On the other hand I got a Jade voucher!

Those if you interested in Jade might want to go buy the token to get first dibs on the next batch.  Paying with liquid tether and you get the thing for ~$36.  For a open source hardware wallet that can do airgapped signing on it's own (has a camera) that is a steal.  And it is likely to be Bitcoin (+Liquid) only though it will also have open development.

The way it works is you buy a token on the liquid network, and then when they get stock the people who have the token can buy the RESERVED device with it (July they say).  It's a tokenized pre-order.

If you want to do the liquid (Tether) dance and get the 10% off you can use the Sideswap wallet to do it all, including buying the tether and receive your voucher token.  Be aware the sideswap does charge a fee to do the exchange... but you still get the wallet for less than $40 all costs considered.  Let me know if you need a hand.

https://store.blockstream.com/product/blockstream-jade-token/

I guess I am not familiar with their shitcoinery.  I thought Fenton was an OG Bitcoiner who at least sort of "gets it". And I do not know Paul.  I have seen him prancing about on twitter, but never paid much attention.  I figured from looking at a few tweets he might have a love for ETH, which is indeed a red flag.

It's just annoying hearing these people make these sorts of claims when the only way to know they are wrong, is to know they are wrong, which means you put in the time.  And there are tons of folks out there arguing from a point of ignorance when it comes to lightning:



That dude is a numbskull.  

Here is a CURRENT visualization of the "centralized" lightning network!!



These other two should know better, and don't.

This sort of thing actually pisses me off.  Because if EITHER of these guys actually spent any time giving lightning a chance they would be saying something different.

That is not to even imply they would like it.  And it most certainly is still bumpy and the UX is still not really close.  But both of these comments reveal they do not really know what it is, and have probably only noodled with it for a few moments.

A good criticism is that once the UX is seamless and just works we should not see some of these sorts of comments.  But these are two well known people in the BTC community showing their ignorant and doing slight damage to the reputation of what a LOT of people are putting serious work into. 

But Fenton's comment reveals that he has not used any recent wallets yet.  Almost all of them (both custodial, and non custodial) handle channel management for you seamlessly and in the background.  You send it Bitcoin and boom, after x confirmations you are fully up and running with a lightning channel.

Paul's comment does not even make sense.  The fact that both of these 2nd layer solutions use multisig addresses is the ACTUAL PROOF that they are indeed BITCOIN.

I especially find the whole "we should have more" whine to be atrocious.  Then BUILD it you shit.  And then "We should be more like Ripple" at the end? 






I think I have reached my limit with this sort of mindset.  It's this VC like arrogance when the "thought leader" is really just confused and in the dark.  Recently I saw Brian Armstrong touting BitClout.  Good grief.  It's this exact kind of lemming like thought.  Look at what everyone else is doing and saying.  Compare the biggest innovation, possibly in the history of mankind, to things it destroys like gold, or God have mercy RIPPLE?!?!?

I might should give Fenton a break, i don't know, but Paul COMPLETELY shows his ass. He is actually HARMING Bitcoin adoption spreading this kind of FUD.

Again, I might come off as a lightning fanboy, and maybe I am.  But I am realistic.  I think it might fail!  It could have a hideously bad vulnerability, and people could lose money.  There may be something much better in development. 

Fenton is just being ignorant, and speaking too soon.  But Paul is a fool, in my opinion.    Bitcoin in a 2/3 multisig is not Bitcoin?  Doesn't this ass promote ETH all the time too?  What's that then, bananas?  Also, I am pretty sure that is not how liquid works. 

Actually the headline is incorrect.  The number is 500 BILLION. (1/2 TRILLION)  Three orders of magnitude higher.  Lol-copter.  The fact that they are sitting on an amount of CASH that is the size of the ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT in ~1975.  Think about that!  All that money we are printing... as we know they are closest to the damn faucet.  Cantillon.

This makes me remember something I have been thinking about.

It's lucky for the bankers that "million, billion and trillion" rhyme.  Our brains think of them as analogous to 1, 2 and 3.  What's a trillion?  Just the 3rd "illion" in a row right?  Bigger than a billion, bigger than a million.

Here is something I use to snap myself back into perspective.

A million seconds ago?  Last week.
A billion seconds ago?  Jimbo was in his 30s somewhere.
A trillion seconds ago?  ~35,000 YEARS before recorded history.

They have a half trillion USD in their reserves.  It is both shameful AND embarrassing.

Maybe I put too many cards in?? I was using the Ian Coleman BIP39 tool.

But to the point of jokers and rules.. you can also just add 6 more cards to get to 256bit, I think.  So you could add  six cards for a second deck.

I think another way to increase entropy is to shuffle between draws.  So you can have repeating cards. (Creates a poisson distribution like POW is)  And if you had enough decks of cards you could also build this "custom deck' just don't try to deal a hand of poker with it.

Total agreement.  And the scenario you mention is a real threat, I agree.  But i do not think we get the via the slippery slope.

The government does not have much time to try that though, because at a certain point it will foment revolution.  maybe not yet...

There are two reasons we are not right back to where we are.

1.  The underlying system is sound.
2.  You are not forced to participate in any of these banks, and can indeed be your OWN bank if you wish.

