Bitcoin Forum

It's something which seems crucial to me for reaching mass adoption (in addition to scalabilty of course...).
Already on this forum there is a shitload of people losing their Bitcoins by forgetting passphrases, the private keys, the dat file etc...
So I would like to know what technological solutions could be proposed for this problem.

To make a comparison, a lot of people are forgetting their credit card code (even if it's only 4 digits...) or losing the card and the centralized solution to this is the bank providing new card/code.

Which decentralized solutions to this problems could you think of?

If they can't remember their password, AND don't have a seed or private keys, AND don't have a backup file prior to encryption then they probably don't deserve to use Bitcoin.
The simplest (but not greatest, due to obvious side effects) of all solutions would be simply to just not encrypt your wallet.

Even an average Joe won't be worse enough to forget password. If he can't then as suggested he doesn't deserve it, let him get fixed to the conventional system that gives him a much easier access than bitcoin. Because everything with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were completely technology and internet based where even a small mistake can put you into big loss.

How is this a 'problem' exclusive to bitcoin? If they forget their passwords or pins then they'll likely forget them from every other thing including cards and websites. Sometimes there's only so much you can do for people but if you can't be trusted to keep this sort of info safe and secure then you probably shouldn't be trusted to use the internet by yourself let alone use bitcoin.

backup is the only solution, and it is easy and "average-Joe-friendly", you just keep a copy of your password in one of these many password manager programs or simply write it down on a 100% secure and offline piece of paper.

and with today's HD wallets that give you a seed, you just need to save that seed somewhere on paper and even if you forgot the password or lost the wallet, use the seed (which are simply English or other language words) to recover all the funds.

The only solution there is is to hold your passphrase in a file somewhere with a description only you can understand.As long as you have it anywhere,you are in a nice place because you can access that text document for example and everything is perfect.Don't rely that you will remember it because we have to remember a lot of things every day and at some point or another it is bound that you can't remember something you need

If you have enough money to worry about losing in a bitcoin wallet you make damn sure you don't forget your passphrase.

It's that simple.

It's actually pretty easy, because the average Joe is generally less stupid than people think.  All they have to do is back up their computer, or have a hardware wallet, or write it down on some paper which is hidden somewhere - it's actually quite easy really and people often even burn their bank details and reports.

The main reason why people sometimes lose their passphrases is that they're tech geeks and they care a thousand times more than the average Joe about their security.  It's just transferring responsibility from the bank to the user.

If you want to eliminate this problem, you will be creating another security loophole. This requires another entity to have control of your private key and give you the private key after you have proven your identity. This is no different from an online wallet and potential hacks can happen.

Your best bet is to create a cold storage that is unencrypted but you need to store it at secure locations which you know no one else can have access to. If you want more security, use multisig and place the keys in different geographical locations.

Yes if access to bitcoin wallet is made easier,it would become more vulnerable to hacking and chances of losing bitcoin would be same as when forgetting passphrase.

The difference is of course that passwords or pins from websites and cards can be recovered. Almost every website has a standard "forgot password"-link to click on, and a new creditcard just takes a few days to arrive.

That doesn't make the problem exclusive to Bitcoin. Maybe digital photos or files in general are a better comparison: many people lose them because of failing drives, cryptolockers or other viruses. That didn't stop the "average Joe" to use a computer. "Average Joe" just doesn't think about it, until it's too late.

Yeah there's more risk to using bitcoins which is why wide scale adoption by the public will never happen.  More likely large institutions will use the blockchain technology. You can always get back lost passwords, stolen balances, etc. typically from banks.. not if you lose the private key to your bitcoins. That's alright though.. who says there needs to be wide scale adoption by your wells fargo type chain?

Why do you care? Those stupid average Joe's are the reason why rich/smart people still exist. If they didn't forget passwords, order pizzas, throw away their btc hdd's to the trash can; bitcoin wouldn't be what it is today.

Think about it; if everybody was holding their coins just from the start without losing a satoshi, what would be the bitcoin price now? Thanks to those lost bitcoins, btc's supply is lowered. That's how the ones who don't forget their pass, who don't throw away hdd's, who didn't order pizza's are rich now.

