Proton launches self-custody bitcoin wallet

[PrivacyG]

Yeah. Many of these so called "tech giants" or services that we see that appear to not be harassed by the law enforcement are already fully cooperating with the law enforcement! Like the case with bitcoin mixers. They are either honeypots that continue to exist or they refuse to cooperate and get shut down. Like the Wasabi wallet versus Samourai wallet case. Or Meta versus Telegram. One is cooperating with them, the other had its founder arrested.

I think it is REALLY hard nowadays to use any Service or even technology generally with out having to worry about Law Enforcement spying on you.  It is the case not only for Services but even for Tor.  I am a Tor user and I am pretty convinced it is very likely that I have at least once been browsing on a malicious Tor Node initiated by non Tor friendly Governments.  It sucks.  And it sucks even more when Services that PROMISE you exactly this, which is NOT cooperating with Law Enforcement, are generally precisely those who actually cooperate.

It feels like there is no way you can feel liberated from this B S.  It is all around you and there is pretty much no way you can 100 percent run away from it.  You can try, but slowly they may be catching up with you.

[JollyGood]

Why are you posting this here?

#PROOF OF REGISTRATION
Forum Username: Laden12
Forum Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3585156
Telegram Username: @Jari2332
Participated Campaigns:Twitter, telegram, Tiktok
BSC Wallet Address: 0xB689D29bF00130ceB7DdD3380C4F0aC69E63583d

[hd49728]

Yeah. Many of these so called "tech giants" or services that we see that appear to not be harassed by the law enforcement are already fully cooperating with the law enforcement! Like the case with bitcoin mixers. They are either honeypots that continue to exist or they refuse to cooperate and get shut down. Like the Wasabi wallet versus Samourai wallet case. Or Meta versus Telegram. One is cooperating with them, the other had its founder arrested.

These examples of cooperating with governments and refusing to work with government with consequent arrests, jails and so on, are good reminder to all Bitcoiners about the super importance of Satoshi Nakamoto's big decision to disappear.

He (yeah let me call Satoshi Nakamoto as he, but we don't know who is or are Satoshi Nakamoto), decided in very early months of Bitcoin history and that decision is super helpful for us, and surely for himself too. Assume Satoshi Nakamoto is a well-known person, he would have been arrested a long time ago by either the USA government or others.

Satoshi's lesson
After WikiLeaks, he wrote this.

It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context.  WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.

How Bitcoin’s Founder Satoshi Nakamoto Disappeared: The Untold Story
Eleven years ago today
Satoshi's last email to Gavin Andresen

This email, or email excerpt, was quoted by Gavin Andresen in an interview in 2014.

I wish you wouldn’t keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle. Maybe instead make it about the open source project and give more credit to your dev contributors; it helps motivate them.

[NotATether]

These examples of cooperating with governments and refusing to work with government with consequent arrests, jails and so on, are good reminder to all Bitcoiners about the super importance of Satoshi Nakamoto's big decision to disappear.

He (yeah let me call Satoshi Nakamoto as he, but we don't know who is or are Satoshi Nakamoto), decided in very early months of Bitcoin history and that decision is super helpful for us, and surely for himself too. Assume Satoshi Nakamoto is a well-known person, he would have been arrested a long time ago by either the USA government or others.

This is great and all but exactly what does this have to do with Proton's Bitcoin wallet software? I mean, I can't see Andy Yang or any other people inside Proton getting arrested for releasing a Bitcoin wallet (which would've happened to Satoshi probably, if not surely, after the Silk Road bust).

Actually, I would've thought they would have made this thing as a stand-alone app, not as a web version.

[JollyGood]

About them making a web version that is part of the Proton family of apps, I also thought that if they were to ever release one it would not have been a web version wallet. Maybe they will not contemplate creating a stand-alone wallet as a side product because it will be isolated from the Proton apps that are accessible after signing in to the Proton account.

These examples of cooperating with governments and refusing to work with government with consequent arrests, jails and so on, are good reminder to all Bitcoiners about the super importance of Satoshi Nakamoto's big decision to disappear.

He (yeah let me call Satoshi Nakamoto as he, but we don't know who is or are Satoshi Nakamoto), decided in very early months of Bitcoin history and that decision is super helpful for us, and surely for himself too. Assume Satoshi Nakamoto is a well-known person, he would have been arrested a long time ago by either the USA government or others.

This is great and all but exactly what does this have to do with Proton's Bitcoin wallet software? I mean, I can't see Andy Yang or any other people inside Proton getting arrested for releasing a Bitcoin wallet (which would've happened to Satoshi probably, if not surely, after the Silk Road bust).

