Bitcoin Forum

A UK company called Elliptic Vault is claiming to be the first company in the world to offer insured bitcoin storage.


The fee is 2% of your coverage level annually. Here's their faq page: https://www.elliptic.co/vault/faq

The part that I find really interesting about it is that their underwriting is done by Lloyd's. If that's not a sign that bitcoin is going mainstream, I don't know what is!

This completely defeats the monetary purpose of bitcoin. great a large, multi-word password for your wallet. Print off a paper wallet with Armoury, then place your paper wallet in hundreds of places scattered everywhere so you always have access to it in a pinch, nothing more needs to be done.

Go to www.grc.com/password and use one of the randomly generated passwords that Steve Gibson's site generates for your wallet password. Not to worry the password you choose to use never gets randomly generated again. :)

My house, my car, my life, my income, my health are all insured.  

Why wouldn't I want to insure my bitcoins?   I didn't write Armoury.  I have no way of knowing that their seed can be trusted. And some random person's opinion on an Internet forum is unlikely to change that.  

At least I can sue the Lloyd's names.  I sincerely doubt that the creator of Armoury has sufficient assets to cover losses if the program is found to be fatally flawed for some yet to be determined reason.

I personally wouldn't but I can see people who might. 2 % seems expensive... If I was going to use them I would try to get the lowest coverage possible.... like 10k or somemthing even if the coins were worth 500k +  and just rely on their good storage.

It would be very helpful if someone is able to get a copy of the insurance policy wording so we could look at it. 

I wouldnt just because i don't want any official entities knowing about my bitcoin holdings.  period

Bitcoin I don't think has evolved enough yet to have any "real" insurance for it's own currency. But lets take this back a step, what needs to happen first is the Exchanges need to become more responsible and manage all trades between the buyers and sellers of bitcoin which will help stabilize bitcoin more, this way corporate companies like insurance companies which you have clearly depended on will be happy to provide you with a policy to protect your bitcoins as they will feel more comfortable in dealing in bitcoins knowing that when they exchange their coins for fiat they won't be scammed.

I was wondering when a site like this would come along.  I think it is a great idea.  Gaining the trust of people holding bitcoins would be the toughest part, since insurance on bitcoins is relatively uncharted territory.   The first thing that comes to everyone's mind is that the person or company holding the coins is going to take off with everyone's money...

Although I think my bitcoins are fairly safe.... if I had a pretty large amount of bitcoins then yes I would seriously consider getting them insured.

Same thing applies to cash, some people would rather hold it themselves and take their own security measures....other's would rather keep it in the bank of security and insurance reasons.

I think offering insurance on bitcoins is something A LOT of regular every day people would want to do ,  we can sit here and talk about how to make paper wallets and keep things secure etc etc but I think for the average person it's a bit too confusing and they'd much rather pay a small annual fee to know if something ever happened they won't lose their money.

Sounds like your giving the bansters a way into bitcoin. :)

It's a good idea for some although I would never go down this route - kind of defeats the object somewhat.

nice idea, but at 2% annual isn't practical in a long term. 10% for 100 or even 50, or 20 years and they probably would be already having some customers but then it isn't probably practical for them to offer such rates at current valuation of bitcoin. 

Sure and personally I have no problem with that.... here's why.  Even if theres banks or similar things offering insurance on peoples bitcoins or willing to hold them  or making it easier for people to use them (ie a debit card type system)  there is still always the option of people doing transactions or holdings or whatever on their own.

I don't think it has to be one or the other. We can have multiple options for people out there. Maybe people who don't understand bitcoin too much or arent computer savy and find holding their own bitcoins as too insecure can use something like a bank that offers insurance and protections on their bitcoin.  For other people like yourself there is still the P2P aspect of bitcoin and that will never go away.

It's just added options for different types of people out there and allows the adoption and expansion of bitcoin to continue.

if you insure your bitcoins, you reintroduce the need for third party trust....in THE INSURER!! it completely defeats the purpose. if you can't insure a private key against loss or theft, then you probably don't deserve to have the coins. secure a string of characters.  how in insuring any simpler or safer than securing?  it's madness. Show most people still just don't get how the whole thing works.

Why does it have to be one or the other though?

Why can't less technical people or as I call them "everyday people"  use a 3rd party system to keep their money safe. While other people choose to hold onto their bitcoins themselves or do transactions without any 3rd parties.

Even if 3rd party systems start to be the norm,  bitcoin is still P2P so you still have the freedom to use it however you want.

it doesn't have to be one or the other, but it's only half insurance. Lloyds of London will turn over your coin if they receive a court order to do so. How do you insure against that? Governments are far more efficient at stealing than the private sector.

No it doesn't.
Have fun holding private keys worth a few millions in your house.

That's a whole seperate issue though. If bitcoins were illegal to own then yes you risk having them seized, weither they are in your possession or in the possession of someone holding them for you. Also if bitcoins were illegal then there wont be companies offering insurance on it in the first place.

