

bitcoiners should be terran players. This is the way. Protoss is def fiat

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 29 Aug 2023

Come on man Terran all the way!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @faradayfedora 29 Aug 2023

Choose wisely....

2000 sats \ 1 reply \ @DeltaClimbs 29 Aug 2023

Since the Trident wallet is open source, what prevents other companies from offering insurance in the same way and undercutting on price, and if it's regulatory barriers, would that apply to incumbents as well?

You mention institutions, but will you market your services to individuals with high net worths, and will you disclose to them that using their services ensures they are doxxed and increasing the odds that they end up getting shot in the head by an organized criminal organization? -- any plans to offer insurance to also protect against that, and then of course, how do you resolve the conflicts of interest that emerge in wanting demand to stay high?

What if Trident Wallet is ridiculously good that no one ever loses Bitcoin again and demand for insurance vanishes?

Do you anticipate your company will survive hyperbitcoinization?

22 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

We will be launching an open source coordinator to be help recover funds if we cease to exist, but the entire wallet stack as launched won't be open source. As for competitors, we'll have a first mover advantage on loss data, so we will better be able to underwrite the risk.

Just like any other insurance product, we need to know the counterparty in the transaction. If someone wishes to keep their bitcoin holdings entirely private, I'd recommend not telling a single person about you holding the bitcoin. We are laser focused on our initial product of cold storage insurance, but open to adding other lines as we see traction.

I don't see conflicts of interest around keeping demand high, custodians continue to exist with high demand, this is providing a better financial wrapper to provide those assurances with insurance.

If trident, or the use of miniscript in general makes it such that bitcoin loses trend to 0, over time the risk will be appropriately priced and people will have more affordable premiums as that is validated by the actuarial models.

I sure hope it can survive! There will be insurance of some form, as pooling risk is something that predates fiat by hundreds of years, it'll take on some form of existance even in a post hyperbitcoinzied world.

2000 sats \ 1 reply \ @TonyGiorgio fwd 29 Aug 2023

How has the onboarding / education been for your target audience? Multisig and especially miniscript stuff isn't the easiest to understand and I feel like your market isn't the highly technical kind so I'm curious if that factors into how you build the product.

Also appreciate the forwards and glad we got to catch up again for BBB!

1032 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

100% True, huge shoutouts to my cofounder Becca who has been leading the charge around UX. She is much newer to Bitcoin, and its truly an asset not a liability in this respect.

We have been designing our UX flows in such a way that you don't have to be a technical user of bitcoin to be able to access these more advanced features. Once a vault is set up, it mirrors very much a traditional banking portal with your list of transaction and balances.

In Trident, the word miniscript does not appear once, nor XPUB, PSBT etc, everything is explained in plain english so non technical users can be empowered to know how to use this technology without having to read bitcoin optech newsletters or technical implementation details.

1109 sats \ 4 replies \ @EthnTuttle 29 Aug 2023

Would you rather fight one horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?

1563 sats \ 3 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

1 horse sized duck

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 29 Aug 2023

Does the insurance rate for a horse sized duck fighter differ from that of a duck sized horse fighter?

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Rob1Ham OP 30 Aug 2023

We are exploring trial combats to explore fitness for underwriting.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @EthnTuttle 30 Aug 2023

1020 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr 29 Aug 2023

what impact will the more robust security schemes you outlined above have on institutional bitcoin adoption?

is this a key constraint that is keeping institutions on the sidelines today?

123 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

We have spoken to many people who want to have Bitcoin exposure, but they are unable to have direct access to the BTC because of the lack of insurance. As bitcoin continues to get financialized and integrated into the larger economy, its our belief that insurance will be a key part of that financial infrastructure.

Think of it this way, if you're an institutional player, when you buy bitcoin you already are accepting the massive price volatility risk, the last thing you want on top of that is additional risk around a key holder or security setup in such a way where you lose the coins themselves.

What we have built is a tooling which enables for more robust multi institutional custody where no one entity is ever in a position to spend the funds, in a provably auditable way.

1018 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 29 Aug 2023

How will insurance rates be determined?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 30 Aug 2023

We have our own underwriting engine with dozens of variables. At a high level the kind of vault you are using, the type of extra security measures you take, if you are the title holder of the bitcoin (versus a custodian/fudiciary), etc.

1018 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 29 Aug 2023

Who do you imagine your first 10 customers will be persona-wise?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 30 Aug 2023

We have had a lot of initial interest among family offices, multifamily offices, mining pools, miners, and HNWIs. Among those I think smaller funds which already have a Bitcoin allocation at a custodian will be the first customers.

1018 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 29 Aug 2023

What's the most surprising thing you've learned building AnchorWatch?

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 30 Aug 2023

That miniscript was just sitting there and no one was building on it! With the exception of the Wizard Sardine team, no one was even talking about it before I realized last November it was the critical unlock to get institutional custody. I'm very proud that me banging the drums has inspired more people to build on this incredibly powerful piece of open source technology.

1100 sats \ 1 reply \ @faradayfedora 29 Aug 2023

Have you ever lost BTC and if so how much?

180 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

I've never lost BTC, but I've had some disastrously close calls back in the day before I used standardized approaches.

1000 sats \ 0 replies \ @nkmg1c_ventures 30 Aug 2023

Very cool, didn't realize Miniscript was a thing. Maybe I did a while ago on Twitter, but completely wooshed over my head. Still so much to learn.

1000 sats \ 2 replies \ @Chep 29 Aug 2023

The 2/3 turning into a 1/3 after x amount of time is a cool idea I had not thought of. What are the biggest risks facing Bitcoin insurance companies?

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Rob1Ham OP 30 Aug 2023

The biggest risk right now I'd say is around executing the vision. There will be insurance in Bitcoin, with increasing importance as it gains global adoption. No one has done this before, and we are laser focused on getting it right.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Chep 30 Aug 2023

I wish you guys the best of luck. Will be watching🫡

1000 sats \ 0 replies \ @plebpoet 29 Aug 2023

I hadn't seen anyone forwarding sats like this yet, very cool feature and well used!

1000 sats \ 3 replies \ @Storyteller 29 Aug 2023

How do you stay focussed?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 29 Aug 2023

Project management software and getting proper sleep/time at the gym.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Storyteller 30 Aug 2023

Thanks!!

Are there things you say No to to stay focussed? Steve Jobs said you should say No to almost everything except your big goal.

Do you practice something like this habit of saying No?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rob1Ham OP 30 Aug 2023

Definitely an important skill, early on I'd try to say yes to everything to explore all opportunities, but you quickly feel in practice that time is the most scarce asset, and to be focused it involves a lot of saying no.