Actually, I would've thought they would have made this thing as a stand-alone app, not as a web version.

[PayURL]

As a long-time user of Proton's services, I wouldn't recommend using their Proton Wallet—at least not right now. I decided to try it out, and I regret it. I've been waiting for four days already for my transactions to be confirmed—four bloody days! All because there’s no option to adjust the transaction fee. As a result, every transaction goes through with a fee of 0.00000111 BTC, and nobody gives a damn about them. And Proton as a company doesn’t seem particularly bothered by this either.

[satscraper]

As a long-time user of Proton's services, I wouldn't recommend using their Proton Wallet—at least not right now. I decided to try it out, and I regret it. I've been waiting for four days already for my transactions to be confirmed—four bloody days! All because there’s no option to adjust the transaction fee. As a result, every transaction goes through with a fee of 0.00000111 BTC, and nobody gives a damn about them. And Proton as a company doesn’t seem particularly bothered by this either.

AFAIK, this wallet doesn't have the "continuous attenuator" to adjust  transaction fee but it has gross-motion switch with  three options (namely, high priority, modern priority and low priority) which controls  the fee. Did you say that  0.00000111 BTC fee is applied to any transaction no matter which priority is chosen?  ^{(What option did you choose for stuck transaction?)}. P.S. I do not use it. just wondering.

[PayURL]

There's nothing of the sort. If there were, I'd have definitely chosen the highest priority instead of shelling out an extra $30 to Binance's accelerator to push the transaction through. Here's the response from Proton Wallet's technical support.

Anastasija (Proton Support)

Nov 2, 2024, 07:42 GMT+1
Hello,
 
Thank you for reaching out to us.
 
Note that, on average, it takes around one hour to receive confirmation for a BTC transaction. However, this timeframe can vary depending on several factors:
 

    Network congestion
    Transaction fee
    Block time

https://proton.me/support/wallet-track-btc-transactions#how-long-does-it-take
 
Upon review, it appears that your transaction remains unconfirmed due to low fees. Note that at present, our app does not support fee bumping.
 
However, you have a few alternatives:
 

    Wait for Confirmation: Although this may take some time, the transaction would eventually be confirmed.
    Use a Mempool Accelerator Service: This can help expedite the confirmation process.
    Try Another Wallet Software: Temporarily using software like Sparrow can enable you to bump the transaction fees.

 
We hope this information proves helpful. Should you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Kind regards,
Anastasija
Customer Support

[satscraper]

There's nothing of the sort. If there were, I'd have definitely chosen the highest priority instead of shelling out an extra $30 to Binance's accelerator to push the transaction through. Here's the response from Proton Wallet's technical support.

Hm, this author says it do has.

I have activated this wallet  in my proton account bit don't want to top it up to check who is correct, you or Frank Corva who published his article on bitcoinmagazine, So, who is correct?

[PayURL]

There's nothing of the sort. If there were, I'd have definitely chosen the highest priority instead of shelling out an extra $30 to Binance's accelerator to push the transaction through. Here's the response from Proton Wallet's technical support.

Hm, this author says it do has.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/11/03/bMdX9.png

I have activated this wallet  in my proton account bit don't want to top it up to check who is correct, you or Frank Corva who published his article on bitcoinmagazine, So, who is correct?

  Hmm, I'll double-check this now. I’ve made transfers twice, and I didn’t see anything like that there. I’ll update here in the thread a bit later.

There's nothing of the sort. If there were, I'd have definitely chosen the highest priority instead of shelling out an extra $30 to Binance's accelerator to push the transaction through. Here's the response from Proton Wallet's technical support.

Hm, this author says it do has.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/11/03/bMdX9.png

I have activated this wallet  in my proton account bit don't want to top it up to check who is correct, you or Frank Corva who published his article on bitcoinmagazine, So, who is correct?

You're absolutely right. That feature does exist. BUT!! It doesn’t work in Safari. There’s simply no option to select anything. However, in the app, this choice worked, and my funds were sent within five minutes. Unfortunately, I lost around $150 across two transactions due to exchange rates and accelerator fees.

[Synchronice]

Proton VPN, Proton Email, Proton Wallet, etc... I don't like the idea of creating multiple privacy-oriented apps and centralizing them under the same company/management. That's what Mullvad does recently too and I don't like it.
By the way, I was expecting this to be an open-source wallet like Electrum but it's required to register on Proton before you use it. I only wish that developers of Electrum and Sparrow copied some UI elements from Proton's wallet, both, mobile and desktop version.