There's no need to remember a passphrase nowadays. If you fear you will not be able to remember your password or passphrase for a long time , best practice to do is to add it to USB which you will never put in computers connected to internet and keep 2-3 USB with you always with passphrases and seeds. Chances are less than 0 or mathematically impossible that all 3 USB-s to break down in the same time.

i have always found the term "average Joe" funny in most cases. and if you think about it, who is an "average Joe". at this day and age it really doesn't matter in my opinion. anybody who is capable of connecting to internet and opening up google.com is capable of doing anything. specially things so common as making a bitcoin wallet and creating a backup from. there are a lot of walkthroughs everywhere.

There's no use of remembering passphrase or privkey when you can save it somewhere else. People often forgot their passphrase or privkey because they're only saving it up in some place which is pretty unfamiliar to their mind or just too lazy to make a copy of these especially "average Joe".
If you're really aware of the security of your either passphrase or privkey when you make a copy of these, try to encrypt it yourself, it's kinda easy. If it seems just too complicated, there's no hope.

A weird idea
can we somehow use our fingerprints as a secret phrase? Any limitations for this?

The general rule of thumb is, if you can remember a password, it's probably not good enough. But I doubt that you are dumb enough to not be able to remember a 20 character password with special characters. In this case, I have serious doubts that there's any possible way to bruteforce it with current or future technology. I think the bruteforce power is overblown, you can't crack a decent password, but to be safe, go as long and complex as possible.

I think it's quite normal for people to forget many things,and especially passwords if they are long and complicated.But when someone start to use any cryptocurrency he need to know basic things about security and I think many of them make a mistake at the very beginning.What we need is to make backup of our private keys/seed word/dat file and save that in several places to be sure for future.

Only way to replace passwords is to use fingerprint or maybe eye scan,but it's not so easy to implement in wallets today.The question is how reliable these methods would be,strong password is in my opinion still the best protection.

I am one of that average Joe that you are referring and I never once had the idea that I will once forgot to make a backup and to forgot the password that I used to encrypt my wallet specially when I know too well that I have a huge amount of money residing in that wallet.

Well anyone would simply make a lot of backups especially the passphrase that are highly consist of capital and small letters and numbers, like myself I guarantee that I will forget passphrase like these, that is why I am having multiple backups for my passphrase, but if you don't want doing so much back up that might let someone sneak to your things and get you passphrase then try to memories it and make it a hobby in using it as a password to your account in social media, email address, at first you will need a copy of your passphrase, but repeating the process will surely let you remember it.

Even if you forget your passphrase and loose your dat file if you are capable of saving your private keys then it is more than enough to use your coins and if you are not capable of doing that then you are not good enough to use any service .It is quite difficult to memorize the passphrases and the only solution is the save everything in a safe place.

To be honest, I didn't even bother to remember all my passphrase as I said to myself that I can just make a back up on it . I only have 3 backups, the two is on my desktop and mobile (both of them are encrypted) and then the other one is on the back of the photos, To be exact every photo in a photo album has at least one word .

It's not really a problem if a person didn't bother to back it up . It's a common sense to not put money into something that you have little knowledge of .

now we know where to look when we pay you a visit ;)

but jokes aside, make sure to not keep any backups on a hot computer (connected to the internet) because it doesn't matter if it is encrypted, at some point you put in the password and decrypt it and that can be a weakness.

go 100% cold and never worry about anything.

