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OKAY i  have hardware wallets. I am a bit nervous they can get cracked like cold wallet hack has happened.

So I have a core 29 with a tiny amount of btc in it.

How to make the core 29 wallet be safe is the question.

I never encrypted it.

So I suppose I can make a long passhrase.

Like:

 abcdefgh87654321HGFEDCBA

Encrypt it.

Then test that I can get into the wallet.

Then make 5 backups of the  wallet.

I WOULD guess that is safer than a hardware wallet.

Also should I upgrade to core 30 or stay on core 29

Or use core 28.

I DO NOT WANT KNOTS .


So  ideas of setting up a  core to store a few btc.

I do not know much maybe Bitcoin Core can be offline while you still run it as a node. If possible the wallet can be offline, it will be better.

You can have your own Electrum server and still have an Electrum wallet setup on an airgapped device and make use of your server on a watch-only wallet for transactions.

I am not a node runner, but there is option to use Electrum with Tor and have a seed phrase (+passphrase) set up on it.  This has been the option for me.

You would have seen on some of my posts that I do not like hardware wallet because it can reduce people's privacy. But getting one and setup a wallet with passphrase to extend the seed phrase will make that kind of Coldcard attack not possible.

Airgapping and cold storage is superior to everything.

Next is multisigging with different hardware wallets.

If you've not got much to store, you can use core and other software wallets. If you know what you're doing you can use software only with a decent amount of funds but it's really not recommended (I just used to do it with electrum though).

Is it an online hot wallet? If so, I wouldn't use it to replace a Trezor.
For cold storage, I find Electrum easier for offline signing than Bitcoin Core (read my sweep method (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5318475.msg56389821#msg56389821) to get an idea).

abcdefgh and 87654321 are very easy for a (dictionary) attack.

Make them on different storage media: different brand USB stick, HDD or even CDrom. If one of them has a limited shelf life, another one might last longer.

Then test the backups of your wallet!

It's a lot more difficult. How about a combination of both: offline signing with Electrum connected to a hardware wallet?

As far as I know, they're all safe. I'm still using an older version.

Is the coldcard bug really a reason to panic if you aren’t using one? It seemed like an exploit for that service only. I’m not sure I understand the panic. Am I not worrying enough to be planning to do absolutely nothing? My private keys were generated more than a decade ago. I’d like to think they’re battle tested by now.

og my fear would be  if one company can be exploited  due to a 40 bit vs a 256 bit search

then maybe other wallets may do short cuts.  making shorter search areas for a pc to crack the wallet.

If you're using a descriptor wallet anyways, go for 30.2+ (skip 30.0 and .1).

And if you're using a descriptor wallet, you can use a Cold-Storage Bitcoin Core setup by exporting the no-secrets descriptors to a watch-only Bitcoin Core wallet.
Transaction creation, export and signing procedures are supported by the GUI so it should be easy.
The only complicated part is the first time setup
Or wait for this in the next release version: github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/32489 (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/32489)

If that's your fear, why don't you use dice rolls or coin tosses to create your seed?

That's right, there's no panic unless you used Coldcard hardware wallets to generate your seed.

If your seed was generated from non-coldcard hardware, you are safe.

If it was generated with coldcard hardware with firmware preceding v4, you are also safe.

Multisig is superior to all this anyway, and it is the method you should be using when you have a bunch of hardware wallets.

Given that you are a Trezor user, the simplest thing would be to create a new account in the same device, choose passphrase as additional protection (a unique password of 10+ characters, letters, numbers) and then transfer all your coins to that protected account. A seed generated with such low entropy is not something that users of other hardware wallets should worry about, because this is obviously an isolated case.

I think there is no room for panic, everyone can protect their coins today in the very simple way already mentioned. Additionally, an air-gapped wallet + strong passphrase are more than enough protection to allow you to sleep peacefully until super quantum computers and some perhaps still unknown threats appear.

