Bitcoin Forum

As the price continues to rise, I wonder if larger wallets will be targeted by those among us whose mothers didn't raise them right.  Is it a feasible concern that larger wallets will be targets as Bitcoin reaches $1000+ ?  Do you think such individuals will look at the "Bitcoin Richest" list and look at those wallets with 500 coins in them, and ignore wallets with 10 coins?

Therefore split all your wallets into many with only 10 coins?

Splitting your bitcoin into different addresses is ok to me.
Splitting your bitcoin into different wallet will be pretty troublesome, when you want to spend your btc.

If you are concerned about being hacked, you should use a paper wallet to store your funds (especially for large amount).

By the way, with just the address known (or together with public key), there is no known ways to get the private key easier than brute force attack. Thus, even if someone find an address with 100K BTC in it, he/she don't have any way to get the fund (thepossibility of finding a private key associated with that particular address would be very very very small).

I use 20 paper wallets to keep the amount of BTC low in each wallet and store copies at two separate banks.

If BTC address are compromised through cryptography, BTC wil be worthless anyway. No point in spreading to a lot of address, just spread to a few different places.

I usually spread them out in paper wallets! Also keep what im fine with loosing in blockchain.

The title and body of the message seem to confuse wallet with address.

Address =/= Wallet.

One wallet can contain many addresses.

Still nobody targets large wallets.  A thief will steal a bitcent as quickly as a top500 address.  Malware generaly empties an entire wallet (all funded addresses) regardless of the balance.   If you are concerned then keep the bulk of your wealth off line in encrypted (with multiple copies) paper wallets.

Just put 25 % of your fund into wallet and the rest to your offline wallet .

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4832471 :-\ i hope you know what you are doing

Never heard of anything like that, and the two separate banks are in two different countries.
Note that is unclaimed property in the article. I visit my banks often and people have been using safety deposit boxes forever just fine.

More wallets, more private keys, more paper wallets is safer.

I keep like 10% in my blockchain wallet, the rest goes to my double-encrypted and offline created paper wallet.

So you have a blockchain specially made for you ? I blame blockchain.info for registering that domain :)

Um, no I wouldn't think so, because cryptography is the mainstay of the whole bitcoin system.

When the P=NP puzzle is solved or when quantum computing reduces P to NP, then basically bitcoin will become worthless. It's a main reason why so many of my mathematician and computer science friends won't invest in bitcoin.

That's why so many white hat hackers are stating that passwords, encrypting, hashing and salting are going to be dead in the future.

0 is not many.

What do you gain from quoting the comment? If I removed the friends part, your argument loses all it's value.

Have you looked at how many millennium puzzles are being solved recently? It doesn't even matter if it is solved or not. P will equal to NP eventually over time. Don't you see the problem?

Seriously, most hard-core computer scientists or mathematicians aren't using bitcoin.

Can you name any that are?

Seriously, most people from -- insert any area here -- aren't using bitcoin.

Are you aware that people do not need to disclose that they are using bitcoins ? For all we know, Donald Knuth could've been mining bitcoins with his unpublished MMMIX. You could, being more realistic now, consider the people who have published papers about bitcoin, and decide for yourself whether you believe they are using bitcoins or not.

That's assuming that they could be. It is more likely that they probably aren't...

You can fight speculation with other speculation, but unless you are in contact people with people that specifically state that they are using bitcoin. It would be reasonable to believe that they wouldn't be using it. How can you assume that you understand the type of risk adverse friends that I have? Most people are risk adverse, and do not engage in risk seeking behaviours.

So nevertheless, the problem is that it can't be proved anyone is using something, but neither can you prove that they aren't unless they come forward. However, you can confer that more people are likely not to be using it due to the flaws with cryptography and future negative prospects. Those who understand the issues behind the idea. You would think it's biased against your argument.

The fact is that there are more problems with bitcoin being an "investment".

Take a look around you, "most" people aren't using bitcoin. Go ask your academic if they are using it. They aren't!

You can draw a venn diagram and look at:
People using cryptocoins
People not using cryptocoins
Within that subset:
Computer scientists using cryptocoins
Computer scientists not using cryptocoins


Basically your just trying to hide the parts of my argument that you cannot go against. This is merely selective bias.

Sure we might have "some" computer scientists using it, but there aren't many that are invested in it.


Why do I use the risk adverse argument?

Well, think about it, if you aren't speculating, wouldn't you be indifferent to holding cash compared to cryptocoins? Why would you hold crypto? That's one less person who is investing in it. Most computer scientists are more interested in the art of computer science. Gee look at people like Richard Stallman. No phone, nothing. That's the type of hardcore user that has no use for cryptocoins. They aren't interested in chasing returns or speculating. So unless you can provide an example where investing and speculating trumps, then I just don't see it. Sorry.

The problem is most of us probably have nothing to worry about, but wake up one day and one of the big wallets might be empty!

But what happens to the value then?

possible. but its also possible that we will see signs and anticipate the breaking of encryption before it is actually broken and employ quantum resistant cryptography before it becomes a problem.

20 is too many for me. keep no more than 3 or 4.. otherwise it's too messy to handle. a good idea is to keep some on the cloud (ie: blockchain.info). that way, even if you get robbed of your cold wallet (say someone you know holds you at gunpoint), he can't take all of your coins.

Based on the history of cryptographic breaks the later scenario is many magnitudes more likely.  Flaws usually begin as academic breaks on simplified versions of the algorithm, then eventually evolve into faster than brute force attacks on the full algorithm.  Those early weaknesses are usually impossible to implement.  For example is a weakness reduces the security of SHA-256 from 256 bits to 102 bits well that is worrisome however a preimage attack would require more energy than the entire human race uses in a year.  Eventually the combination of Moore's law and improved cryptanalysis reduces the cost/complexity of an attack until it is economical.

A good case in point is that SHA-1 has been considered "weakened" for almost a decade now.  However the current estimated cost to perform a SHA-1 preimage attack is on the order of millions of USD (and months of time).  Bitcoin could use SHA-1 for pubkeyhashes and unless your address holds tens of thousands of BTC you would be in no real danger.  Remember the cost is NOW in the millions of USD after SHA-1 being considered degraded for almost a decade. 

On a long enough timeline it is highly likely new stronger address types will be deployed.  Bitcoin can survive cryptographic breaks just fine.  Intelligence agencies use the same kind of risk model.  If the Chinese get a hold of an encrypted classified document it is only a matter of time before they will gain access to the secrets so NIST sets encryption standards to ensure that so much time will have passed that the information will have very little value.  For example say a document which had specs on the first stealth fighter was stolen (but remained encrypted).   If cryptanalysis and Moore's law eventually break that protection 50 years from now well it has done its job.  US stealth technology will be so far advanced from that first version the damage from the loss will be minimized due to the effect of time.