Back up the wallet and passphrase and make two copies and each stored in 2 different locations. This is to protect against fire in one location, ie your house.

https://i.imgur.com/Lm1bJ0k.jpg?1

Embed an encrypted passive rfid chip in "Joe" or his dog that contains the passphrase. Then take a hundred unencrypted rfid chips with the password to the encrypted embedded rfid chips, and scatter them in a field somewhere. If Joe forgets the passphrase all he has to do is go to the location where he scattered the other chips. Apparently rfid has a 3 foot range so it shouldn't be hard to find one of the hundreds of rfid tags he scattered previously.  Once found he will have the password to his embedded chip, so he can then unencrypt the passphrase held in the embedded chip in his body, and recover it. Something tells me I just made that way more convoluted than necessary  :D

edit: okay, new, even worse idea.. embed 4 rfid tags... one in each hand and one in each foot. Only the rfid tag in your right foot is unencrypted. It contains the password to unencrypt the rfid tag in your left foot... which contains the password to unencrypt the rfid tag in your left hand.. which contains the password to unencrypt the rfid tag in your right hand which.. you got it.. contains the passphrase to your wallet. So you go clockwise with the rfid detector.. right foot (unencrypted), left foot, left hand, right hand and passphrase.

Is this a very big issue at all? It is not even our problem, it's the wallet owner's problem. Why the hell did he/she uses a password that is too difficult that even he cannot even remember it? Sounds stupidity to me.

Simple solution:
- do not encrypt wallet.
- write down your password on a piece of paper and hide it somewhere safe. (uh another problem, he cannot remember where did he kept the paper)
- have password hints
- use all the letters in the alphabet as password or use your name in reverse as a password.

There are many ways, just do what is comfortable for you. Do not let foolishness makes you lose bitcoin.

this solution would only work for some addresses like a vanity address and the alike but wallets like  blockchain would require the passphrases which very few of us
even bother to remember/memorize, its just to random. the best,less expensive and risky solution would be to have a paper wallet

How can we expect? Just like he remembers the password of his email account... Exactly the same.


What problem? I don't see any problems or issues here. This isn't certainly a Bitcoin problem, at least... People still have to remember things and exercise their mind. We can't come up with tech solutions for each and every human error or fault. Creating such will only make matters worse.

This makes me remember when those cars with autosteer/autopilot functionality crash due to human error and since the system was on, human blames the machine because of "bugs". We cannot blame technology for our faults. If one forgets to make a backup of his wallet or his password, it's sad, but it was his fault for forgetting.


This is generally considered to be a very weak "secret phrase" as you leave your fingerprint in many places. This has already been discussed a while back.


This is generally not recommended.


This might be bad too.


Good advice :)

Simple solution for average Joes..
Don't use bitcoin, if you can't remember password, passphrase, private keys or dat file.
Don't use c. card, if you can't remember pin.

Maybe in future we will get finger print, retina scan, face detection etc etc in the bitcoin tech.

It is not a secure solution ,you must always encrypt your wallet but you can always save your password and pass phrase in a note pad which is not that difficult and keep in a safe location,never use password hints and easy ones since you are dealing with money and make sure you put in a very good password so that no one is able to crack it easily.

Personally, I'd be expecting an average joe like this to be using some sort of online wallet that all he has to do is remember his username and password to be able to get into his bitcoin. I wouldn't understand why he'd need to just remember his private keys and such like this, if hes an average Joe and doesn't fully care if someone else has control over his keys (partially at least in the case of BitGo.

This is a good idea, though I'd doubt people would be making sure to have both of these at all times if they'd be making transactions regularly.

So, if I was an average Joe I'd be using Blockchain.info or Bitgo. Two easy to use online wallets.

You could just backup your files, if you use a smartphone and you want to save your selfies and music you backup your phone and you can do that with a few clicks, they could backup their wallets during that process and forget about  losing their coins, but people are lazy and don’t want to even do that.

I don't know why you'd want to try and use anything along the lines of FP scanner, eye scanners or facial detection features, sure they might be kind of cool and "futuristic" but there are still leaps to get to something like that, and even once we get to that point it's going to be hard for companies and users to convince governments that it's a good thing to let the average person have access to those kinds of technologies (for various reasons I won't detail right now).
I personally prefer just using what we have now. Really keeps the anonymity as opposed to having to tie something in directly with what you have.