Superior by far yes, but not recommended for those that don't know what they are doing which represents a majority of users. Perhaps you or other users of this forum would be surprised how many people are not able to create proper backups of 24 words -- which is literally among the easiest things in the world, therefore we need to be careful what we suggest and to whom. I can completely see cases of people using a cold storage airgap system, eventually getting frustrated with it and entering their wallet details on onlinecoldstorage.com.  :D

Correct. People keep over complicating these topics because of anxiety and fear. The attack vector that was used here is completely mitigated by using a passphrase. Nobody is going to be brute-forcing all the seed phrases that they have managed to re-generate from a vulnerability with the hope that one of them will have a matching passphrase before the Sun runs out of fuel. Always use a strong passphrase with every hardware wallet, it could not get more simple than that. This prevents the low entropy attack vector, and it does not require additional hardware, knowledge, or multisig. It does not require anything at all. People, don't be modern day NPC overthinking machines, and just solve problems with the best and simplest solutions.

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Quote
Quote from: LoyceV on July 31, 2026, 02:33:45 PM
Quote from: philipma1957 on July 31, 2026, 01:27:32 PM
I never encrypted it.
Is it an online hot wallet? If so, I wouldn't use it to replace a Trezor.
For cold storage, I find Electrum easier for offline signing than Bitcoin Core (read my sweep method to get an idea).

Quote
So I suppose I can make a long passhrase.
 abcdefgh87654321HGFEDCBA
abcdefgh and 87654321 are very easy for a (dictionary) attack.  yeah sorry I thought I was being obvious with that.



Quote
Then make 5 backups of the  wallet.

Make them on different storage media: different brand USB stick, HDD or even CDrom. If one of them has a limited shelf life, another one might last longer.

Then test the backups of your wallet!

Quote
I WOULD guess that is safer than a hardware wallet.
It's a lot more difficult. How about a combination of both: offline signing with Electrum connected to a hardware wallet?

Quote
Also should I upgrade to core 30 or stay on core 29
Or use core 28.
As far as I know, they're all safe. I'm still using an older version. "




If you look at the bold my reply was on topic.

and an attempt to show that my original post was not clear enough about  the passphrase


my intention to make a passphrase is to make this chart it shows the 94 letters numbers and symbols of my keyboard

01 ~       11 %         21 )        31 E            41  I           51  |        61 G        71 :      81 V       91 >
02 `       12 6          22 -         32 r            42  o           52 a         62 h        72 ‘      82 b        92 /
03 1       13 ^          23 _        33 R           43  O          53 A         63 H        73 “      83 B        93 ?
04 !        14 7          24 =        34 t           44 p            54 s          64  j        74 z      84 n        94 5
05 2       15 &         25 +         35 T           45   P         55 S          65 J         75 Z     85 N
06 @      16 8          26 q        36 y            46 [           56 d          66 k         76 x     86 m
07 3       17 *          27 Q        37 Y           47  {          57 D          67 K        77 X      87 M
08 #      18 9          28 w        38 u            48   ]         58 f           68 l         78 c       88 ,
09 4       19 (          29 W       39 U            49    }        59 F          69 L         79 C      89 <
10 $       20 0         30 e         40 i             50   \          60 g         70 ;         80 v       90 .


I will buy this from amazon

https://www.amazon.com/100pcs-Wooden-Number-Wedding-Decoration/dp/B07MBJ3DLR/ref=sr_1_9?


I will  put numbers 1 to 94 in a bag shake them

pull out a tile

mark it down

put tile back

pull out a tile mark it down

do this 24 times

giving me a random passphrase of 94 to the 24 power or


The full number form of 94 to the 24th power is 22,650,014,605,289,804,187,822,243,772,656,756,034,402,621,8496


      Ai missed a comma but this should be a tough passphrase

Even so, if Bitcoin Core is used as a Hot wallet, that passphrase can just be key logged with one sneaky malware.
It's safe as long as the machine is safe, but not safer than an air-gap setup by any means.

