One question though, not really important for the video I dont think, just curious. I've been into Bitcoin since 2012 so I am pretty old school admittedly, but being a non-coder the newer methods are fairly beyond me. The comment given to me about the old coins and using single addresses for all transactions as an insecure method.... I have heard about that creating a security risk, but honestly I just don't see how. I can look up some of the top addresses in btc, ltc, ftc or whatnot. Some of them have 100s or 1000s of transactions in and out all from the same address, yet I haven't heard of people losing coins beyond poor password security (and some other rare instances around poorly constructed wallet software). Bitcoin seems very secure and people with lots of money are trusting it - so what is the risk?
Well, from how I've heard it explained, it comes down to upcoming potential insecurities regarding quantum computing. An address is actually a hash of the public key, not the public key itself. Once you make a transaction you expose the public key, thus if anyone solves the quantum computing problem (and that's a pretty big "if") it might be possible to derive the private key and steal funds. We won't know when/if that happens until someone pulls it off. We probably have (at least, given the current state of quantum computing) many years until it becomes an issue.
Folks are just trying to create good practices for wallets to prep everyone. It will be a big deal (lots of news) if it's solved (or broken depending on how you look at it).
Ah, thanks so much. That makes a lot of sense. Puts 2 things together I've been wondering about for a while. I knew a transaction would expose your public key AND I knew the bitcoin crowd have said defense against quantum computing was possible- but as of right now most people aren't prepared.
But I thought the inherent exposure risk was from sending out from your wallet only- whereas in receiving nothing is exposed. Is there something riskier youve heard around having multiple transactions into a wallet vs a single transaction in?