Looking to keep your BTC safe? Here's one option: hide your password with DNA

[LeGaulois]

After the Bitcoin wallet using microchips, what about using synthetic DNA? It's now possible. As the article pointed out, it's a solution for people owning a large number of bitcoins and planning to HODL for a long term. If Anyone here is ready to sponsor me, He won't regret it

...28 customers so far have signed up and paid the $1,000 fee to have this done. Carverr is also in talks to expand the service with banks and other large cryptocurrency holding companies...

...Converting a data file into DNA is a surprisingly simple concept. Data, when broken down into a basic binary form, is just a bunch of zeros and ones. As for DNA, its language is made up of four letters: A, T, C and G -- the abbreviations for the nucleotides that make up the rungs of the DNA ladder.

To translate binary to the language of DNA, you need to have a conversion system. Let's say A = 00, T=01, C=10, and G=11. In this example, the string 11000101001000 would translate to GATTACA...

https://www.cnet.com/news/bitcoin-fanatics-are-storing-their-cryptocurrency-passwords-in-dna-carverr/

[o_e_l_e_o]

Very interesting, but not the solution to our worries just yet. There are a couple of points of failure that immediately occur to me:

DNA can quite easily decay if not stored properly.

Who else knows the system of converting DNA base pairs back in to your private key - the article suggests it's just that one guy. Very risky.

[avikz]

Very interesting, but not the solution to our worries just yet. There are a couple of points of failure that immediately occur to me:

DNA can quite easily decay if not stored properly.

Who else knows the system of converting DNA base pairs back in to your private key - the article suggests it's just that one guy. Very risky.

The article doesn't talk about an actual DNA here. What they are planning is synthetic DNA which can form of a physical liquid sit at the bottom of a small tube. If actual DNA is used then a simple blood test can be proved disaster for those people. So no plans of using an actual DNA has been discussed.

But I don't think such kind of security is needed at least as of now. Also adding or removing bitcoins from the DNA secured wallet will be cumbersome.

Everytime someone would want to add or remove bitcoins to their storage, they will have to go for an entire lab sequencing system to decrypt the wallet and access it. Those 1000 people must be bitcoin billionaires!

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

It is irrelevant as to whether the DNA is natural or synthetic. DNA is DNA - the structure is identical, and it will decay if not stored properly, kept cool, protected from light, in a completely sealed container, etc.

Also, you could freely add coins via the public key. They would "only" need to sequence the DNA to spend coins.

[cryptolandlords]

This thought of using such tedious  Method Just to keep our wallet safe is absolutely uncalled for.  This can make newbies and prospective investors to refrain from investing. Let's think of something simple.

[LeGaulois]

Very interesting, but not the solution to our worries just yet. There are a couple of points of failure that immediately occur to me:

DNA can quite easily decay if not stored properly.

Who else knows the system of converting DNA base pairs back in to your private key - the article suggests it's just that one guy. Very risky.

The article doesn't talk about an actual DNA here. What they are planning is synthetic DNA which can form of a physical liquid sit at the bottom of a small tube. If actual DNA is used then a simple blood test can be proved disaster for those people. So no plans of using an actual DNA has been discussed.

But I don't think such kind of security is needed at least as of now. Also adding or removing bitcoins from the DNA secured wallet will be cumbersome.

Everytime someone would want to add or remove bitcoins to their storage, they will have to go for an entire lab sequencing system to decrypt the wallet and access it. Those 1000 people must be bitcoin billionaires!

You don't need to go to the doctor each time you want to make a transaction. It would be ridiculous doing so. It's about storage, and thinking about it, it can be a lot of better than a hard drive. Compare for example with a USB stick. Isn't it limited to XXXX read/write and then stop to work? A DNA used as to store data would last a lot longer

Problem:

Research says by 2025, humans could be producing 160 zettabytes of data -- that's 160 trillion gigs, or 10 times more than we generated in 2016. By 2040, research estimates we will not have enough microchip-grade silicon to store it all on hard drives. In fact, cheaper magnetic tape is a more common solution for long-term storage today. (Although it may last a decade or two before it needs to be replaced.)