BTW, it's worth mentioning that the "Passphrase" that they've mentioned in that Coldcard topic isn't the same as Bitcoin Core's wallet passphrase.
In that thread, it's about the "salt" that's used together with the mnemonic to change the resulting binary seed.
Since it's the entropy that's flawed in Coldcard, adding a strong passphrase will essentially make it hard for the attacker to reproduce the correct wallet even if he can reproduce the mnemonic/seed phrase.

Bitcoin Core's Passphrase on the other hand is just a "Password", it encrypts its mkey that encrypts the secrets inside the wallet.
All the attacker needs are the wallet.dat file and the passphrase which can be hacked as you attempt to decrypt the wallet, e.g.: when sending bitcoins.
Bitcoin Core in Air-Gap setup is safer against that.

Phil, you should probably use the Base64 character set instead of that custom character set you made.

It's a power of 2, and is also standard so it helps in case you forget the details on how to make the seed again.

If cold wallets are threatened right now, then this means you should absolutely stay away from putting your life savings on a hot wallet.

What I would do if I wanted to be completely certain my funds are safe is make a 2-of-3 multi-sig, with three different hardware wallets / signing devices, to not rely on the competency of one vendor.

I think you can do this much more easily with the help of one of the online tools that will show you all the parameters of your possible password. Of course, you will never use that identical password, which is just an example - but it will give you a better idea of ​​how strong it is.

Check this tool :

after reading and studying the issue.

i will do passphrase with my trezors.


so a trezor 5

put a long passphrase i can do up to 50 characters. my keyboard has 94 characters.

the tiles come tomorrow .

i am allowed to do multiple passphrases.

so  5.386×10¹⁹  is a 10 symbol field

53,860,000,000,000,000,000,000.  is the size of the set of combos

what is even better you can create the passphrase offline with the tiles.

but don’t lose it or you are fucked.

also the trezor has its seed my trezor 5 uses 20 words

that is 2048th to the  20th power..

plus if they crack the seed they see say 0.015 btc

and do not see the passphrase with say .33 btc

the trezor can do more passphrases.

so you can have

0.015 in the normal wallet
0.333 in passphrase 1
0.333 in passphrase 2
0.333 in passphrase 3



now for me if I do passphrase on the trezor

i can code it on washers.


I have 36 punches
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2026/08/02/UoFhvg.jpg

thus using 3 washers with 8 symbols each

I get 36 to the 24th power is 101559956668416 x 101559956668416 x 101559956668416=

1.04753254e42

pretty safe  about 142 bits which is better than 128 security

add a 4th washer of 8

and you go to  1.06387359e56 or 189 bits

which is stacked on top of the 20 word seed

place the 36 punches in the box

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2026/08/02/UoF7N5.jpg


use sledge to make a 8 symbol washer
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2026/08/02/UoF94z.jpg

pull out 1 punch
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2026/08/02/UoFg22.jpg

put it back in the box
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2026/08/02/UoFiPc.jpg

the washer fits 8 symbols easy peasy you can clearly see beginning and end
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2026/08/02/UoF8rP.jpg

---

So here is what the trezor looks like

the standard wallet has 20 word seed

the first passphrase has same 20 word seed and a 14 character length using 94 symbols and letters

the second passphrase has same 20 word seed and a 16 character length using 36 punches in the photos above.


https://www.talkimg.com/images/2026/08/02/UoNC2W.png










but the issue remains that when the passphrase is entered the first time it could be compromised

Mod note: consecutive posts merged

Isn't there an option to prompt your Trezor to enter the passphrase on the HW's screen itself?
Most attack vectors wont work if your use that instead.

AFAIK, Trezor Safe 5 supports that option.

Good decision to use Trezor instead of a Hot wallet, BTW.

Is it even possible for such sensitive information to be entered through a user interface? I personally have a Trezor, but I've never made a wallet protected with a passphrase because I don't really have anything extra valuable on it. If any HW has the ability to enter seeds or passphrases via the UI, it should be thrown in the trash - unless someone wants to share their seed with hackers via RAT or keyloggers.

Playing with trezor 5.

There are some ways to make a passphrase via the trezor.

