i found a piece of metal with 24 words on it

Question:

You open your eyes. A metal plate sits on the table before you. You determine that it has 24 words stamped into by observation and deduction. It is otherwise blank. How long does it take for you to figure out what it is?

Continue reading “i found a piece of metal with 24 words on it”

Research identifies two best Bitcoin hardware wallets Coldcard Mk3 and BitBox02

After spending about fifty hours researching Bitcoin hardware wallets via:

  • Product documentation
  • Twitter feeds
  • YouTube videos
  • Podcasts
  • Reviews and comparisons
  • Considerations of desired features

My conclusion is that:

Conclusion follows

Very long term cold wallet with single passphrase generation

Make it easier to create a wallet by requiring only:

  1. A good passphrase for it along with a Salt
  2. A WarpWallet implementation to rebuild it.

Not BIP-39 with a passphrase and yet

“as secure as BIP39 although much more convenient and user friendly.” ―Bitcoin Glossary#WarpWallet

Interesting idea gone into great detail here.

Bitcoin Hardware Wallet Airgap Security: Thinking Is Required

Cold-wallets and PSBTs are powerful, intimidating, and valuable.

Whether you use them or not: learn as much about them as you can.

Here is a kind and detailed introduction.

Valuable topics—like this—require time and effort to study and learn.

Learn it before you need it.

12 or 24 Words in your BIP-39 Wallet? Use a passphrase or not?

On Sep 20, 2018:

If the attacker needs your 24-word seed and your passphrase, that is a good security mechanism. It means that if somebody finds your 24-word seed lying around, you shouldn’t have it lying around, but if they do find it and it’s not sufficiently physically secured, then brute-forcing it, brute forcing the password, will require either a lot of infrastructure or a lot of time. ―Andreas M. Antonopoulos

A relatively complex passphrase will keep you safe for several weeks, a month. A very strong complex passphrase will keep you safe for months; unless the person is willing to spend a million dollars on hardware to break that passphrase. ―Andreas M. Antonopoulos

TODO: Find out how long it takes today.

How much does it take your Bitcoin wallet?

How much does it take your Non-Bitcoin wallet?