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This is Dave's opinion and nothing more: Mycelium and Giszmo are no longer worth our time.
1) Unless I missed it nowhere on the walletsecurity site. Which Giszmo is in charge of does it mention that he is one of the developers of Mycelium. Even if I missed it and it is there it still does not matter because of:
2) There is at least 1 possibly 2 wallets that are reproducible that wallet security lists as unreproducible. And this is by people (or person) who has no idea what that are doing. Just following the posted instructions. Now, it's possible that between the time they posted and it was tested they either the source code or executable was changed to match up with what was there. But that does not matter because:
3) Many wallets are in a constant state of being updated, saying a random person on the internet can compile it and it matches ain't worth shit. Sorry but it's not. And unless we know the process control of updating their site it's worth less then shit. Who owns the domain, who controls the updates, etc. Is it just one person or a team. How are they vetted, etc. And the above don't matter because:
4) You would have to be just interested in making a few dollars to have advertisers in your wallet that you did not check out. And since they are here on this forum it's real easy to see what 1xbit is all about.
Just my opinion and nothing more.
I used mycelium for years and years, but with the token sale crap, and everything else they have done. It's obvious they just no longer care.
-Dave
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Looking at the map https://libertyx.com/a/buy-bitcoin/locations they do seem to have a lot of ATMs Their machines are not listed on coinatmradar.com and other BTM locator sites. However, some of their listed locations used to be with another company that WAS listed on locator sites BUT NO LONGER ARE. So for whatever reason, they do not want to be listed. Very strange. Wonder if that will change under the NCR. -Dave |
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<Snip> All those security measures wont help if the people producing and packaging the original devices become untrustworthy as we have seen in the Ledger/Shopify fiasco where rogue members of the support leaked or sold customer data and introduced backdoors into company databases. A genuine bag number wont help in that scenario. Hardware tempering will be harder to recognize in the future. We have already seen examples by dkbit98 from a few weeks ago where an identical looking fake device was created with a modified chip inserted into it. Inspecting the hardware components doesn't do much in that case. True. What I would really like to see is one of these wallet manufacturers figure out a way to and then release a stand alone utility that verifies the the hardware you have came from them. This way you boot from the USB stick with the utility and plug in the wallet and get a legit or not answer. Does not matter if your OS is compromised or not since you are not booting from it. Again, if someone has that much access to your PC and the skill to do bios / hardware modifications, to the point of being able to fool a stand alone device. And the ability to make sure that you got the phony device. Then you are in trouble no matter what else you do. -Dave |
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I thought this was particularly cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7BdqAPSGhIWomen's BMX. It's no X-Games but its still pretty neat. Wish I could do a front-flip. I think it would be fun to just slowly ride around over that course... I'd try to keep my speed controlled like a granny because I hate pain, but reckon it'd still be pretty fun. My spine hurts just watching that. And it brings back a bit of nostalgia for my youth. Although there is no way in hell I would have ever been able to do any of that, I was always the idiot who tried. And I have the scars and some pains 40 years later to prove I was an idiot. -Dave |
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I was discussing some things with another member of the forum IRL about some of this stuff and since @dkbit98 started this I think it's kind of important to discuss in public. If you watch enough TV or read enough news it's fairly evident that at times even people you trust a lot can steal from you. Friends / family / whatever. Keep in mind HARDWARE WALLETS ARE NOT SECURE AGAINST THIS KIND OF THING. The attacks that hardware wallets keep you safe against are, from the software side not having to worry about a virus / trojan on your PC and the like. From the hardware side so long as you have a secure pin. You do not having to worry about someone getting a hold of your hardware wallet and getting all your BTC. Or getting your hardware wallet and taking it apart to get to some secure part of it to get to all your BTCThey do NOT prevent someone from the long con or attack. A 9 digit PIN is pointless for security if you enter it 40 times over a period of weeks in front of them. Having your seed words in a very secure location is just as secure as writing them on the wall if someone has weeks and weeks if not months of time to search for where they are. Or if they know where they are, but you think it's secure, if they have unlimited (once again months and months) of time to gain access to them. And so on.  You know your Trezor / ColdCard / Ledger was perfect when you took it out of the bag / box. Once it's out of it. That's on you. -Dave |
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I would think that Amazon with it's big data know stuff.
