So what's the choice?
Should I trust myself, or should I trust some unknown service, in some foreign country?
I've chosen to trust myself.
Topic: Do you trust yourself to manage your own private keys? - page 4. (Read 6905 times)
That's the "only possible difference"? Really? There aren't any other possible differences?
Do they both operate under the same government regulations?
Are your deposits insured in both by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (or some other equivalent insurance underwriter)?
Are they both held to the same financial audits?
Do they both operate under the same government regulations?
Are your deposits insured in both by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (or some other equivalent insurance underwriter)?
Are they both held to the same financial audits?
Not every country has deposit insurance or serious audits, and also, deposit insurance schemes has limits. And in some cases, I think deposit insurance isn't sufficient if a too big bank fails.
Criticism often comes to online wallet providers (Xapo, Coinbase, etc) saying, if you don't own your private keys, you don't actually own your bitcoin. On the other hand, if your cash is in a traditional bank, you don't really own your cash either. The only possible difference, traditional banks have been around longer, and more people trust them. Many bitcoin users who criticize bitcoin vaults, store their cash in a traditional bank. Hypothetically, if Bank of America, or Barclay, or DeustcheBank announced they've invested millions into a highly protected, advanced, security architecture, would you trust someone to store it then? I personally don't trust myself to store my own bitcoin, for now. That could change in the future, but right now, I'm not a fan of the options, as the technology depends too much on my ability to maintain hardware, or, not lose something. I think about pictures, movies, files, documents, I had on my computer 10 years ago (and I always backed up), and I probably couldn't retrieve a single one without relying on a cloud-based service (Facebook, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.). I have no idea where the original photos of my trip to Indonesia in 2008 are, but I know that album is still easily accessible on Facebook. Are critics right to say, don't use an online wallet provider, it's not safe?
This is true, but securing physical cash in some places of the world is really hard. I can't go to the street (in my case, a big city in Brazil) with an amount equivalent to 1 BTC without suffering a serious risk of being robbed with a fire gun, by the way, a lot of assaults here occurs just after you go to the bank and withdraw some cash (known here as "saidinha bancária", or "bank exit"). In these last 2 days I also exchanged some US dollars which I had at my home for Brazilian Reals, but immediatelly after exchanging it, I deposited the reals at my bank account, because:
1. I didn't want to take the risk of being back to home after exchanging money, even doing this through a legal exchange.
2. With the devaluation of Brazilian Real against the US dollar (now it's 3.29 BRL per USD, against 2.32 BRL per USD one year ago), the excess of banknotes was damaging my wallet and eventually could lead the attention of other people.
Personally I don't trust in my bank at all, specially because I don't trust in fractional reserves, but I think in mycase is just the lack of other alternatives. Also, a lot of people and business still use banks for payments, so I still need a bank account to receive these payments.
OTOH, the idea behind Bitcoin is to bring to you the control of your money, specially on its eletronic form. So, if you go to a Bitcoin bank, you bring to the bank the control of your money, in the same as it happens at fiat money. So, why Bitcoin?
I think that manage private keys on my own is the best solution to make my money safe , also bitcoin make you far away from banks you don't need any bank service !
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
It's no security issue to reuse for receiving money
There is no security issue to reuse even if you send money from an address. Quantuum computers do not exist !!!! The only issue with reusing is privacy.
There is a security issue if you send BTC and use a weak RNG
So reuse to receive is ok
Reuse to send is not so good and can be a security issue, as we have seen with the android RNG bug that resulted in bitcoin theft for people reusing addresses to send from android
All that is true, but security issue is linked to bad RNG, no problem with a good wallet. HD wallets are great as they give you a new address for each transaction and you only need to backup 12 or 24 words.
Yeah but since you comply with the US laws. Know your customer and all that crap it dosn't really matter if it is a new adress or not. your account is tracked no matter how many adresses you use. And if the law decided that you did a no-no you are screwed since you didn't keep your private key private. Not exactly what I call security.
Xapo's SVP of Legal & Strategy just wrote an entire blog on the topic of investors holding their own private keys:
"Using storage techniques like paper wallets or printed key back-ups, as required by certain storage solutions, is akin to managing a large swath of physical cash."
