How can we expect "average Joe" to remember passphrases to his Bitcoins?

[bitcoin_user]

It's something which seems crucial to me for reaching mass adoption (in addition to scalabilty of course...).
Already on this forum there is a shitload of people losing their Bitcoins by forgetting passphrases, the private keys, the dat file etc...
So I would like to know what technological solutions could be proposed for this problem.

To make a comparison, a lot of people are forgetting their credit card code (even if it's only 4 digits...) or losing the card and the centralized solution to this is the bank providing new card/code.

Which decentralized solutions to this problems could you think of?

[Emoclaw]

If they can't remember their password, AND don't have a seed or private keys, AND don't have a backup file prior to encryption then they probably don't deserve to use Bitcoin.
The simplest (but not greatest, due to obvious side effects) of all solutions would be simply to just not encrypt your wallet.

[n0ne]

If they can't remember their password, AND don't have a seed or private keys, AND don't have a backup file prior to encryption then they probably don't deserve to use Bitcoin.
The simplest (but not greatest, due to obvious side effects) of all solutions would be simply to just not encrypt your wallet.

Even an average Joe won't be worse enough to forget password. If he can't then as suggested he doesn't deserve it, let him get fixed to the conventional system that gives him a much easier access than bitcoin. Because everything with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were completely technology and internet based where even a small mistake can put you into big loss.

[hilariousandco]

How is this a 'problem' exclusive to bitcoin? If they forget their passwords or pins then they'll likely forget them from every other thing including cards and websites. Sometimes there's only so much you can do for people but if you can't be trusted to keep this sort of info safe and secure then you probably shouldn't be trusted to use the internet by yourself let alone use bitcoin.

[RoommateAgreement]

backup is the only solution, and it is easy and "average-Joe-friendly", you just keep a copy of your password in one of these many password manager programs or simply write it down on a 100% secure and offline piece of paper.

and with today's HD wallets that give you a seed, you just need to save that seed somewhere on paper and even if you forgot the password or lost the wallet, use the seed (which are simply English or other language words) to recover all the funds.

[arransiv]

The only solution there is is to hold your passphrase in a file somewhere with a description only you can understand.As long as you have it anywhere,you are in a nice place because you can access that text document for example and everything is perfect.Don't rely that you will remember it because we have to remember a lot of things every day and at some point or another it is bound that you can't remember something you need

[LFC_Bitcoin]

If you have enough money to worry about losing in a bitcoin wallet you make damn sure you don't forget your passphrase.

It's that simple.

[Nagadota]

It's actually pretty easy, because the average Joe is generally less stupid than people think.  All they have to do is back up their computer, or have a hardware wallet, or write it down on some paper which is hidden somewhere - it's actually quite easy really and people often even burn their bank details and reports.

The main reason why people sometimes lose their passphrases is that they're tech geeks and they care a thousand times more than the average Joe about their security.  It's just transferring responsibility from the bank to the user.

[ranochigo]

If you want to eliminate this problem, you will be creating another security loophole. This requires another entity to have control of your private key and give you the private key after you have proven your identity. This is no different from an online wallet and potential hacks can happen.

Your best bet is to create a cold storage that is unencrypted but you need to store it at secure locations which you know no one else can have access to. If you want more security, use multisig and place the keys in different geographical locations.

[zahra4577]

If they can't remember their password, AND don't have a seed or private keys, AND don't have a backup file prior to encryption then they probably don't deserve to use Bitcoin.
The simplest (but not greatest, due to obvious side effects) of all solutions would be simply to just not encrypt your wallet.

Even an average Joe won't be worse enough to forget password. If he can't then as suggested he doesn't deserve it, let him get fixed to the conventional system that gives him a much easier access than bitcoin. Because everything with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were completely technology and internet based where even a small mistake can put you into big loss.

Yes if access to bitcoin wallet is made easier,it would become more vulnerable to hacking and chances of losing bitcoin would be same as when forgetting passphrase.

[LoyceV]

How is this a 'problem' exclusive to bitcoin? If they forget their passwords or pins then they'll likely forget them from every other thing including cards and websites.