Solution

DNA could eliminate that issue. In one gram of synthetic DNA, scientists could theoretically fit 215 petabytes of information. That's over 100 million movies in something that's smaller than a jellybean -- and it lasts hundreds of years.

So, preserving a family photo album in DNA? It's not practical yet. But how about 50 bytes worth of characters that can unlock a valuable cryptocurrency wallet? Sure, maybe an investor won't mind dropping a grand for that.

Microsoft put 200 megabytes of data into 13 million DNA oligonucleotides https://news.cs.washington.edu/2018/02/19/uw-and-microsoft-researchers-achieve-random-access-in-large-scale-dna-data-storage/

[pooya87]

i find it very silly and really unnecessary unless you just want to have fun with the science and the process of it. otherwise it is just another method of storing the same thing. lets use an example. let say my password that i used to encrypt my private keys is the letter H (i use 1 letter to make it easy but the process is the same).
if it write it down as any of the following, the result is the same. i am storing my password physically:
char: H
Base16: 48
Base64: SA==
Binary: 01101000
DNA: TCCG

they all represent the same thing and if a thief knows that i store bitcoin and my password somewhere they can easily find it and do the conversion whether i write it down on a paper or store it as liquid containing a DNA (TCCG).
and there is also another problem with this method and that is ease of access to the password for myself! for instance if i write down H on a piece of paper, i can easily read it back and decrypt my wallet but if i hold a liquid DNA tube thingy i have to have a special machine to translate it for me back to TCCG and then convert it back to a string to be able to put in my wallet.

[NavigateSamurai055]

There is also some other better way and one of them is give a password which is also unknown to you and save it in somewhere safe place.

[CODE200]

Very interesting, but not the solution to our worries just yet. There are a couple of points of failure that immediately occur to me:

DNA can quite easily decay if not stored properly.

Who else knows the system of converting DNA base pairs back in to your private key - the article suggests it's just that one guy. Very risky.

That's right. I think that is impossible to do because it's really easily to decay. What if the DNA was decayed already what will be happened next? The next things to happen will be possibly our private key was denied and we can't open our wallet anymore looks like loosing and misplacing our private key and that will be the worst thing to happen for us as a coins holders. Maybe there are some other ways to be develop in the next few days that can really help us to this problem which is loosing our private key.

[kaisa]

The liquid cannot be used as a private key because its nature will change at any time and easily contaminated with other compounds. although it can be used as a private key, it will be more dangerous for humans, such as buying and selling DNA. I think theft can be overcome when the entire wallet has KYC records and can be locked by the authorities. this will happen when someone reports a theft to authorities and is confirmed by several colleagues. IMO.

[aoihs00]

i find it very silly and really unnecessary unless you just want to have fun with the science and the process of it. otherwise it is just another method of storing the same thing. lets use an example. let say my password that i used to encrypt my private keys is the letter H (i use 1 letter to make it easy but the process is the same).
if it write it down as any of the following, the result is the same. i am storing my password physically:
char: H
Base16: 48
Base64: SA==
Binary: 01101000
DNA: TCCG

they all represent the same thing and if a thief knows that i store bitcoin and my password somewhere they can easily find it and do the conversion whether i write it down on a paper or store it as liquid containing a DNA (TCCG).
and there is also another problem with this method and that is ease of access to the password for myself! for instance if i write down H on a piece of paper, i can easily read it back and decrypt my wallet but if i hold a liquid DNA tube thingy i have to have a special machine to translate it for me back to TCCG and then convert it back to a string to be able to put in my wallet.

