Topic: Maulti sig vs single (Read 173 times)

Another point we haven't covered yet is your location and the country from where the parcel will be sent to your destination. Blockstream ships their Jades from the US. If you live in the EU, Asia, or elsewhere, expect bigger fees for customs and import to your country. One way around that is to purchase the device from an official reseller. You'll have to decide for yourself if you trust an additional party to handle your hardware wallet.

I think Coldcard also ships from the US, but they have recently started sending their packages from the EU for their European customers.

I would not recommend multisig setup for most people including newbies, it adds more complexity and increases fees.
Singlesig is fine when used with passphrase, or you can use new SLIP39 (for some wallets) if you prefer to split your keys with multiple parties.

I don't recommend coldcard devices because they are not open source, and model Q is a huge brick with bad display so I don't like it at all.
Jade is OK, it has it's good and bad sides, but it's open source miniature device that can be used for handling bitcoin and liquid network assets.

Safely generated single-sig seeds are safe enough. You can always extend the seed with one or more additional passphrases to gain additional security and prevent a scenario where someone could steal your coins if they found your seed. Multi-sig wallets have their benefits but it's not something that a beginner needs to worry about to be honest.

Both the Jade and Coldcard are airgapped hardware wallets. The Jade can be used as a stateless signer, meaning the device doesn't store the seed after you shut it down. I like this feature. The Jade's cons include no keyboard and unusual navigation keys. It's a cheap wallet made out of cheap materials. Coldcard has a qwerty keyboard, which helps with entering seeds, passphrases, and everything else. It's got a bigger screen. However, it's not open-source - it's only source-verifiable. You should know this if it's important to you.

You can use the Bitcoin Hole to compare hardware wallets and all its features. It can help you to make the right decision.

When it comes to inheritance planning, I am leaning towards more universal approaches.
I want my inheritors to have the maximum help they can get. I also want them to have a variery of options, in case something that works today doesn't work in the future.
In short, I want to help them acquire my funds, in the easiest way possible.

I have concluded in the following options:

1. A multisig wallet, where they have one cosigner and I leave them accurate instructions on how to retrieve the other necessary cosigner(s). Not too easy, but very flexible.
2. A singlesig wallet that they have already and a locktime-signed transaction that I give them today, but it requires X years until they can broadcast it. Ease of use, nothing too hard to do on their part, but unpredictable fees and X years is a vague approach.
3. The easiest approach is to give them the coins today in wallets dedicated for them and let them do whatever they want. Although this is not inheritance but rather a gift.

I agree it's probably best choice. Although P2TR address with custom spending condition also works, although the software/service option is limited (such as Liana[1] or Heritage).

[1] https://wizardsardine.com/liana/
[2] https://btcherit.com/

Definitely multisig is better for the long term. The primary goal of multisig is to mitigate the risk relevant to the case when cosigners are compromised for some reasons. If you have  n cosigners with the probability to be comprised equaled to p_{i (i=1....n)} then the probability that all of then are compromised  simultaneously reduced to P= ∏p_{i (i=1....n)}. Suppose you have two hardware wallets from different vendors and afraid that they may be compromised by malicious firmware. Setting 2-of-2 multisig where those HWs serve as cosigners would completely eliminate  the risk for your stash should one of them be compromised.  Sure both of them can be infiltrated simultaneously  but as you can see from the  above formula such probability less than than probability relevant to single cosigner.

I would  advocate Passport 2 and Jade for cosigners in 2-of-2 multisig.  2-of-3 would be better but more expensive if all cosigners are HW. But you have the opt to chose SW (let's say Sparrow) as one of cosigners. Then, the cost will be reduced.

This tutorial may help you in some extend.

Multi-sig means that you can have divided possession of your funds. For example, you have houses 1, 2, 3. You can configure your multi-sig wallet to be spendable if someone provides a signature of 2 out of the 3 wallets you have saved in each of these houses. This would mean, as a consequence, that for a thief to steal your bitcoin, they'd have to compromise two houses at the same time.

It's a security measure. A property option that is only possible to have on Bitcoin. If you find it too complicated with little benefit, go with a single-sig.

Simple question: Who is your enemy?

Now, depending on the answer, I suggest:

Enemy: I am afraid I will lose my seed phrase backup because of bad backup location.
Best choice: Single-Sig + Dual backups in different locations.

Enemy: I am afraid I will lose my seed phrase backup because of flood / fire / earthquake.
Best choice: Single-Sig + Dual backups in different locations.

Enemy: I am afraid that a Single-Sig wallet can be more easily brute-forced
Best choice: A Single-Sig that was produced on an air-gapped computer, using proper a entropy generator (i.e. any reputable wallet software), is infeasible to be brute-forced. So, brute-force is not an issue. If you think that bitcoin private keys can be brute-forced, you are doing something wrong.

Enemy: I am afraid that someone may gain access to a backup location because it's not a very secure place.
Best choice: Multi-Sig (but the location must be perfectly secure anyway).

Enemy: I am afraid that someone may kidnap me and make me give them my wallet.
Best choice: Multi-Sig with at least one necessary cosigner in a location where it's impossible to get. At the same time, keep a Single-Sig wallet somewhere in the house, so that you can give it to the kidnapper to "outsmart" them.

Enemy: I am afraid that in the future I will not be able to pass my bitcoin to my children or the people I love.
Best choice: That's a tough one. I tend to believe that Multi-Sig is better. Giving one cosigner to the inheritors and also giving them a guide on how to retrieve the other cosigners after death (using a lawyer or a trusted person) is the best choice for me.


Notable mention for the inheritance issue, is this post by LoyceV: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/using-locktime-for-inheritance-planning-backups-or-gifts-5180850

It depends on your needs. If you don't want your fund to be accessible with a single seed phrase, you can go for a multi-signature wallet.
You may also want to consider having a wallet with passphrase. If you extend your seed phrase with a passphrase, both seed phrase and passphrase will be required for recovering the wallet.

Then find a reliable hardware wallet, buy one and use that as your singular wallet until you learn more about the technical aspects of Bitcoin and have a better understanding of multi-sig.

You see, Multi-Sig is not a magic solution that can provide more security by default. Same as pretty much everything else including hardware wallets. You have to learn how to use them correctly.
For example for multi-sig to give you true additional security you have to create each key 100% separately on completely secure independent environments and then combine the keys to create the multi-sig addresses.
If you are not tech-savy and not familiar with how it should be done, it is best to stick to a normal and more easier method like using a single hardware wallet (a simple single-sig wallet).

If you prefer hardware wallet then definitely one wallet is enough, I don't think you need multiple wallets. Because every time you connect to your PC you might be instantly sharing (but never sharing) without your mind. And in case of any wallet you should keep your password very carefully, and when you open the wallet again you never use the old password and it will be most secure if you login with full keyboard.

And the whole role in keeping the wallet secure is yours, to keep the wallet safe you need to keep yourself safe then you can protect the wallet properly.

Omega to tell you the truth I prefer the idea of single sig but everyone I’m seeing online YouTube guys keep talking about maulti sig I think it could be more of a hassle but I’m not that much of a tech savy person

So you're planning to buy multiple hardware devices? I think one would be sufficient. A hardware wallet is secure enough, I don't see why would you go the multisig route with multiple devices. As long as you follow the security practices (never share or restore the seedphrase on your PC, never share the PIN, etc.) you should be fine.

Hi all wondering what the best option is as someone looking to long term hodle maulti sig or single sig ? Also which is recommended out of the 2 cold card Q vs block stream jade ? Thanks