The difference is of course that passwords or pins from websites and cards can be recovered. Almost every website has a standard "forgot password"-link to click on, and a new creditcard just takes a few days to arrive.

That doesn't make the problem exclusive to Bitcoin. Maybe digital photos or files in general are a better comparison: many people lose them because of failing drives, cryptolockers or other viruses. That didn't stop the "average Joe" to use a computer. "Average Joe" just doesn't think about it, until it's too late.

[dissident]

Yeah there's more risk to using bitcoins which is why wide scale adoption by the public will never happen.  More likely large institutions will use the blockchain technology. You can always get back lost passwords, stolen balances, etc. typically from banks.. not if you lose the private key to your bitcoins. That's alright though.. who says there needs to be wide scale adoption by your wells fargo type chain?

[mindrust]

Why do you care? Those stupid average Joe's are the reason why rich/smart people still exist. If they didn't forget passwords, order pizzas, throw away their btc hdd's to the trash can; bitcoin wouldn't be what it is today.

Think about it; if everybody was holding their coins just from the start without losing a satoshi, what would be the bitcoin price now? Thanks to those lost bitcoins, btc's supply is lowered. That's how the ones who don't forget their pass, who don't throw away hdd's, who didn't order pizza's are rich now.

[zend7]

There's no need to remember a passphrase nowadays. If you fear you will not be able to remember your password or passphrase for a long time , best practice to do is to add it to USB which you will never put in computers connected to internet and keep 2-3 USB with you always with passphrases and seeds. Chances are less than 0 or mathematically impossible that all 3 USB-s to break down in the same time.

[BTCLovingDude]

It's actually pretty easy, because the average Joe is generally less stupid than people think. 

i have always found the term "average Joe" funny in most cases. and if you think about it, who is an "average Joe". at this day and age it really doesn't matter in my opinion. anybody who is capable of connecting to internet and opening up google.com is capable of doing anything. specially things so common as making a bitcoin wallet and creating a backup from. there are a lot of walkthroughs everywhere.

[TastyChillySauce00]

There's no use of remembering passphrase or privkey when you can save it somewhere else. People often forgot their passphrase or privkey because they're only saving it up in some place which is pretty unfamiliar to their mind or just too lazy to make a copy of these especially "average Joe".
If you're really aware of the security of your either passphrase or privkey when you make a copy of these, try to encrypt it yourself, it's kinda easy. If it seems just too complicated, there's no hope.

[popcorner]

A weird idea
can we somehow use our fingerprints as a secret phrase? Any limitations for this?

[BillyBobZorton]

The general rule of thumb is, if you can remember a password, it's probably not good enough. But I doubt that you are dumb enough to not be able to remember a 20 character password with special characters. In this case, I have serious doubts that there's any possible way to bruteforce it with current or future technology. I think the bruteforce power is overblown, you can't crack a decent password, but to be safe, go as long and complex as possible.

[Lucius]

It's something which seems crucial to me for reaching mass adoption (in addition to scalabilty of course...).
Already on this forum there is a shitload of people losing their Bitcoins by forgetting passphrases, the private keys, the dat file etc...
So I would like to know what technological solutions could be proposed for this problem.

To make a comparison, a lot of people are forgetting their credit card code (even if it's only 4 digits...) or losing the card and the centralized solution to this is the bank providing new card/code.

Which decentralized solutions to this problems could you think of?

I think it's quite normal for people to forget many things,and especially passwords if they are long and complicated.But when someone start to use any cryptocurrency he need to know basic things about security and I think many of them make a mistake at the very beginning.What we need is to make backup of our private keys/seed word/dat file and save that in several places to be sure for future.

Only way to replace passwords is to use fingerprint or maybe eye scan,but it's not so easy to implement in wallets today.The question is how reliable these methods would be,strong password is in my opinion still the best protection.

[stiffbud]

I am one of that average Joe that you are referring and I never once had the idea that I will once forgot to make a backup and to forgot the password that I used to encrypt my wallet specially when I know too well that I have a huge amount of money residing in that wallet.