But if you access weeks later I am not  sure how to enter a passphrase offline.

I think I can.

To me if you want a 1 btc cold wallet trezor.

You could do

0.1 20 word seed
0.3 20 word seed with passphrase
0.3  "   "
0.3 "   "

1 btc total

In Trezor Suite?
It should be enabled in the settings and there should be an option to create Passphrase wallets,
then the passphrase will prompted in the UI or a button to enter it on the device when you need to create/access a wallet with passphrase.

AFAIK, only older models don't have that option to enter the passphrase on the hardware wallet's screen.

It certainly sounds like a broken record: if you use one or more mnemonic passphrases, make sure to very carefully and redundantly document them! Because if you loose or can't reproduce a mnemonic passphrase, you instantly loose access to your coins, which you expressed more casually.

It may sound obvious, but some people screw up the basic documentation. Human brains will inevitably forget complex mnemonic passphrases, so proper documentation is mandatory.


IIRC, I don't use modern Trezors yet, it's Trezor's SLIP-39 new standard recovery word backup which encodes additional metadata and uses Shamir Secret Sharing (embedded entropy is 128 bits equivalalent to standard 12-word BIP-39 backup).


I hope other hardware wallet companies didn't fuck up their code paths for entropy generation and properly use embedded TRNGs in contrast to Coinkite's Coldcard mess. At least some companies did code audits, but those don't guarantee you find every flaw in your code base.

yeah I am going to make 10 passphrases using a set of punches

the punches are
A to z     thus 26  
 0 to 8    thus  9
and *     thus 1

that is a set of 36 different punches.


shake them in a box pull 1 punch
replace it in the box pull 1 punch

so 1/36 x 1/36 until I do  a large passphrase

2 pulls is                       1296    combos
3 pulls is                     46656    combos
4 pulls is                 1679616    combos
5 pulls is.              60466176     combos
6 pulls is           2176782336    combos
7 pulls is         78364164096    combos
8 pulls is 2,821,109,907,456     combos


now I can fit 8 punch marks on a stainless steel washer.    
and 1 washer means     2.82 trillion   which only slows the attacker some what
but 2 washers mean     2.82 trillion squared better
and 3 washers means  2.82 trillion cubed  even better


now if you have a 20 word seed and 3 washer 24 symbol passphrase you have a decent stoppage of a hack.

My opinion is.  For both philipma1957 and everyone else reading.  I understand the Coldcard situation made a lot of people nervous.  Including me.  But I just replied to another situation on the Wasabi Wallet Topic a short while ago (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5476197.msg67012172#msg67012172) and I see this trend of people all of a sudden moving their Bitcoin to a 'safer place'.

Please do not over complicate this!  If you have a Coldcard with some Bitcoin on it then hurry up and move them to a safe place but other wise do not try to re invent the wheel and keep in mind that caution is still very important!  The person I linked above to lost 6 Bitcoin because they moved from Coldcard to a fake Wasabi Wallet.  Others are probably going to lose by moving from a safe place like a Trezor to a hot wallet on an infected computer and lose every thing instantly.  Or some will insert their Seed on a random web page with the same consequence when the Bitcoin they had was in a secure place already.

Do not rush this process!

Yeah be careful do it step by step.

As of today I have trezor and core holdings.

I also cashed in a good amount of my coins as I will not be able to take a huge hit and get the value back as I dont earn a ton mining. Plus at 69 my time line is likely 20 years or less.

Can you easily distinguish between the ones that look similar, like O<>0 and I<>1 ? If not, it's better to leave them out of the pool.

one is  1
I     is  l

so they are easy

0 and O may not be easy

I am waiting on a brass plate for fast easy back up sheet {in house}

the washers in bank vault

Somehow trusting banks with your Bitcoin doesn't feel right to me.

Those only contains the passphrase, right?

I see its advantage over keeping it in the same vicinity where you stored the seed phrase,
But at least put a reliable tamper-proof seal for reassurance that it'll be obvious if they got curious on its contents.