Stuff like how many gift cards are sold through Bitrefill / BitPay / Coingate / Bidali and can figure out if it's worth it for them to accept BTC and other cryptos as payment.
They would also know stuff like how long between when the card is bought and entered into their system and spent.
They probably don't know an exact amount, but could definitely do some calculated estimations due to the traffic that they get for searches etc. However, I would expect if not Amazon, but the people behind it are already invested in Bitcoin as a sort of reserve, rather than a currency they use on a daily basis. It would just make sense for most big companies to be invested in it one way or another. Also makes you wonder if the fact that there are all these places to get gift cards with BTC is part of the reason they are slow to adopt it. When bitrefill buys a gift card from Amazon they pay X for it and Amazon then has the local fiat and you have a gift card that can sit there for a while till you spend it. But Amazon has the money. 2 points: #1: Now if they take BTC they don't get $95 up front for a $100 gift card that can sit there unused for months. If they DO take BTC they get $40 for the $40 drive I just bought today and not one cent more, till I spend more. #2: People with gift cards DO tend to spend more because it is "just sitting there" so instead of just getting the $40 drive I get the $6 cable "just in case" and the $8 pack of socks since I'm on their site anyway. So for them, at least in the short term, is it better to let bitrefill and the others do the work of taking crypto for them? Just a breakfast thought. -Dave |
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Never really thought about the security implications about the fact that transactions could show that you were using a hardware wallet.
Now your TX look like you are just using the core wallet.
With all the latest law propositions in US congress it's possible that they will try to outlaw or additionally tax any transactions coming from hardware wallet, so having this enhancement is a good idea coming in right time. I am not sure how other hardware wallets like ledger and trezor are handling this issue with signatures, and I wonder is every hardware wallet have specific signature size. Question for you @DaveF: Is there a way to check and confirm integrity of ColdCard hardware wallet after you purchase it and receive it? Something similar like for other hardware wallet I wrote few days ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5351249.0I posted in that thread yesterday: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5351249.msg57579135#msg57579135more or less from https://coldcardwallet.com/: Supply Chain Protections
Getting an uncompromised product into your hands is a challenge:
Bag Number
First and foremost, we use a tamper-evident plastic bag to package the product. Each bag is unique and coded with a number. That "bag number" is written into the Coldcard's secure element as it's put into that bag. That value cannot be changed, and we ask your to verify the bag number when the Coldcard is powered-up for the first time at your location.
Clear Case
The clear plastic case on Coldcard is an important feature as well. There have been demonstrations of inserting custom hardware inside a competitor's hardware wallet to capture key-presses.
Epoxy Globs of Love
We cover the secure element, and other sensitive parts of the Coldcard with epoxy. This makes it harder to remove those chips, or change the wiring around them. and: GENUINE VS. CAUTION LIGHTS
To resist Evil Maids, and other sneaky people with physical access to your Coldcard, we sign our firmware with a factory key. During boot-up, the firmware's signature, and every byte of flash memory, will be verified and the appropriate Green/Red light set. Changing that light's status is actually controlled by dedicated circuitry connected directly to the Secure Element, so a rogue bit of software cannot override it. The circuit for the lights is exposed on the top surface of the product, and covered with clear epoxy, so any physical tampering by those maids will be visible as well.
I also noted there and will sty it again, nothing is going to give you security if the people looking to rob you have the time & money to target you. And since I have not said it in a while, everyone has their own amounts of money vs security risk. To some people leaving 0.5 BTC in a hot wallet on a phone is insane since it's their entire life savings. To others 2 BTC on a phone is no big deal it's what they earned last month at their day job. Figure out what amounts are for you and how far you want to go to protect them. -Dave |
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I have been seeing now and then cards pop up at retail around here at BELOW the MSRP listed.
With a *but*, you have to buy a motherboard & CPU & RAM with them AT MSRP which is insane.
Most people really don't pay attention to it, but boards usually have MSRP at prices that are way above what you see in stores.
