"Be a bank", he said,
And released a piece of code,
And made it happen!

The smart guys mined it,
While the establishment laughed,
And ridiculed it.

Then it picked up speed,
Silk Road helped by selling weed,
And Gox fucked it up!

Fat French spanked, price tanked,
All because of what he did,
He lost some weight too.

Bitcoin kept ticking,
Went from basic to ASIC,
And number went up.

Two-thousand-fifteen,
Year of opportunity,
For those who saw it.

If after all this,
You still have coins in your stash,
Be fully prepared.

Life will be so sweet,
Stop at Gucci, Louis V,
To dress your rich ass.

Haiku overload,
I know, I overdid it!
Dreaming of $1mil.

#itsraininghaikus

That's OK, motto still holds true (a dead monkey doesn't talk). LOL!

I wonder why they used monkeys... The girls working at Oak Ridge were lovely...

Thanks. Yes, it's scary as hell, and you're right, it could happen. What you can do to try to circumvent this, is to have not only one, but two, or three, or more, different passphrases.

Your total stash: 100 BTC. <--- I wish!

No passphrase (plain seed): 3.7 BTC
Passphrase 1: 17.3 BTC
Passphrase 2: 79 BTC

-- Thief kidnaps you and forces you to reveal your Trezor's PIN.
-- You resist as much as you can, but eventually you reveal the PIN.
-- Thief takes the 3.7 BTC, but suspects you have an additional passphrase.
-- Thief tortures you to reveal it.
-- You endure the torture as much as you can (you must, and be prepared to take a good beating).
-- Eventually, you break down in extreme distress, and you reveal passphrase 1.
-- You repeatedly plead with the thief to let you have a few BTC, even just one.
-- Thief takes the 17.3 BTC, and notices that 17.3 + 3.7 = 21 BTC.
-- Thief thinks your total stash is the "one in a million" 21 BTC that many HoDLers aim for.
-- If you're lucky, he takes it "all" and lets you go.
-- You are left with a healthy 79 BTC, accessible using passphrase 2.

This is just one strategy that uses common thinking to try to persuade the thief that you have no more coins. Of course, the best thing to do is to try not to get into this situation in the first place. Try not to advertise your stash (obviously), and don't give away even minor hints about how many coins you have. Easier said than done though... Even the mere mention of being involved in Bitcoin, combined with a few major changes in your life (something expensive you've bought, resigning from your job, etc.) would point to a healthy Bitcoin stash. That's why I believe all those tools we have (additional passphrase, plausible deniability, Shamir's Secret Sharing, and others), can help in our attempts to circumvent unfortunate situations like the one you describe.

Bitcoin has made many of us take security matters very seriously, much more seriously than before, when banks and other financial institutions played that role. Bitcoin is cash, and has all the benefits (and drawbacks) of cash. Imagine having $1M in banknotes or gold under your bed. Wouldn't you feel stressed about it? I would. It's the same with Bitcoin, but the fact that it's not made of matter, but of information that can be stored and processed digitally, enables us to use certain tools, such as the ones mentioned earlier, to help protect our coins. "Be a bank" is revolutionary and gives us total control of our finances, but can also be a burden if we're not adequately prepared to take the responsibility and care it requires.

Stay safe, and, when it comes to Bitcoin, apply the Manhattan Project's motto:



http://exploreoakridge.com/who-were-the-calutron-girls-of-oak-ridge/

---

Edit: JayJuanGee beat me to it. Thanks Jay.

Of course, these predictions are bearish, but, frankly, I'm OK with them. $30k in 2021 will enable me to make a few major changes to my life.

Somehow, though, I believe we will far exceed those numbers, and the above post will become meme material. 

We all could be bots. Enter The Matrix. Or eXistenZ!

If you're referring to my "improved syntax" edit and not my entire post, I confess that I'm a perfectionist, and as such, I always correct/improve my posts when I spot something that needs changing. I'm not afraid of the Edit button. In fact, I consider it the most important button of a forum engine.