I think that is the distinction that is part of the solution you are predicting.  Custodians can compete to offer advantages to users.  Security, reliability, etc.

The problem is not primarily that we use promissory notes.  But that the foundation on which those promises were made was faulty.

Would you not agree that gold backed currencies had a stronger footing than ones backed by debt?  The problem will be if and when governments figure out how to regain control over the base currency.  I think bitcoin is going to make that VERY difficult.

You know... as a fellow card player.  A deck of cards is one of the great analogies to a bitcoin key.  In fact a (well) shuffled deck dealt out offers 232 bits of entropy.  Just a few bits shy of a 24 word seed!  It can actually produce a 21 word seed.

But people do not realize how fantastically many possible combinations of a deck of card has (52! or ~8e67) In fact, did you know that it is EXTREMELY unlikely that a properly shuffled deck will repeat a sequence ever dealt from another properly shuffled deck?  As in, ever?  

For fun I actually dealt this sequence from this deck of bicycle cards sitting next to me:

6h9sQd2c5hAd4c7hTsKd3c8sJdAc4h7c9hQs2d5c8hJsTdKc3h6s9dQc2h5s8dJcAh4s7dTcKh3s6d9 cQh2s5d8cJhAs4d7sThKs3d6c  
-or-
6♥ 9♠ Q♦ 2♣ 5♥ A♦ 4♣ 7♥ T♠ K♦ 3♣ 8♠ J♦ A♣ 4♥ 7♣ 9♥ Q♠ 2♦ 5♣ 8♥ J♠ T♦ K♣ 3♥ 6♠ 9♦ Q♣ 2♥ 5♠ 8♦ J♣ A♥ 4♠ 7♦ T♣ K♥ 3♠ 6♦ 9♣ Q♥ 2♠ 5♦ 8♣ J♥ A♠ 4♦ 7♠ T♥ K♠ 3♦ 6♣
-or-
then viable coral multiply puppy inquiry clap camera rebel smile fish tackle pull pledge regular embark session inner select knock furnace

The first address in the BIP44 sequence would be 12hZ1awWPMo4tGfYeHqZL2bhJr3DRafsqK (or bc1qpfaa7ms34k42jwl8eymdnxxcm2hug7d35dvp3q if you want to save on fees).  You can use this seed along with the password I made you!

If one were traveling to another place and needed a way to transport a private key in a very inconspicuous way one could just have a deck of cards in their luggage in a specific order.  And it would have just as much randomness as a 21 word seed phrase.

Not suggesting people use cards to store their seeds.  Too fragile, and abstracted.  But still a possible thing.

Why stop there when 72239 is just a sneeze up from it?!?

That simple idea also fuels the argument for why changes to the Bitcoin codebase have to be done SLOWLY and VERY CAREFULLY.

Even with examples of ridiculous 'theft' and loss we have on Ethereum have not convinced MANY folks that the whole Bitcoin does not have all the latest "improvements" argument is horribly misguided.

Good discussion above on key management and the perils of inheritance.  This is where my brain has been this weekend too.

I have not decided what I will do insofar as inheritance.  It's tough.  Because I do like the idea of leaving wealth for my children as an ultimate act of provision as their dad, yet I have seen what unearned wealth does to people.  When you can buy all the heroin you want for your whole, shortened life, and are miserable... then why not?  On the other hand who they are is primarily dependent on their actions, not mine.  I hope I have raised them moderately well...  I certainly have not been perfect.

As to the technical ways of doing this.  There are so many catch-22s.  ESPECIALLY in the realm of self custody.  Ultimately this is part of my reasoning behind why I think "banks" of one kind or another are still useful and needed.  But those come with another set of horrible tradeoffs.

OK.  Say you leave a seed phrase in a safe deposit box.  Well, what if there is a court order for the bank to drill the box?  From ANYONE.  The government, family that has gone rogue, Craig Wright?  Lol.

OK BIP-39 password then.  That mitigates that at least somewhat.  Then how do you store the password?  In your, and your families memories?  Scary weak, the human mind.  Also what if you want to not reveal that password until it is necessary to avoid some of the "rogue family member scenario".  You could back up the password on stainless steel too.  Ugh.  Now we are trapped in loops of storage.  Also now our enemy becomes complexity.The more you do to complicate this whole process the more risk you incur.  But if you make it too "simple" then again, risks. Use the same password as the WiFi router that all the family members know?  Or some 32 character password like this one:

7=a1m'9?T7G0w5q{^QetXyV08^y7Tk4-

That password has 167 bits of entropy.  It would be practically impossible to guess.  Also practically impossible to remember.  So we have to balance strength with memorability. Or at least ease of storage and retrieval.  But if you store your password in the same vault as your seed, what good is it?  And yet if you store them in two places now you are 2x as vulnerable to loss. Lose one half of the recipe, and it's as good as having lost all of it.  By increasing "geolocation entropy" we are also increasing certain risks, while mitigating others.

Hold on... we are just getting started.  Aha!  You might say.  Use multisig!