Yeah I would want the colder stored btc passphrase on a washer bolt nut setup in a safety box.

I have the parts with the exception of the brass plate.

So the passphrase should be in 2 spots.

The seed in two other spots.

My trezor 5 has a tested 20 seed setup
It has 2 passphrase accounts
Soon to add a third.

This is just my personal opinion and it may be controversial but it's my take: If you buy a laptop and install Debian on it and only use it for Bitcoin using Bitcoin Core, and you only use it to sync the blockchain and then copy-paste your wallet when you need to make a transaction, and once done you delete the wallet (after making a copies somewhere offline) that is a step higher than any hardware wallet. I have always thought hardware wallets are just a terrible idea, it identifies you as a Bitcoin target and you are trusting some third parties with so much stuff that the split second you are exposed to the network doing this remains a safer option.

Of course, ideally you want to have 2 laptops, and learn how to use PSBT transactions. Even tho user experience is still annoying and convoluted, that is the most ideal setup.

In your Debian laptop setup, why do you entertain the nonsense of copy/delete the wallet? What security improvement do you expect from it?

This laptop is online periodically and Bitcoin Core has to go online too, to sync the blockchain.

There could be some vulnerability by which a hacker could somehow infect the system though the chances are low when you just do only what you outlined as usage pattern (requires some discipline of the user).

Your copy/delete wallet playbook has some risk if users screws this up. And I don't think it's necessary or would improve security of the wallet.

If the device got infected somehow, copying back the wallet, opening the wallet, typing the wallet decryption passphrase will expose the wallet and private keys to malware on the device (if the malware is sophisticated, but let's assume exactly this).

A software wallet can't really protect the keys from system level malware on the device when the user enters the credentials required to decrypt the private key(s) in Core.

A hardware wallet on the other hand doesn't give malware on the computer a chance to attack private keys which the hardware wallet holds encapsuled without any API (cough, except for Ledger Recovery crap) to access them from the computer side. This is the main advantage of a well designed and executed hardware wallet: even an infected computer can't make the attached hardware wallet reveal any private key, seed, extended private key to compromise the wallet.

if you have core wallet and a long passphrase

you can go on line synch the core

go off line put in the password .

then go online and do a send

there are a few ways to make core wallets with small amounts

which allows for safe paying.

but means 3 or 4 core wallets

You can do this, and it will probably work just fine, but doing so makes it a hot wallet instead of cold wallet.
When dealing with cold storage, I always assume malware (let's say a key logger) would patiently wait until it gets an internet connection, and upload your data.

yep true.

lets pick a btc amount for holdings say 2.0 btc

put 1.6 btc on a trezor use 3 passphrase wallets and the standard

0.5 on the passphrase wallets
0.1 on the standard

all cold storage

you have 0.4 left

some on exchange some on core 29 or core 28 wallets.

Since v17:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/offline-signing-tutorial.md

For Austin Powers:
https://github.com/bowlarbear/yeti-2.0

This is a good suggestion,
But take note that the latest version of that tutorial is designed for the next version of Core which isn't released yet.
philipma can follow it if he can build a binary based from the latest source code though.

I've also suggested this Bitcoin Core Air-Gap setup in my first reply, BTW.
He seems not to be interested so I didn't follow-up with the specific steps without the exportwatchonlywallet command.

Coldcard ≠ cold wallet/cold storage

"Cold"card = marketing buzzword

They were made hot aka connected to another computer either before they were sold or by the end users, for the firmware "upgrade".

If I were to design a soldered cold wallet chip, I might make it accept only 3 regex-matching user inputs: a private key/master private key that's committed to read-only memory, with a passcode for signing, then any PSBT from the corresponding watch-only wallet. Only outputs: either a raw TX or the address/master public key computed on command via RAM. It would never generate its own private key(s), and once you commit the externally-generated with passcode to ROM, it becomes disposable because no other data can be permanently written.