simply don't make any password, just store your bitcoin offlien and you are done, i'm doing this since years and i'm fine

if you need password for your bitcoin in your computer that are online, put the wallet in another machine that is used only for bitcoin


or they could use bitcoin like they use their fiat money, through coinbase or other secure online wallet(xapo etc), if they can't take the patience to learn how to secure their coin with their wallet and everything


this is again not a bitcoin fault, but i know that this is another problem hinder bitcoin to take the next step for mass adoption, beacuse you can't compare losing a password for facebook with losing it with money(bitcoin)

and losing a password for your bank account can be retrieved easily, original poster is looking for decentralized way to restore your password, which is impossible you need to trust someone else, which si not decentralization anymore

"average Joe" can at best be expected to pay a company that does what Xapo et all do- take away the need for knowledge and responsibility in exchange for convenience and a hefty fee.

Cryptocurrency in all its current incarnations is not built for "average joe".  Either some unforeseen social or technological change will occur, or we will have "average Joe" money- fiat, traditional banking, credit cards and the like, and "elite joe" money- a more desirable medium or exchange and store of value that denotes a more privileged place in society the same way a college education, luxury items or property ownership does at present. 

Because of the influence that technology and capitalism have in the world at present I truly believe that the ability to understand, use and properly manage cryptocurrency is likely to be a significant source of social division in our lifetime.

I guess we can't expect everyone in the world understands how bitcoin works, how to import private keys, how to create transaction before bitcoin becomes successful.

This is why we still need online wallets, such as Coinbase, Xapo etc, which have password/passphrase recovery feature.

For full blown acceptance of bitcoin more user friendly methods for storing and safekeeping bitcoins are needed..

Stuff like hardware wallets a great step in this direction, but in the end there will always be a backup required though.

when you go and use a new system then you also have to adapt yourself to the new situation. it won't happen easily. it is like when the first car came out and people switched from using horse and carriage to vehicle, "how can you expect 'average Joe' to remember where he put the handle to his car to start it in the morning?"

Passphrase is not designed to remember it is designed for us to put it on the safest place that we know so when we forgot our password in our bitcoin wallet then it will be easy for us to recover our funds. I think you don't need to remember or memorize the passphrase, all you need is to put a copy on a clean sheet of paper and keep it so you will not be bother in memorizing it.

No one has said that using new technologies is always easy and efortless. But to some extent you have to adjust yourself and also have some basic knowledge, if not some advanced and specific ones. Nothing will just fall of the sky so average Joe also needs to learn how to note the passphrase if he can't memorize it.

Passphrase is created to be backed up and not to memorize or remember it, we should be write those passphrase into a clean sheet of paper and keep it into the safest place that we know so we don't need to bother our self in remembering the passphrase of our wallet and to be easily recover our funds when our wallet password is lost.

i agree with this, there has to be basic knowledge of password, passphrase creation and storage.

I can understand if someone is messy or disorganised that the systems which should normally be put in place
are not or left until another time, this creates problems.

you could actually have a specific system for creating passwords for everything you do online,
email, banking etc. which are all related or on a specific theme like your favorite actress or actor for example.
[obviously not using the same format for everything!!!]

there are simple solutions to password creation etc. to help YOU remember.

Discipline is the first step!

Some of the options:

Method 1:
Have the seed saved in a safe: on 3 different mediums: paper, usb, cd.

Method 2:
Use password manager with Yubikey and 20+ char random password
Store it there

Method 3:
Have the seed words split in 3.
Part1 Part2 Part3. Find 3 trusted relatives or whoever, and at first one store: Part1, Part2, at the second one: Part2, Part3, at the third party: Part1 Part3.

Method4
Store it on airgaped machine.


Whatever happens to one of those parties, remaining two can be used to reconstruct the seed, and no single person can do it themselves.

I think as biometric security becomes better and more common place it will have a part in solving this problem. I do think the OP brings up a good point, though. It doesn't take much to scare the 'average joe' off.

But you don't give a dam...

You just have to write it down somewhere and remember where it is!
Don't tell me it's too complicated xD

Even if you are able to memorize it you can forget it in any moment or anything can happen to you. People can write it in a paper and can make a copy in a txt file and keep it in a pendrive or a cd.