I guess this is different and what they have thought is completely different. If one has to use full DNA make then remember that everyone is having completely different DNA sequence. There is 1 in million chance that someone DNA sequence will match with the another one and that too will happen with the twins!! I agree that there are few letters in it but dont forget there are unlimited number of sequence. This can give rise to the uniqueness in the password. May be if one has to read the password then there has to some sort of device as you said which will read it and then open up the things!

[ExpediteStyle201]

Yes it is a good idea and we all should take proper step to keep our bitcoin safe and secure and do whatever we need in this purpose.

[seninyanda]

I do not think there's a need for such a big security system. These are a little show: D You can actually take security precautions, in a very simple way.
Just put your keys and passwords in a safe place.

[pooya87]

i find it very silly and really unnecessary unless you just want to have fun with the science and the process of it. otherwise it is just another method of storing the same thing. lets use an example. let say my password that i used to encrypt my private keys is the letter H (i use 1 letter to make it easy but the process is the same).
if it write it down as any of the following, the result is the same. i am storing my password physically:
char: H
Base16: 48
Base64: SA==
Binary: 01101000
DNA: TCCG

they all represent the same thing and if a thief knows that i store bitcoin and my password somewhere they can easily find it and do the conversion whether i write it down on a paper or store it as liquid containing a DNA (TCCG).
and there is also another problem with this method and that is ease of access to the password for myself! for instance if i write down H on a piece of paper, i can easily read it back and decrypt my wallet but if i hold a liquid DNA tube thingy i have to have a special machine to translate it for me back to TCCG and then convert it back to a string to be able to put in my wallet.

I guess this is different and what they have thought is completely different. If one has to use full DNA make then remember that everyone is having completely different DNA sequence. There is 1 in million chance that someone DNA sequence will match with the another one and that too will happen with the twins!! I agree that there are few letters in it but dont forget there are unlimited number of sequence. This can give rise to the uniqueness in the password. May be if one has to read the password then there has to some sort of device as you said which will read it and then open up the things!

i think you misunderstood how it works. they are not using human DNA, they are creating a synthetic DNA based on any sequence that you want. it can be your password or it can be your private key itself. you just have to convert it to binary and then store it as a DNA which is basically a liquid in a container!
for example the private key on bitcoin wiki would look something like this:

Code:

TCATTATGGCTTATGAAGTCAGGTATATAGCGAAAATTCTTGGGACCATTCGGCTTTGAACAGGTCTAAGTCCTGTGGCAGGGTGGACAGCAGTGGTATAGAATAGGGAAGAGCCGCTTTTTAAGC

and this is the DNA they are going to store for you.

[Dmitry.Vastov]

After the Bitcoin wallet using microchips, what about using synthetic DNA? It's now possible. As the article pointed out, it's a solution for people owning a large number of bitcoins and planning to HODL for a long term. If Anyone here is ready to sponsor me, He won't regret it

...28 customers so far have signed up and paid the $1,000 fee to have this done. Carverr is also in talks to expand the service with banks and other large cryptocurrency holding companies...

...Converting a data file into DNA is a surprisingly simple concept. Data, when broken down into a basic binary form, is just a bunch of zeros and ones. As for DNA, its language is made up of four letters: A, T, C and G -- the abbreviations for the nucleotides that make up the rungs of the DNA ladder.

To translate binary to the language of DNA, you need to have a conversion system. Let's say A = 00, T=01, C=10, and G=11. In this example, the string 11000101001000 would translate to GATTACA...

https://www.cnet.com/news/bitcoin-fanatics-are-storing-their-cryptocurrency-passwords-in-dna-carverr/

Bitcoin transactions are considered to be the safest among all the investment and being a virtual currency, it is more susceptible to being hacked or fraud but inspite of all this, bitcoin promises to provide the safest and the most confidential transactions among other crypto currencies and therefore this is the reason why millions of people do not hesitate while investing in bitcoin as it does not involve any third party seizure and believes in providing user anonymity and thus very very helpful.