If you need a new mid range motherboard it's not a bad deal. But they are not the cheap low end ones and not the better ones either. So in the end you are overpaying ~$250+ for a motherboard / CPU / RAM combo and getting a video card at $50 below MSRP.
This way the stores can go back to the distributors and the local press and say they are not "gouging" the public on the prices of cards.
I would rather just overpay for the card, but that's just me.
-Dave
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I would think that Amazon with it's big data know stuff.
Stuff like how many gift cards are sold through Bitrefill / BitPay / Coingate / Bidali and can figure out if it's worth it for them to accept BTC and other cryptos as payment.
They would also know stuff like how long between when the card is bought and entered into their system and spent.
And all the other important information about that like cost of BTC / crypto at time of card purchase vs time spent. etc....
-Dave
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There was a firmware update released the other day https://coldcardwallet.com/docs/upgrade <--Remember don't just trust my links verify for yourself.Version 4.1.2 - July 28, 2021
Enhancement: Shows QR code with BIP-85 derived entropy value if you press (3) while value shown on-screen. Thanks to @opennoms for idea. Works with 12/18/24-words, XPRV, privatekey and even hex cases.
Enhancement: Offer to show QR in other places:
Coldcard's main XPUB, in Advanced > View Identity
Seed words, during picking process (before the quiz)
Stored seed words: Advanced > Danger Zone > Seed Functions > View Seed Words
TXID of just-signed transaction (64 hex digits)
Encryption password for the system backup file (12 words)
Enhancement: We now grind a nonce so that our signatures are always 71 bytes or shorter. This may save a byte in transaction size, and makes our signatures identical to those produced by Bitcoin Core, improving anonymity on-chain. Thanks to @craigraw for detecting this.
Bugfix: On a blank Coldcard, after importing a seed phrase using the Seed XOR feature, the main menu was not updated to show system is "Ready To Sign".
Bugfix: Red caution light could happen (a false positive) if a specific sequence of firmware upgrades and reboots occured in the right order. Issue could only occur once during lifetime of any particular Coldcard. I find this the most interesting part of the update: Enhancement: We now grind a nonce so that our signatures are always 71 bytes or shorter. This may save a byte in transaction size, and makes our signatures identical to those produced by Bitcoin Core, improving anonymity on-chain. Thanks to @craigraw for detecting this. Never really thought about the security implications about the fact that transactions could show that you were using a hardware wallet. Now your TX look like you are just using the core wallet. -Dave |
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ColdCard does a good job IMO of making sure that the unit you get has not been tampered with. From their site https://coldcardwallet.com/ about 3/4 of the way down the page. Supply Chain Protections
Getting an uncompromised product into your hands is a challenge:
Bag Number
First and foremost, we use a tamper-evident plastic bag to package the product. Each bag is unique and coded with a number. That "bag number" is written into the Coldcard's secure element as it's put into that bag. That value cannot be changed, and we ask your to verify the bag number when the Coldcard is powered-up for the first time at your location.
Clear Case
The clear plastic case on Coldcard is an important feature as well. There have been demonstrations of inserting custom hardware inside a competitor's hardware wallet to capture key-presses.
Epoxy Globs of Love
We cover the secure element, and other sensitive parts of the Coldcard with epoxy. This makes it harder to remove those chips, or change the wiring around them. It has to be noted however, that if you are targeted by someone or some entity (government / business / whatever) none of this matters. You can get bags or boxes made. You can get holograms duplicated. You can spin your custom hardware to get someone. But, the cost involved is going to be so stupid high that unless you are sitting on a lot of BTC / crypto it's just not going to be worth it. -Dave |
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I'm a bit concerned about the changes that they seem to be considering. It seems they are talking about restricting the use of campervans, so we are probably going to see more stealth vans appearing.
A bit OT from the rest of your post but: How do you restrict the use of a campervan? Unless there is a dialect difference between what they are in the UK and what I am thinking of here in the US that I could not find. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zvfk93TM8M-Dave |
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There is really no way to know. Mining pools do not publish where people are mining from so all you can see are the pools.
Even if the pools did say where the work was coming from it would be a guess at best. They only know the IP that the work came from between VPNs & proxies it would be a general guess at best.