This is not a good idea... as the price of bitcoin goes up, robbers might start robbing you hand/arm just to get the passphrase. I think average Joe should stick to the online wallets which offer passphrase recovery services.

Solution for the "below average Joe": tattoo mirror image of password/passphrase/private key/whatever to left and right upper chest and either butt cheek in tiny text and camouflage within another tattoo. Multiple places in case of injury or medical procedure.

They could put half of it on the bottom of one foot, and half on the bottom of another foot. Or they could do a multisig with feet from 2 different people. Problem with this approach is you have to get a new tattoo every time you change a password.



I don't know if this would be a problem since a robber would have to know you are using rfid tags, and also they'd have to know where they are located on your body. Actually, they could conceivably find them with x-ray machines. I'm sure rfid tags would show up on an x-ray, so you may have a point.

Interesting idea but IMO a tattoo is a bit overboard solution. Maybe it is worth when you either like tattoos in general, or have enormous amount of Bitcoin stored.
There is always a possibility that someone will learn about your tattoo and kidnap you just to read it and stole your coins. Why risk yourself like that?

The problem with this is trusting external company to manage your bio-security. Would you store your fingerprints online where someone could access it steal you biometric data?

PIN codes were first created around the idea that even a rerated person could remember them, so the “average joe” that you are talking about could at least remember a 4-digit code, hell even a monkey could remember a pin code, as for the bitcoin there are similar ways, I personally use an online wallet like Xapo for example where e you only have to enter a password one time and from than you could use only a pin code to make things easier.

Bitcoin is not the only thing that using such passwords or any security features. We have lots of things that we need passphrases so prior with the usage of bitcoin, we have some knowledge now that we must take care of the passwords we are making.

Aside from that, average Joes can't be called "Average" if they didn't know how to remember their passphares. They will be tagged now as "Newbie" joes since they didn't know the one of the basic thing that's a must on the internet.

I tattooed it under my foot , its not going anywhere :)

Well, the question is dealing with average Joes losing or forgetting their secret bitcoin infos, not to address preventing themselves from getting kidnapped for their bitcoins. Kidnapping for bitcoins is a whole other question and scenario. If someone who wants your bitcoins wants to kidnap you or a loved one, it doesn't matter where you keep your password/passphrase/private keys if you think about it. They aren't going to care, they are going to want you to give them up one way or another.


Nice, just don't go coal walking or step on any landmines. And take care that you don't get diabetes and have to have your foot amputated.  :P

The problem is,if you are not using the pin or a simple password for an extended period of time,it is possible that you will be forgetting the password as you are simply not using it.It is a natural thing and that is what is happening to most of the people,they are not using the passphrase often and if you are rarely using the password then the chances of forgetting it are higher and when it comes to bitcoin if you forget those there is no way in hell you could recover those unless you save those details elsewhere.

I still like my original idea of scattering, or hiding, cheap passive rfid tags with the password/phrase on them.  You could go to some remote area and scatter around and under rocks several hundred of these. 

https://i.imgur.com/EoWXbYq.jpg

Or you could use the flat kind. You encode it with your passphrase then go to several libraries and check out your favorite books. Glue an rfid inside the binding of the book. It will already have an rfid from the library so even if someone finds it they won't think much of it. Or if you are paranoid you could put half on one book and half on a different book. Use several libraries and maybe 5 books from each, then return the books.  Now the only things you have to remember are the location of the libraries and a few of your favorite books.  ;D

Until such time that there can be a way to manage the long passphrase, we should be taking notes of those and make sure we put them in a safe place somewhere. No need to rely on our memory since it can be impossible as we are already overloaded with information. Put the note in a vault...now is there an online vault somewhere that can be safe?

I agree, you should make counter measures for yourself to avoid getting locked or losing bitcoins. if you are forgetful and you can't remember the password/passphrase, just make a back up file of your password/ passphrase and store it in flash drives, external hard disks or in google drive (just make sure that your account is protected) and, don't use same password you used in your wallet and lastly, make a back up your wallet.dat just in case of data corruption.

