Like so many people, I see ads for hardware wallets all the time in my X feed, or even when listening to podcasts you get the occasional promotion for one of these devices. Hardware wallet manufacturers and brands are a part of bitcoin life and culture. They’re sponsors, and they of course like to sell their devices.
132 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 1 Aug
I no longer really need a HWW since my funds are either
a) onchain in a 2of3 multisig as a vault b) in a lightning channel for spending
A HWW made sense when I was still regularly spending from a singlesig. Now I simply receive via lightning and when I have too much on lightning, I use a watch-only wallet to send the excess onchain.
I'd still recommend a HWW for beginners though.
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Companies that advertise (period) tend to sell inferior, unnecessary, and/or "luxury" products.
Instead of paying to hijack people's attention, companies that advertise could have invested in making the product better or cheaper.
People love to share things that are great value. Word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing channel and it comes naturally if your product is actually a good value.
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133 sats \ 2 replies \ @jp305 1 Aug
After buying a mk4, I realized it is a lot of overhead for my need. NFC usage is cumbersome, because you need to power the thing... the Q is better with embedded batteries.
UX is also horrible: everytime I use it, a lot of mental overhead involved just trying to remember my setup and how to use the thing/avoid any mistakes.
There are way too much functions cramped in these deeply nested menus and the terminal like interface is not helping. Sure it feels cypherpunk, but that's about it.
SeedSigner is a lot simpler IMHO to use.
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I have both a coldcard and a passport. Coldcard has way more options but most you don't need. Passport is simple, elegant and easy to use.
How do you securely pre-sign transactions without one?
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You probably don't NEED to securely pre-sign transactions...
But you can also make your own cold wallet: #569901
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You probably don't NEED to securely pre-sign transactions Why?
It is a great security to know your private key never leaves the security element of the device.
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Depends on your threat model...
Most people don't have 24/7 attackers trying to get unauthorized access using a vulnerability in their laptop's bluetooth radio in order to read the memory address that represents their private key.
Commodity computer hardware and FOSS software like Tails are already relied on for life/death situations where security is critical, its PROBABLY also good enough for pre-signing transactions too.
You don't need an artisan calculator to keep a secret.
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I think you should not be telling people what they "need". Especially if you are talking to so called "normal" people, because they have a tendency to greatly underestimate the danger of low probability high impact events.
I don't get why you try to insult cold card, by calling it a "calculator". Cold card is obviously for advanced users, but that doesn't change the fact that if you want to hold your own bitcoin you SHOULD use a hardware wallet.
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Every hardware wallet advertisement tries to tell you that you NEED this level of security. I'm just saying, "you probably don't". And nobody is paying me to say that.
People are grown ups and can decide how to allocate their sats however they want. I don't give a fuck.
If you hold your own sats, you probably don't need to buy expensive ewaste to do it "good enough". Did I mention any hardware wallet by name? They're all ewaste (expensive calculators) IMO
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"I don't give a fuck." I kind of do and that's why I am telling people here that relying on software wallets is not sufficient.
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How do you know what is "sufficient" for someone else?
I'd prefer that people learn how to keep a secret the old fashioned way (without relying on expensive hardware).
How did people keep secrets for thousands of years before the transistor was even invented? My point is that its not strictly necessary to use hardware.
Elon Musk likes to use the term "Idiot Index" to describe hardware/materials that cost substantially more than the raw materials that comprise them. Most hardware wallets sell for 60-90% margins. Very high idiot index.
20 sats \ 2 replies \ @avb OP 1 Aug
you can do that with sparrow and a node, you can also occasionally import your keys if absolutely necessary - if you do this often, you might be someone who can benefit from having a HW wallet though
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How is it at all safe to import the private keys into sparrow? I still don’t understand how to make a transaction while keeping the private key airgapped without a hw wallet?
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You can have a computer without wifi/networking, but that ain't the same entirely because you don't have a secure element. I think for most people though, that is WAY unnecessary... A TailOS usb stick with sparrow installed is enough, just remove the wallet on it after usage.
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This is so retarded and boils down to “if you don’t have a lot of bitcoin, don’t buy a hww”.
Then at the end says “There are much cheaper, easier and more secure solutions.”
Without providing any other examples of cheaper more secure solutions. Why? Because if he named what he thought was more secure, he’d be laughed out of the room.
Sorry you wasted so much time and spent more money on hww’s than bitcoin. You’re still dead wrong.
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Yeah I've thought this too - all the wallet manufacturers are huge advertisers, on all the podcasts.
But I prefer and trust SeedSigner. https://seedsigner.com/
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What's up with seedsigner
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I hardly think $200 bucks for the average person with a stack of 5x or more than that is a real grudge purchase versus setting up a stand alone device themselves, let the market do its thing, not saying HWW companies are saints, but lesser evil for most
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You can buy a trezor one in 69$ these days, sometime for less, if you want to keep the envelop for the keys, that's alright too, the trezor is only if you need to access it keep the cold storage away from the internet.
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Yes you roll a very secure setup without a hww but the point of these devices is that they protect people who don't know how to do that. Normies are not going to use airgapped computers lol.
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Does not everyone spread their assets across diverse solutions and platforms? Not doing so would be weird and risky...
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Yes, I can remember my keys in my head!
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I can't search it now but there was a post here on SN that told us about DIY a pendrive into a HW.
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I'm not technical about bitcoin, but consider myself tech savvy. My take is: in any setting you ALWAYS should have backups, so, I'm not seeing HWW as the security panacea because even if it's virtually impossible to exfiltrate data from the devices, your seed/words/etc should also be in a different medium, which is not likely to be more secure. You know, the whole setup security is as secure as the weakest link and that... That being said, I do think they're amazing devices and the use cases I see are a. convenient secure signing (though on-chain txs will likely become less frequent); b. secure seed generation, with considerations. My take is that a 1 key (12 words) + passphrase, backed up in different locations with redundancy is as secure as you probably need without risking losing funds due to overengineering the crap out of your wallets. I dunno, just random thougts, I hear opinions
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All you need is coinbase and paper wallets. How many of us are actually transacting with bitcoin all the time? Most of us buy and hold, right?
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You, as a long time tinkering bitcoiner, might not need a hardware wallet but most with a significant amount of bitcoin will be much safer with a hardware wallet than without one.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 1 Aug
I think its OK for beginners to get a cheap HWW like a jade. Later if they become more interested they can move onto more complex setups without a HWW.
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Probably? what hardware wallet satoshi was using? lol
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It's simple, it's safe, and it's good in what it does (keeping the seed and keys secret); I sleep better at night with one, and thus I'm absolutely for having one, especially if the holder isn't as technically versed as some people on here, which just happens to be the VAST majority of holders.
I think you're making too much of this.
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stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.
stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.