Honestly, I no longer care about hardware wallets and such things. This is the best approach to my mind: buy a cheap new laptop without any OS installed, do not connect it to the internet, remove wifi and bluetooth parts from it. Stick a usb flash drive with Tails installed on it (verify the Tails image before creating the USB), open an electrum wallet, generate a wallet and that's it, you have an air-gapped computer with cold wallet that's more secure than any hardware wallet. Of course, write down your seed phrases somewhere and in the best case, if you are able to memorize 12 words seed phrase, do it over months to the point where you know it so well that it can't be erased from your memory, like some lyrics that you learnt at school (I know many people are against memorizing seed phrases, so I don't recommend it to anyone, I'm simply expressing my opinion for optimal security).

I agree with everything, except one small detail that I can no longer sleep easy at nights: Computer RNG. I genuinely want to have the randomness confirmed with my own eyes from now on; and I know the recent incident with Coldcard has nothing to do with flawed CSRNG, but I'm afraid that everything happening on the computer is going to be heavily scrutinized by AI, and there MAY be weaknesses on deeper levels as well, like urandom or the hardware component itself.

Rolling a dice will become the new paranoid's standard, but you can't import dice entropy in Electrum.

yes but how big can you make the 25th word on electrum .

I did an electrum years ago and it was a 12 word seed. they said I could add a 13th word but I do not remember the rules about adding the extra word as a passphrase if you can do a big word it is easy use my punch method

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GWCLMR3V/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1


use 32 of the 36 punches over and over again

32x32x32x32x32x32x32x32=1.0995×10¹²   

 1.099 trillion cube it

or 24 characters long   and you get 120 extra bits randomly

Why buy a new laptop just to run Tails OS? The whole idea of Tails OS is that it's can be used on any computer.

Electrum doesn't let you to import dice entropy but it can be fixed if you convert your physical dice rolls into a standard mnemonic seed phrase. Roll physical dice to create 128 bit entropy, then convert it into 12-words BIP39 seed and then import BIP39 seed into Electrum.

The whole idea of buying a new laptop is that you are buying a fresh, untouched hardware. Tails can protect you from infected OS but it can't protect you from compromised BIOS, physical keyloggers and altered hardware. If you have an old laptop at home, then no problem, use it. But if you don't have a laptop and you have to buy, I would still choose a new, cheap laptop over second-hand.

What makes you think a "newly bought" cheap (=consumer grade) laptop is cleaner than a second-hand business laptop (=usually easier to open and inspect fully) which I can properly reset, reflash with published firmware from the vendor?

From my personal experience with few consumer laptops, those were sometimes a pain in the ass to open to get access to various components and inspect them. While the experience was quite different and much more pleasant with decent business laptops from Dell, HP and ThinkPads (IBM or later Lenovo).

I'm not paranoid enough to consider a laptop with newly flashed firmware and a properly reset BIOS to be still compromised. Storage media properly wiped, of course.

Some people trust old hardware more than new hardware when it comes to Bitcoin. How sure are you the manufacturer didn't install a backdoor already?

How likely is this if you buy a laptop from Craigslist? I'm not worried about a compromised BIOS, nor am I worried about physical keyloggers in an air-gapped laptop. If that's going to happen, it's going to be a targeted attack, and the attacker can just as well install it inside the laptop you have at home already.

I prefer hardware that lasts many years, and I expect a new budget laptop to last less long than a (cheaper) second hand business laptop. And I don't want to pay $2000 for a laptop I'll only use for accessing cold storage once a year.
Let's agree to disagree on the details, I'm pretty sure both options are quite secure anyway.

I've been thinking about physically removing anything I don't need from an old laptop for a while now, but never actually did it. But like you said: business laptops with full Youtube explanation of how to open them are generally much easier than consumer laptops.
For the truly paranoid:

• remove network card + socket
• remove bluetooth module + antenna
• remove Wifi + antenna
• poor epoxy on the memory modules to prevent liquid nitrogen removal (even if they're soldered, you can't be careful enough)
• remove all USB connectors you're not going to use, fill the holes with epoxy
• remove webcam
• remove microphone + jack
• remove SSD if you don't use it
• remove microSD slots
• add epoxy all around the casing before you screw it back together
• fully encrypt the SSD if you install anything on it
• rig it with C4 let's not do that

But again, I haven't done this yet :)

I have a lenovo laptop running core 25.