Sometimes, though, imperfections can be welcome, as in the case of the "HoDL" misspelling. Just imagine what the Bitcoin world would be, had the author edited and corrected his post! We would all be HoLDing, and my nickname would be AlcoHoLD... Damn, that sounds so wrong...

I disagree with many of your points in the above post, the body of which I had to remove in the interest of readability. Readers can click the link above to read your original post, to which I'm replying below.

Adding a passphrase to your seed protects your coins in cases where your plain seed or h/w wallet, such as a Trezor or Ledger, may have been compromised, like in the cases where you can't find your seed backup in the place you expected it to be, or when you lose your Trezor/Ledger. If they were simply lost or thrown away, that's OK, there is no foul play involved, you can simply transfer your coins to a different wallet, even if you're not using an additional passphrase. But, what if they are now in the hands of a thief? In such cases, the passphrase could buy you a significant amount of time (depending on its strength), during which you can transfer your coins to a different wallet. Couple this with plausible deniability, e.g., out of your 100 hypothetical BTC, put only 10 BTC in the plain seed, and the remaining 90 BTC in the seed+passphrase, and the thief will very likely be satisfied and happy to have stolen 10 BTC from you. I wouldn't expect him to attempt to brute force the—now empty—plain seed for an additional passphrase after he has taken your 10 BTC (currently worth more than $100k).

Plain seed result: You had 100 BTC, you lost 100 BTC, you are left with 0 BTC.
Seed+passphrase result: You had 100 BTC, you lost 10 BTC, you are left with 90 BTC.

Note that, in the above scenario, you did not have to lie to any authority. Plausible deniability in this case did not involve you having to deny ownership of any coins and subsequently being accused of lying. In any case, it's up to you to decide if and when to lie (and to whom), depending of the specific circumstances. You have a choice. With the plain seed, you don't have that choice. The moment that piece of paper gets into the wrong hands, your imaginary safe is wide open for the paper holder to get in and take your coins—no cracking necessary. That piece of paper is a necessary and sufficient condition for accessing your coins. Adding a passphrase to the mix (not written on that piece of paper), makes that piece of paper a necessary, but not sufficient condition for accessing your coins. I prefer the latter option!

About the passphrase's cryptographic strength, you can have a strong passphrase that you (and only you) can remember, which is still much easier to remember than the actual seed. I have anonymously tested passphrases with a symbol length and structure similar to the one I'm using to protect my seed, and all test engines have resulted in cracking time estimates of centuries*. Furthermore, even if the passphrase is relatively weak, it may still be able to buy you the time you need to transfer your coins to a different wallet, should you discover that the seed has been compromised. Any passphrase (regardless of its strength) is an additional layer of security. It won't make your coins any less secure, and could buy you time to take action in cases where your seed is compromised.

As for your comment on "above suspicion", I would also like to reach that state IRL (and I believe I have, to a certain extent), but it's not so easy to attain (and maintain). Most of us are social beings interacting with each other, and sooner or later (especially in the coming years, when Bitcoin is expected to sky-rocket) we may become more exposed than we'd like. So, I would be very careful with the statements in the last paragraph of your post. One small leak in your OPSEC could be enough to weaken those statements, in which case you may end up wishing you had that extra layer of security.

---

(*) I'm assuming that the additional passphrase corresponds to the full search space that results from its length and the set of symbols used. If the additional passphrase, as applied to our discussion (i.e., in BIP39), has constraints on length or other parameters, and thus results in a limited search space, I would very much like to know about it, please enlighten me if you can.

---

Edit: Improved syntax.

Guys ('n' gals), don't forget to add a passphrase ("25th word"), in addition to your seed. Doing so, will protect you from someone finding the seed. Even a relatively weak passphrase will give you enough time to move your coins to another wallet when you discover that the seed has been found (and while the thief is brute-forcing the passphrase). A strong passphrase will make it virtually impossible for a thief to have access to your coins.

A passphrase (more than one, to be precise) will also add plausible deniability of ownership of your coins, should you ever be required (or be forced) to reveal your stash, as I've explained in this post.