I've got an idea based on how the human memory works:

For the memory, recognition is way easier than recall : for example, when you're speaking a foreign language, it's a lot more difficult to write the Japanese kanji for "love" (it's "愛") than to recognize it among other candidates. Or it's easier to understand some words of Japanese than to produce them yourself. Or in other words, speaking is always more difficult than understanding.
And secondly, the brain "loves" visual mode, way more than language/word mode.

So:

Imagine a steganographical image of a room for example. The steganography is not used to hide the code, but only because the brain likes pictures, not words. the code is inside a very small portion of the code, on which Average-Joe must click. there are lots of elements in the room picture (or landscape or city street etc) so that it's not easy for him to "know" beforehand what the cue is. But if he sees it, he recognizes it. Always based on the fact that recognition is superior to recall.
To increase the protection, the image must be large enough, and even using 3 or 4 different images like this (it's a bit like a Re-captcha actually).

Using other systems besides passphrases with a decentralized recovery option... Like having family store it with you. But that's also risky. Maybe something like a fingerprint, but just as unique but more secure would be good.

We don't have to remember the passphrases/ seeds itself but we have to copy or keep it in a secured storage what we have to remember is that where it was stored on our portable drives, usb etc..sometimes we forgot where we copied some files and the tendency to delete it by anyone else who are using that storage..

So make copies on USB drives in different spots, or put it into a remote safe like your bank.

Yes that is the best thing to do when backing up the passphrase of any kind of bitcoin wallet or even the altcoin wallet because that is how we can be safe and feel comfortable when holding a lot of coins in our wallet and if we just remember or memorize it then there will be a high chance for us to forget that and loss the funds.

USB drives lose their data if they are not connected to a power source in short intervals (i don't remember how long though you can research it yourself) this means holding your private keys, etc on a USB disk and coming back in a year or so to it may lead to a big loss.

Such is the case for the older generation, especially those in their mid-lives already. I, myself, admittedly keeps forgetting passwords for oh so many different online accounts from time to time. But for things that has to do with my financials, I make it a point to have a secured and safe back up of whatever credentials to necessary to safekeep my accounts. It can be a pain in the ass sometimes having to remember all these log in credentials and security questions but it makes it harder for others to attempt hacking into your precious accounts.

Yes, there is always a risk of you can lose your data or even your drive can be lost, for that reason if you use that method it´s good to use 2 or 3 devices and check the data regularly, if you use a pendrive you can connect it to your tv and check if the files are still there.

Completely!
On a basic USB stick it can be lost if not connected for 2 years. But some are made with a bigger battery so there is still time going by.

But nice point and it's important to be at least AWARE of that ^^

How about this way of generating a passphrase.
Let's say it has three parts
First part: Some simple word/password which you cannot forget
Second part: Your fingerprint
Third part: Store the third part in the cloud. Now to retrieve it you need a password which will be generated by time-synchronization. Something like Gemalto's token. Simply put these are one-time passwords which are put into a device before they are deployed and only your device and authentication system knows this. Since this is a cloud system you can have ways to recover the password even if the device is lost.

This way even if one part of your key is compromised you still have two levels to break in. So as soon you sense one part is broke you can create a new wallet and continue using it

wut?
The second part of the passphrase will be... Your fingerprint?
Ignoring how complicated all your idea is...
What is a phrase fingerprint? xD

Passwords may not remember. But there are such functions when the password can be restored, and access with the help of a mesh of the eye or a fingerprint is very difficult to forge. So it's worth thinking about how to secure your documents and money other things.

well thats how it works you want to mantain information that way you have to keep some private data to urself, any thing that will change that will ruin the secutiy aspect in its own

Prevention ie better than cure. You dont have to necessarily have to rember it you could copy and paste into a textfile and keep it hidden or encrypt it using some zip file softwares
Just emembering passphrases is very bad especially when their 25-60 characters long, it's bad for you cause you might forget it that is why you should have some back up solutions.

