Corporations storing bitcoins

[jonald_fyookball]

The security and storage challenges of bitcoin are easily overcome by the knowledgable individual.  However, I'm not sure it is as easy for corporations due to the nature of needing a sole controller of private keys.

And I think this is one of THE biggest reasons why more big money hasn't jumped in yet.

Discuss.

[tysat]

The security and storage challenges of bitcoin are easily overcome by the knowledgable individual.  However, I'm not sure it is as easy for corporations due to the nature of needing a sole controller of private keys.

And I think this is one of THE biggest reasons why more big money hasn't jumped in yet.

Discuss.

Multi-sig will take care of that issue.

[amspir]

The security and storage challenges of bitcoin are easily overcome by the knowledgable individual.  However, I'm not sure it is as easy for corporations due to the nature of needing a sole controller of private keys.

And I think this is one of THE biggest reasons why more big money hasn't jumped in yet.

Discuss.

If the fear is that a single individual within the corporation having the ability to embezzle an amount of the corporation's bitcoins, that can be handled by having a 2 of 3 escrow, or a more a more complicated scheme that would require more than 2 people to collude to embezzle.

I think I read that coinbase does this with its cold storage wallets.

[goldkelowna]

Another good option would be to run Bitcoin Armory on an offline machine (virtually any old pc or laptop will do.)  The fiduciary (corporate comptroller, lawyer, CFO, WHY) maintians the offline wallet and thereby presides over signing authority.  The online wallet (Bitcoin Armory installed on a networked box) can create addresses and recieve funds, however cannot spend any bitcoins.  The online wallet can be run by the frontline.  There is no chance of any crackers/hackers (external or otherswse) getting at the funds b/c signing authority is segregated with such a configuration.  

To spend funds export transaction file to offline box, sign, then import to networdked box.  

As an added bonus, one unencrypted paper backup can restore the entire wallet without ever having to worry about upgrades, failure of digital media, or having to do incremental backups (such as with non deterministic wallets.)  

Although this will require a single fiduciary for the offline wallet, you could split the root key of the paper wallet into N pieces and delete the offline wallet, thereby satisfying corporate storage for multiple stakeholders.