I like it.  This method can use "geolocation entropy" to our advantage!  Now we can reduce much of our risk by storing our seeds in multiple places.  And even if you stored the password WITH the seed (which I do not like, still) an attacker would not be able to get to anything that requires more than 1 key to access.

And yet, this too has some hidden risks.  Did you know that you need all of your XPUBs (or zpubs or ypubs) if you are going to use the "x" number of keys in an x of y setup?  In other words... There are scenarios where you can have 2 of 3 seeds in a 2 of 3 multisig setup and and be shit out of luck. So, you have to safeguard all of your xpubs as well.  So you could store all three x pubs with each seed, but then you have also reduced your security somewhat.  Because all an attacker needs in that scenario is two seeds, where if the XPUBs are elsewhere then the attacker cannot access anything with just 2.  Now a view only electrum wallet or the like can take care of this.  Gives you a way to send coins to storage and also a way to backup your 3 XPUBS.  That view only wallet could be encrypted and stored electronically in an email, or USB key etc (This is it's own rabbit hole of risks that I will not go down lol).

Whew, I know. But that's not even all of it.  (This is where you will see why I still like Monero)

Because we have another issue we have to consider.  Your history on the blockchain.

Say you have a decoy wallet or two.  You keep 10% of your holding in one key's address with no BIP39 password.  That way when the $9 wrench (seriously.. they are printing shit tons, I do not think a good wrench is $5 even at Harbor Freight anymore) is hanging over your head and you give up your decoy wallet you have to have made sure your story is plausible.  That wallet better not have originally held the 90% that was later sent to you "real" address.  Because the attacker is not done with the wrench in that case.  Going down this path is VERY nasty.  You cannot hide a coin's history on the Bitcoin network, so one must go to great lengths to cover their tracks.  Coinjoins, or transfers to and from an exchange, or other communal wallet, or certain uses of layer 2 transfers can help here.  But this gets REALLY complicated really fast and has it's own costs and tradeoffs.

My advice?  If you store an amount of wealth in Bitcoin that you are not comfortable just being lost in case you are injured or killed, then you'd better get to cracking on your strategies sooner, rather than later.

Ever?

I truly feel I have.  I haver been able to get my family in the "if daddy gets hit by a bus" zone and have everything all copacetic.

Managing bitcoin is ways that you do not leave yourself open to vulnerabilities is actually kid of tricky.  Not as hard as sending a ETH transaction... but close.

If you are his wordiness just skip this post, OK?  Though I think it's bullish for the corn.

I own two coins in any moderately significant quantity... Bitcoin, of course, and Monero.  Being a drug dealer, you would have to expect me to keep some Monero right (OK, OK, Spooks.. you know I am not a drug dealer anyway.)

But I have little bits of a few other notable projects for whatever reason.  Nothing very significant, but enough that as I am upgrading my security level for my storage I am having to move stuff around that has been dormant for YEARS.

I have a few shards of ETH (haha see what I did there? lol).  And it seems to have gathered up a little bit of garbage to go along with it, over the years (although whatever Livepeer is seems to actually have value).

Ok What the hell? And how do people put up with this garbage?

I am just trying to send my ETH and it's retarded children coins to a wallet associated with a non outdated rig.

It's just not working.  I am on like my 5th try.  It is almost getting to where I am just gonna say screw it and count it as a loss.  I assume I am not sending enough Gas or is it "Gwei"? what the hell.. they sgould call it "Ghay")?  And of course I gotta move the actual ETH last so there is any Gas in there to send the other garbages with.

I have ALWAYS criticized this project as a giant rube-goldberg attack surface of a crypto-abortion.

Well I am more right about that NOW than I was then.  And yet the geniuses in the Padagonia class say asinine stuff like this:


Right.  Salvadorians are going to wrap their bitcoin in something that will then be even harder, and ALSO expensive to use, and have their transactions fail.

Really... the next person who suggests THAT as a competitor to the lightning network.  It's crazy, I think a lot of people simply have not used the lightning network ever, and believe what a lot of FUDsters say about it.  L-BTC makes WAY more sense for this sort of "wrapped" usage and it still loses to lightning for everyday commerce and ease of use for normies.

I am sorry but I hope Vitalik falls out of a fucking airplane.

Yeah.  We still have some work to do to really get up and over the whole H&S breakdown thing...

Fundamentals are just so damn bullish.

Prolly nothing...

Yes.  You can do that.  You can let them use your node.  I think this model is going to be common as people start doing this before the whole thing becomes more commercialized (BANKS!!?! )  Trusting someone in your life that you can... well, trust.

The only tricky bit is you need either a static IP or use a dynamic DNS service and open up some ports on your router.

You should know it is not without risks.  Anytime you offer an internet service it is a vulnerability etc...

Something else to consider is whether or not you want to run the node behind TOR.  If you do you want to START that way, because once you have run the node attached to a real IP, then a switch to TOR will be less beneficial as that IP will stay historically associated with your node.

Tor vs. Clearnet is another whole topic really...  I have run both kinds. 

Bitcorn, why dost though mock us so?

I gotta say... I really want one of those little miner/nodes.  Kinda goofy the stock ships with a 500mb drive.  Thats gonna need to be upgraded fairly soon.