If it's a case of bitcoins being allowed but a government wants to seize your bitcoins it would likely be because you were doing something illegal. Again having an insurer or not doesn't matter in that situation.  DPR didn't need a 3rd party to hold his bitcoins in order for the FBI to seize them during his arrest.  

If there are places offering insurance and protection on your bitcoins then we are assuming that bitcoins are legal. If they aren't then the issue of insurers is moot anyways.  Also, if you were obtaining bitcoins through illegal acts (selling drugs for instance)  again it wouldn't really matter if you had an insurer or not, law enforcement will still try their best to seize them regardless.

If it somehow became public knowledge that you had a piece of paper in your house that was worth $120 million USD how long do you think it would take for your front door to be kicked down by a very determined group of heavily armed bandits?  Or for a group to jump you when you come from the bank safety deposit box?

bitcoins don't have to be illegal for the government to size them. they could seize them because you owe taxes/fines/child support/alimony, got sued, didn't get a license to do something, didn't pay the bribe/shakedown, evaded capital controls, etc, etc, etc.  All they need is a pretext and the unquestioning obedience of a critical mass of citizens.

the simplist way of thinking about it is this

would you trust a third party with your FIAT bank account numbers and debit card PIN number, and ontop of it be charged 2% of your bank accounts content to keep it safe?

or would you do what the rest of the world does, and have it printed on a piece of paper if your memory is not good, and know that only you have the access to your funds.

bitcoin is suppose to remove third party trust. such as banks. hundreds of years ago people use to store their wealth personally, but because of security and other issues something came along and offered a service to store peoples wealth. what came next. giving those insured parties a piece of paper in the form of an IOU. these service providors became banks, as we know them today.

lets not make bitcoin go down the same route.

that's more about how very wealthy people deal with personal security than securing bitcoin. You's have to deal with personal security just like any other really rich person would. either hide your wealth or live somewhere resistant to such threats. that's not a bitcoin insurance issue.

Bitcoin insurance is worthless because the insurer would need to have posession in order to ensure that the keys were really safe. then YOU don't have possession. otherwise, there is almost no way to determine if I didn't steal my own coins and make a false claim.

If the insurer holds the coins and has possession, it's effectively lending coins out at a NEGATIVE interest rate. Stupid.

topic: yeah maybe. why not? for the long run we need this kind of service.

Any sort of business with fiduciary responsibility might do this as cryptocurrency becomes mainstream. A competent individual can take of himself, and usually doesn't need that sort of insurance.

It is very secure to generate a pure random private key by casting dice, once you have that key, you only need an offline program to generate the address to accept coins

But to protect that key is not easy, both physically and digitally. More backup means more possible theft. A paper wallet is prone to robbery, so digital form is better, you can add a strong encryption password that can not be brute forced in any reasonable time frame

Again like i said earlier, this has nothing to do with having a 3rd party protect your coins or not.  Yes it's true if you you arent paying taxes, dont pay parking tickets, or fail to pay child support the courts will try to seize any assests they can from you,  because you are breaking the law plain and simple.  That's true if you use a 3rd party or not.

But yes, in that case if you plan on doing illegal things you should hide your money as best as possible because governments/courts do try to get your money if you broke the law. That's the punishment for breaking a law, ie not paying your child support.

This is true for anything, wether it be cash, bitcoins, or things like houses or cars. Really has nothing to do with weither the average person should have their assets insured or not.

Of course it's a "bitcoin insurance issue" that is the whole point of any type of insurance , to protect you from damages or losses. It's the same reason very few people keep their life savings in their house, but instead choose to put it in a bank or similar type of company.

Some people prefer to hold onto valuable things themselves and come up with their own security measures.  Most people though chose to have various things insured,  weither its your house, a boat, a car, your business, your money, your life, etc etc. For bitcoin to go "mainstream" there will need to be services like this because as others have stated, few people want to store large amounts of money in their house and prefer to put in something that will pay them back if their money was stolen or lost.

Listen, Buddy. If you trust the government to behave honestly, competently and fairly, then you're right. You have nothing to worry about from them. You seem to have trouble understanding that not all people feel this way or have reason to think this way. But then you also have to trust that the insurer will also treat you honestly, competently and fairly.  so your choice for securing your bitcoin fortune lay on either a) trusting two parties: government and insurer or b) trusting yourself.

If you can't secure a string of characters, then you can't secure anything. The precautions any competent insurer would require you to take are the same precautions you could take anyway on your own and not have to pay a fee for. It costs almost nothing to store a string of characters. It is trivially easy to hide a string of characters. i can't see a demand for this because rich people usually aren't that stupid. Now if you have an insurer/bank that would PAY a fee so they could lend out you bitcoins at an even better rate, then that would make sense. I might do that.

Tom from Elliptic here.
If you have any questions/comments about our Elliptic Vault service, please post them in this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=424215