One word:

Biometrics

that is not such a good idea.
the fingerprint system is not perfect yet and it has some problems, and reaching a truely random password with it will be hard (from what i have understood from what i have read).

also consider what if you burnt your fingers? what will you do them? all your money will be lost because you simply lost something that you could never "back-up"

Burning your fingers would only happen on 1/10000 chance and if youre a careless person then possibilities of this thing to happen would be high. Biometrics is always a good security and if you are not satisfied then choose iris scanner it would be much better if you do really concern about security into your bitcoins.

Nothing, really.

The point of having a cryptocurrency in the first place is that you want to have full control over your funds. If there was a way to recover your funds then there will also be a way for others to exploit this method and hack your account. And this plus the irreversibility of bitcoin is a recipe for disaster as people will aim to hack as many accounts as possible in bitcoin instead of bank accounts because the transactions are so easily made.

If you can't store your private keys safely, then maybe you shouldn't be using bitcoin....

i am not exactly referring to a horrible incident that you lose your finger for example although that is still possible and leads to total loss.
but even small burn like burning it with a hot stove or something leads to you have no access to your money at least until your finger is healed! and that should be a concern because you wouldn't have any other way of accessing your funds then.

I really do not think there is any way to do them responsible. People do not change easily if they do not tolerate the consequences of their carelessness. If in the future they do the same fault again that means they will not ever understand how to protect their funds and maybe let them to stick with their cash fiat money.

We shouldn't expect average joes' to actually memorize all of that but we should show them how to save them on a hard drive or any magnetic drive that they can always refer to when the need arises. Not everyone is good at recollecting information they've memorized and so in order not to lock them out of their own personal accounts we should provide an alternative way for them to save th i.e. Bitcoin paraphrase.(i.e. Pendrive, notebook etc.)

This is true when the personal computer first appeared no one was sure what kind of use the average person will have for such a device, and now we seem to be unable to live without them for even a few seconds, people will adapt and bitcoin will eventually become more user friendly.

Technology makes our lives really easy so thats why when we adopt new technology at first we dont expect that we cant live without it or without using it though it is not really necessity but we cant live without it. You are right at first because they dont know that importance of bitcoin they wont adopt it but at the time  goes by they will :D

Human stupidity/negligence will never be cured. Before you ever put money to something, you have to do research about it so you wouldn't regret it. It's written on wallets that you should write down your seed somewhere and passphrases are also important. It's pretty obvious. Now, if you didn't know all this, then you weren't reading when you created your wallet. If you forgot it, it's alright as long as you have the seed of the wallet.

A lot of people are forgetting things, but do we really have to implement something so big just so people would stop being so dumb? I don't think so. People have to learn sometimes.

I am pretty bad in remembering these pass-phrases. So I have written down them in a piece of paper and kept it securely in my locker. If this is lost, then all my coins are gone. Also, if someone steals that piece of paper, then it is trouble for me.

I think it is dangerous for you to put your pass-phrase copy in your paper from your locker because pass-phrases are easy to identify and other people that have access to your locker can get and steal it, so if you ask me, i will just put it on my room or put it in the book and place it around my room and also i will ask my parents to remember it so i will not be worry.

Such cases is really possible since the danger is always on our side or in the environment which we cant even prepare when that thing happen. Therefore,if you know that your fingerprint is the only way to access your money or wallet then you should really be careful on for it to be compromised and if you are worried too much on this thing then better to seek on any other way.

You can use some trick to hide the passphrase words within a larger text. For example, you can write a poem where each line starts with a passphrase word or you can write a text and place every five words, a word of the passphrase.

That is quite useful for people who cannot remember their pass phrase. It is like hiding a treasure in a plain sight. You will just encrypt your passphrase using your own pattern and then decrypt it if you forgot your passphrase. Just remember your way of decrypting them or you will have another problem.

I use passphrases but as obscured form as password. 6-word passphrases are harder to remember for average Joe than 12-char passwords. That's why best option for him is just to store in fiat and in bitcoin only money he can lose. Drug users just hide their mnenomics next to stash.

in the future you won't have to remember anything

wallets will be accessible by fingerprint/iris/voice scanning

a usb, or charge card, that Joe can load up BTC too, and they can beep across a scanner.