Male, female, man, woman, father, mother...

We all know what they really mean, yet we are forced to redefine them for the sake of political correctness. And we are distorting and corrupting the beauty and significance of each and every one of these words, and their true meaning.

A song, kindly dedicated to all.

---

Edit: Updated link to the official video clip version of the song.

Quoting a post I made in December 2019...

I remember several years ago, one of my university professors (world-famous in his field, from a department which produced a few Nobel laureates in physics) told me the following (in my own words, can't remember the exact phrases he used):

"In order to be able to innovate, to discover a new theory or law, you must open your mind to the impossible. You have to think outside of the box. You've heard of the Flat Earth movement, right? We all know its supporters are wrong, deluded, and we often make fun of them. But you must be able to enter their mindset. You must think like a Flat Earther. You must question everything, no matter how obvious it seems. Question everything, be brave enough to put it to the test, be brave enough to propose things that seem weird and outlandish. And back them up with experiments. Expand the boundaries of what is possible by conquering the impossible."

When I heard about him mentioning Flat Earth and its supporters, I initially thought he would make a joke about them, just like most people do. But he actually praised them. He praised their mindset and determination. I found this very interesting, and I recall his words every time I see or read about something that seems weird and "outright wrong". Is it? Are we really sure? These questions are etched in my mind.

Bitcoin has changed everything, because Satoshi Nakamoto dared to challenge an impossibility. He succeeded in making it a possibility, and something far beyond a mere thought experiment. He created a system that works, that has a practical application, and more than 10 years of robust, uninterrupted operation. And yet, there are still those that dismiss it and deny its significance. Even after so many years...

So, to answer Peter Schiff's poll, I choose the kid, because he dares to believe and embrace what many "experts" like Schiff deem impossible and a failure.

And, Peter, Bitcoin doesn't have a customer service number to call to reset your password. You forget it, you lose your coins, much like when you lose your wallet (try calling the Fed hotline for that). If you are too confused and don't get why this is so, we don't have time to explain it to you. Fuck you!

---

Edit: Corrected a typo.

Well, my 5-digit hat stays on.

I'm employing a complex hysteresis algorithm that aims to limit too much hat changing amidst Bitcoin volatility.

Hat will change when if Vegeta is resurrected.

Sushi?  

I wonder who in their right mind would support/follow these DeFi "projects" when there's Bitcoin...

McAfee's dick should have its own DeFi I guess... It's edible, right?

Merits are abused
In the Wall Observer thread
Don't like it? Fuck you!

Nice to see the Bob
We all used to read and love
Strictly no homo.

Trolls came out to feed
But the only thing they'll get
Is green, long and thick!

#haiku

Comformed.

---

"faffing"

New word for me, thanks hon.

ICOs, DeFis, Vegetas, and flat earthers...

What's the world coming to?

Nice one, Tone.

I don't like his $1k/BTC predictions, but respect to him for not being a DeFi whore.

Almost every trader is the worst trader in the world.

The rest are just lucky.

Don't trade, just HoDL.

Thanks man.

Yeah, I started typing "clone-coin", and then it came to me: Cloin !!!

It combines the words "clone" and "clown", both or which are perfectly suited for the jokers Wright & Ayre.

For me, the mere thought of Craig Wright & Calvin Ayre being the central figures behind BCH & BSV, raises so many red flags that I don't want to be anywhere near those "cloins".

I must acknowledge, however, that those "cloins" helped me raise my stash by a few BTC.

...

10k € seems to be a tough nut to crack... It does seem that my prediction of $13k/BTC by the end of 2020 may (sadly) hold true...

Come on, Bitcoin, prove me wrong!

Yes, that's true. We saw it in all of August. As much as people want to focus on USD, Euro-land's EUR is powerful enough to disrupt the upward movement of BTC. And those nice, round numbers, like 10k/15k/20k €, etc., will always be larger-than-usual steps to climb.

But, as always, Honey Badger don't care.

HoDL.