You can read the whole thing here: https://twitter.com/xapo/status/578634435345690624
"Using storage techniques like paper wallets or printed key back-ups, as required by certain storage solutions, is akin to managing a large swath of physical cash."
You can read the whole thing here: https://twitter.com/xapo/status/578634435345690624
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
It's no security issue to reuse for receiving money
There is no security issue to reuse even if you send money from an address. Quantuum computers do not exist !!!! The only issue with reusing is privacy.
There is a security issue if you send BTC and use a weak RNG
So reuse to receive is ok
Reuse to send is not so good and can be a security issue, as we have seen with the android RNG bug that resulted in bitcoin theft for people reusing addresses to send from android
All that is true, but security issue is linked to bad RNG, no problem with a good wallet. HD wallets are great as they give you a new address for each transaction and you only need to backup 12 or 24 words.
That's like asking if you can handle knowing your own PIN for a debit card
Trezor + split paper wallet. Easy peasy.
I may really look into Xapo. I know that feel of lossing a lot of documents over the years. Human error is unavoidable, lossing your wallet.dat could be fatal.
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
It's no security issue to reuse for receiving money
There is no security issue to reuse even if you send money from an address. Quantuum computers do not exist !!!! The only issue with reusing is privacy.
There is a security issue if you send BTC and use a weak RNG
So reuse to receive is ok
Reuse to send is not so good and can be a security issue, as we have seen with the android RNG bug that resulted in bitcoin theft for people reusing addresses to send from android
All that is true, but security issue is linked to bad RNG, no problem with a good wallet. HD wallets are great as they give you a new address for each transaction and you only need to backup 12 or 24 words.
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
It's no security issue to reuse for receiving money
There is no security issue to reuse even if you send money from an address. Quantuum computers do not exist !!!! The only issue with reusing is privacy.
Did you mean address? Yes you can use your bitcoin address many times as you want the problem of the privacy is when you "link" your address to your forum account or your real identity.
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
It's no security issue to reuse for receiving money
There is no security issue to reuse even if you send money from an address. Quantuum computers do not exist !!!! The only issue with reusing is privacy.
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
It's no security issue to reuse for receiving money
There is no security issue to reuse even if you send money from an address. Quantuum computers do not exist !!!! The only issue with reusing is privacy.
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
The better thing (in my opinion) is to use a new address each transaction, if someone knows your private key "owns" your bitcoin. It is a "strange" concept but it is normal. The best thing as I said is to use a new bitcoin address every transaction and after collect them in a wallet.
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
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I prefer Zakir over Muhammed when mentioning me!
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Reusing address(es) is a privacy problem and also it may expose your private key due to reused R values. Overall, it isn't wrong to reuse address but using address in a buggy client usually isn't a good idea.
Criticism often comes to online wallet providers (Xapo, Coinbase, etc) saying, if you don't own your private keys, you don't actually own your bitcoin. On the other hand....
If you dont have the private keys, maybe the wallet service own and manage your private keys, the problem is if you want to change your wallet but keep your addys, that will not be possible because you don't have your private keys.
At last who have the privatekeys have the addys, if you trust them is on, but any time you want they can do what they want with your btc because they own your addys.
Why is this relevant? You shouldn't be reusing addresses anyway.
Criticism often comes to online wallet providers (Xapo, Coinbase, etc) saying, if you don't own your private keys, you don't actually own your bitcoin. On the other hand....
If you dont have the private keys, maybe the wallet service own and manage your private keys, the problem is if you want to change your wallet but keep your addys, that will not be possible because you don't have your private keys.
At last who have the privatekeys have the addys, if you trust them is on, but any time you want they can do what they want with your btc because they own your addys.
I like how from Op's post I can feel that he thinks: people are little retarded and stupid and it would be better for them if they keep all theirs private keys and money in online storage. That way people would be 'free' from thinking about all that unnecessary stuff like 'how to secure my bitcoins'. After all someone can do this better for them...
The thing is people don't need to be retarded not to be able to handle their own private keys. They just need not be informed enough.
I'm sure (almost?) everyone on this forum are able to correctly handle their own keys but unfortunately that's not the case for most people outside.
I took a while to study everything but now I can say I trust myself 100%.
There is a learning curve when it comes to being in control of your own wealth, problem being most of us are used to having other people (banks etc) look after it for us.
All we have to do is convince more people of the financial freedom bitcoin provides.
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