-Dave
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I'm curious how far 1% of my base bump power gets me. Or better: I'm curious how much bumping power is spent on the top of the list. Before my post, this topic was the 23 th post on the second page. After my post, it's the 11 th topic on the first page. I'm pretty sure your little project is a scam though, just like 99.9% of all money grabbing ICOs. You don't come off as someone who should be handling millions upon millions of investor dollar. A bit over 24 hours later it still is at the same spot. <sarcasm> I really hope you got paid good money to do that or at least a bunch of the scammy ICO tokens. </sarcasm> If you wanted to bump something as a test you could have at least done it with a better project. Or created an alt account, make a post and then posted to it. Just my view. -Dave |
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how much are you looking for it?
$60 shipped? Make a offer if you think it's too much. I figured it's a bit less then you would pay if you bought the parts and had a local place 3D print the case (at least around here) local 3d printing prices all over the place. If you have your own 3d printer it's a different story. I got a PM from a new user yesterday asking about it, so to be fair I want to give them a day or 2 to get back to me. -Dave |
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I tried to purchase GPU's on ebay.com and the items never showed up... Thousands Scammed Never buy miners from Ebay, amazon. You can easily get duped. I agree with everything you said but the above. Both eBay and Amazon have very good buyer protection. Which is why repeatedly on here we tell people not to sell their old miners on on eBay / Amazon (mostly eBay). OP sounds like someone who heard about the "magical internet money" and did a quick search and bought the 1st miners they saw without doing any research. -Dave |
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If they have a UK version of the card, does it means it can be used in Europe or support EUR payments/withdrawals without fees (same as USDC) ? What about card limits ? I'm a Binance card user and it has 290 EUR withdrawal / 8700 EUR spending daily limits, but, not all ATMs accept this card for withdrawals. How is the situation with Coinbase card and ATM? About 2.49% fees - do you know what exchange rate they use ? Coinbase or Coinbase Pro?
Take a read here: https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/trading-and-funding/other/coinbase-card-faqSince I am not in the EU / GB zone I have no idea how it works within there. I think the US card with the cash back and stuff is it's own thing but not 100% sure. Also keep in mind, the US card is new so they are pushing it, no idea if the cash back is forever (hope it is) or something that will eventually go away. -Dave |
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Makes you wonder how much of the congestion / high fees were new users getting into BTC for the 1st time and did not know any better. The price was high, it looked for a bit like it would keep going up so everyone wanted in on it.
BUT, they did not know about here, they did not read about BTC. They just went out and bought some BTC and paid the fees to transfer it to their own wallet and did not know any better.
Yeah, you don't want to leave your coins at some exchange, but waiting for a drop in fess would save them a bundle. But they don't, and the next person does not, and so on.
-Dave
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I understand you want your thread in top pages to make anyone will be visible to view your thread, but you shouldn't cheat by paid shills to bump your thread since it's suspicious and bad way of marketing in this forum. Your account could be tagged if someone caught you paid shillers.
And for the most post paid shills / account bumping services don't do anything because none of them have any bumping power. And they are well known, if you use one people will know. You need to attract good members to comment on your post / bump it. Have a bit of a read here before doing anything: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5236143.0-Dave |
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keep in mind that the resale value will drop as long as the silicon shortage stop, or if the next gen arrives. so you'd either have to get roi asap, or hope that if you can't get a decent roi you can sell it before the shortage is over. while 3070 might be more expensive, the resale value might be higher.
Some models will drop in price like a rock. Mostly the higher end ones. As newer & better higher end ones come out and their value priced version equivalents the last gen will drop. The mid range will drop to the low range price. The current low range will drop a little for people who don't care. i.e. I can get a new whatever for $149 or $129 or $179 I can get a generation or 2 out for $49 or $79 or whatever. It's for the people who are not gaming or mining but just want something more then the onboard graphics that come with their PC. It's actually why IMO the RX 5xx and 4xx were still around. I even had a pile for people who wanted something other then the stock Intel but did not really need to spend the money on a GTX 1650 / 1660 so they got those.... All the above is my opinion and pure speculation. Don't spend money based on just what I say, DYOR and form you own opinion. -Dave |
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