If they loose the USD / Charge card they have lost the BTC, If you find one you can use it.

So just like cash.

using a secure password manager app either on desktop or mobile can be helpful. that way you just have to remember ONE master password.
there are loads out there that are either free or have very low fees.
also you should always backup with two factor authentification!

Yep, password managers are definitely the way to go. KeePass is a great free option if someone is looking for one. You should never reuse passwords and password managers are the way to achieve that.

The solution to this problem I can think of is that either you should not put any password on your bitcoin wallet or use a password manager to store your passwords at a single place.
And even if you still loose your password then I advise you to keep the wallet seed at a safe place as you can use it to retrieve your lost wallet.

This is a huge issue to me and someone needs to find a way to make the safekeeping of cryptocurrency easier and more fool-proof.

Well, even average joe can remember their password for their social media account, and they can write the passphrases somewhere. It's not like you have to remember it. And if they lose it then it's them to blame in the first place to forget something associated with their money.

I got this problem I while back and it is safe to say that only people who are not active with their accounts tends to forget their password. Like what happened to me with my bank account I forgot my 10 digit password because I barely look at my account. Bitcoin wallets on the other hand are much easier to access because they is a wallet app for it and I can always check my in going and out going transactions with it. For me people who barely have any interest with their Bitcoin will have a higher chance that they will forget their passwords.

You don't need to worry too much about the safekeeping of your passphrases because there is a lot of things you can do which is very easy like having a soft copy of your passphrase and keeping it on the safe place that you know so you don't need to store it online which is very unsafe, you can also get a copy of your passphrase and keep it on an offline usb or you can just make a paper wallet to store your cryptocurrencies and passphrases at the same time ;D.

This is Rich! online or offline bitcoin is not really safe in storing it, if you are having a doubt on the security for online wallets then you can always have your bitcoins on a physical coins but I think it is expensive or on the paper wallet, I think even thought your bitcoin is in the offline storage what if your PC would get virus or your computer would just don't work all of a sudden then you will have lost your bitcoin, even in a Trezor storage or a USB storage it is not really safe with certain virus right? or it might corrupt your storage! I think it is OK to just trust your wallet provider because you can never know what may happen in the future! even though bitcoin is secure it can always have a slight error involve!

Well I think you can save it in your bank safe or in a personal safe and keep it away from intruders. It's not going to be easy but I think from time to time average joe will adapt and recite them verbatim.

1. put it on paper.
2. split it up
3. laminate
4. give to different people who don't know each other to hold.

Problem solved.

Whatever method you use, its better than being sloppy and getting hacked.

Maybe write them down or something? I mean it's not that great of a philosophy but it's really solvable. :/

 


Saving a passphrase or writing down a password on a piece of paper is a huge issue for you? or is there something else maybe? Well the way and the level of security of your bitcoins is up to you, how careful are safe you're keeping them that's how safe they're going to be.

Maybe he is just a forgetful kind of guy? and I think this is really bothersome and I have known someone that has an ATM password that is only 4 number that are needed but keeps on forgetting it, he needs the number to always be written in a paper, then keeps o looking at it every time he would withdraws from an ATM machine well it is a nature of some person, well problems like these I think it is pretty normal and since the passphrase was made with numbers and letters with a wide range and not only four digits I think he would need to hide a bunch of written passphrase and put it some where safe,

They can write it down, place it somewhere safe or somewhere they can have access to easily. Put it in post-it notes in their house if they are living alone so that they cannot, for the love of god forget it. That isn't really a problem at all if people just look first into much simpler solutions.

Yes passwords manager are a great way to manage and create strong password that protects our funds, Keepass is a great option but there are some other software that offers greater integration in the web browser for those lazy users that don’t want to lose a single second opening the program in the desktop.

That is one of the best and safest way to avoid hackers to get accessed to your passphrases by writing it down to a notebook and keeping it on a safe place so your passphrases are stored offline and the hackers can't do anything to get that and hacked your wallet or account.