Being your own bank and theft

[escrow.ms]

I still remember one case were a popular user who made his identity public got his asic miners stolen from his house. So as others said, If you own a big chunk of bitcoins you should keep quiet about your holdings unless you have proper security in place.

Another recent case:
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-stolen-new-york-gunpoint-robbery/

[SebastianJu]

Bitcoin exchanges found a way to that. Cold and hot wallet. When the cold wallet is hacked or stolen then you still have the hot wallet.

For personal use i think the common way is to use paper wallets or something where you store the unneeded coins. There are numerous ways that you even can give in to extortion without losing all.

People way too often underestimate the risks of being your own bank. People sometimes even dont have backups, which means the harddisc crashs and they have no coins anymore. Bitcoins are for grown ups if you want to say so.

[ragi]

So even if you keep your own coins secure, there is still a danger of theft performed with violence. You have heard of people who were forced to give up their coins/keys under duress.

Does this mean that multisig is a must?

If you are that worried about forced theft, then you can split them 1/2/3 times, and have a decoy walet with some small amount which you can afford to lose.

[oblivi]

? have you talk with your neighboor that you old GOLD on your garden ?

no.

do same thing on bitcoin.

This. But you have to consider the following: If you have a Paper wallet and the theft founds it, and scans it, he will know it's a Bitcoin address (assuming you didn't explicitly mark so on the paper wallet, then he doesn't even need to scan it).
If you got a Trezzor, the theft knows there's Bitcoin it (in a couple of years when BTC is mainstream and everyone recognizes such devices).
So basically, the only wait to do it properly seems either have your wallet.dat file encrypted and hidden as something else in non recognizable places like USB or HDD, or have a brain wallet and hope you don't forget your 12 words and no one guesses them randomly.

[countryfree]

Don't you know ATMs are dangerous? Thefts happen all the time in front of ATMs. Thieves are waiting behind your back, and as soon as you collect your cash, they will mug you, and force you to withdraw more.

The solution with BTC is to have several wallets. If you're victim of an assault, you only talk about your smallest wallet.

[melody82]

It depends on how much bitcoins you have.  Like others have said, don't go bragging about it and make yourself a target.  Second, if your stash is big enough then invest in some security.  You can get the cheapo version of the ledger walled for ~15$ I think.  It is the exact same thing as the more expensive one, but it has cheaper packaging and case.  Buy any number of these and divide your stash among them.  Then you can store them at safe deposit boxes at banks, have a trusted relative store them at home, place them under your floorboards, etc.  Actually you could hide them at home quite easily.  They are really tiny.  And someone who found them might not even know what they were.

Store the keys somewhere separate, like a different deposit box, a fire resistant safe at home, etc.  You can also use the brain wallet.  Using a technique called the memory palace, you can very easily remember any amount of information.  The keys for wallets, which are a string of random words, are especially easy to remember.  The basic technique is to start with a place you are intimately familiar with, such as your childhood home.  Place your code around the house.  Lets just say that your code starts with "pizza foot table car".
At the front door visualize a pizza getting stepped on by a giant disembodied foot.  Use all of your senses.  Make the pizza smell good but the foot smell nasty.  Maybe the foot also has a fungus infection.  It sounds nasty to imagine but the more striking the image, the stickier it will be.  OK now imagine the sound as the foot squishes the pizza.  Maybe sauce goes flying and spatters the front door.  You get the idea.  Now open the door and see a tiny car driving on small table just inside the door.  Maybe there is a demolition derby with lots of cars on top of the table.  Imagine the cars crashing into each other, exploding, burning, tiny drivers being ejected from their vehicles and run over, etc.  Hear the action, smell the smoke, etc.  It does take some time to remember things this way, and to be safe you should visit these images every day for a week or so to make sure they are sticking.  Then you will pretty much remember them forever.  Dont throw away the paper with the key, just put it somewhere hard to get at.