Pulled the wifi card

Encrypted the ssd a 2tb nvme.2 Samsung

It runs mint os.

It has a 24 character passphrase .

So i think It has 32gb ram

I should check it it has been sitting with 0.001 btc In it.

You'd be surprised, here's an extreme case test done by o_e_l_e_o,

Reference quote:
I'm pretty sure that Electrum's "seed extension" lines of code haven't been updated to set a hard limit since that reply,
But the GUI seems to have a cap of how many characters it can take (a little more than 32000), I haven't tested using CLI.

At that point, just use the sha256sum of the long text as seed extension. It's just as safe, much easier to do and you can literally make it as long as you want.

The Trezor 1 requires you to enter passphrases on the computer, but on the Model T and newer versions with a touchscreen you can enter the passphrase on the device.  I will say that the small screen and having to swipe from side to side makes it difficult for complex passphrases.

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As for the security talk, when something like the recent ColdCard breach happens I think it's a common tendency for people to start questioning their methods.  It's natural and not necessarily a bad thing.  But, one must be careful not to overcomplicate things for himself.  Complications create opportunities to make mistakes.  Multi-sig setups are great but also can be overly complex and cumbersome to recover if one of your devices goes down.

The simplest way to add additional security is to create a long, strong passphrase.  Regardless of what off-line method you use, this is the one thing that isn't complicated to understand and should be taught to newbies as standard operating procedure.  I created this graphic to illustrate how long a passphrase needs to be to add 128 and 256 bits of entropy to your seed.

https://talkimg.com/images/2026/08/24/U5zDh8.png

The ColdCard breach also got me thinking about how for a while now many "experts" have been saying a 12-word seed phrase is plenty long enough for security reasons.  I wonder how many of those cracked ColdCard seeds were 12 words, vs. how many (if any) were 24.

so how far have you gone

when in use: locked BIOS down only to boot from CDROM. tape over the webcam, a dummy 1/8 in plug inserted into the mic socket disables the built in mics (generally via hardware contact in the socket) and remove the drives and wifi/bluetooth module. glued the network port with superglue. thats basially it.. left the USB ports but no boot possible from them.. ok ok so im lazy.

then boot via CDROM with tails. run colemans and electrum doing whatever needed. print anything needed via ancient HP laserjet from forever ago that only is used for that stuff. i always print a few garbage pages at the end even though im sure that thing has no persistent memory but hey.

Not that far, actually. I'm usually okay with a Knoppix DVD (startup option toram) on a spare laptop that's not used for anything else.

I have some nice black tape on this black laptop, and it's not even for cold storage.

Did you glue a RJ45 connector in there? Just superglue isn't going to block much.

This is a good one. I have a much newer (but very cheap) HP laserjet for offlline printing, but it's very annoying to get to work on Linux. This thing needs drivers! I miss having an ancient laserjet (with regular paper jams).
Mine still has the starter toner, so I don't print garbage pages and expect it to last forever with just a few pages per several years.

I was discussing with several Bitcoin bro’s at a RL meet recently about individuals set ups and I think you need to find something safe that works for you.

For me personally, Trezor and a 24 word seed for a certain % of the stash and passphrase protected wallet.dat for the other part of the stash.

The more you read advice from other people and flippantly try to imitate them and change a set up that is working for you, the more likely it is that you get totally out of your comfort zone, fuck something up and lose everything

Bitcoin Core with a device that doesn’t access the internet for anything apart from Bitcoin should be fine. The wallet.dat should be passphrase protected with a complex password. You must keep multiple back ups in different locations and do not lose your passphrase.

You all know how good Trezor is, I don’t need to explain that. Most Bitcoin losses are amateur user error or people trying to be too smart. Please think before you change a set up that works for you.