He (yeah let me call Satoshi Nakamoto as he, but we don't know who is or are Satoshi Nakamoto), decided in very early months of Bitcoin history and that decision is super helpful for us, and surely for himself too. Assume Satoshi Nakamoto is a well-known person, he would have been arrested a long time ago by either the USA government or others.

I don't know what to say about his possible arrest because there is a guy named Craig Wright who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto and at the same time abuses numerous courts and proved himself to be a scammer and a liar but no one arrests him.

[satscraper]

Proton VPN, Proton Email, Proton Wallet, etc... I don't like the idea of creating multiple privacy-oriented apps and centralizing them under the same company/management. That's what Mullvad does recently too and I don't like it.

Agreed, proton is reputable company in general   but their wallet  is ^still  from the class of custodial ones in which users don't posses keys to their stash should they confided it by inmost soul to proton-custodial-service thus they may be hooked at any moment. Email/VPN service is one thing ^{(though an important one)}, wallet with money is another

P.S. Just checked this wallet once more ^{as I didn't use}. In fact it has the opt to safe your SEED phrase ^{though the question remains how they generate it}, thus it is indeed self-custody, thus I was wrong at this assessment.

[ABCbits]

Proton VPN, Proton Email, Proton Wallet, etc... I don't like the idea of creating multiple privacy-oriented apps and centralizing them under the same company/management. That's what Mullvad does recently too and I don't like it.

I agree, ideally we shouldn't rely too much on single company. But at least it's better than seeing people use Google apps/services.

By the way, I was expecting this to be an open-source wallet like Electrum but it's required to register on Proton before you use it. I only wish that developers of Electrum and Sparrow copied some UI elements from Proton's wallet, both, mobile and desktop version.

Looking at https://github.com/protonwallet/, it's open source. But AFAIK nobody audit it.

[Pmalek]

Here's the response from Proton Wallet's technical support.

It's clear from their customer support reps' reply that they are quite new to Bitcoin and how it works. Anastasija tells you that, on average, it takes one hour for a bitcoin transaction to be confirmed. That's not correct. She probably thought of transaction finality. Many sources have claimed throughout the years that a bitcoin transaction requires 6 confirmations to be considered final and irreversible. Assuming that, on average, a new block is found every 10 minutes, a bitcoin transaction will reach finality in one hour, but the first confirmation, on average comes after 10 minutes assuming that high-enough fees were spent.

[dzungmobile]

It's clear from their customer support reps' reply that they are quite new to Bitcoin and how it works. Anastasija tells you that, on average, it takes one hour for a bitcoin transaction to be confirmed. That's not correct. She probably thought of transaction finality. Many sources have claimed throughout the years that a bitcoin transaction requires 6 confirmations to be considered final and irreversible. Assuming that, on average, a new block is found every 10 minutes, a bitcoin transaction will reach finality in one hour, but the first confirmation, on average comes after 10 minutes assuming that high-enough fees were spent.

Literally how many Bitcoin confirmations are enough, it depends on value of your fund in that transaction. The bigger value the fund is, the more confirmations you need to consider that transaction is done, finalized and won't be reversed.

How many Bitcoin confirmations is enough?

• https://github.com/jlopp/bitcoin-confirmation-risk-calculator
• https://web.archive.org/web/20181231045818/https://people.xiph.org/~greg/attack_success.html

If you are patient enough to wait for at least one confirmation then you are no longer vulnerable to race attacks or Finney attacks. Now your only concern is 51% attacks. What's the rule of thumb for an acceptable number of confirmations?

• 1 confirmation: sufficient for small payments less than $1,000.
• 3 confirmations: for payments $1,000 - $10,000. Most exchanges require 3 confirmations for deposits.
• 6 confirmations: good for large payments between $10,000 - $1,000,000. Six is standard for most transactions to be considered secure.
• 10 confirmations: suggested for large payments greater than $1,000,000.

[Pmalek]

Literally how many Bitcoin confirmations are enough, it depends on value of your fund in that transaction. The bigger value the fund is, the more confirmations you need to consider that transaction is done, finalized and won't be reversed.

51% attacks don't happen in Bitcoin and are getting more expensive as the global hashrate increases. So I wouldn't worry myself with that too much.

However, the tool you shared by J. Lopp that considers the dominance of mining pools in terms of the global hashrate shows that 6 confirmations aren't enough if dominant mining pools were to turn bad and keep their hashrate percentages (both scenarios are unlikely). It estimates that the risk of a reorg attack is over 64% after 6 confirmations. You need 12 confirmations if you want to bring that number down below 50%.

[NotATether]

• https://web.archive.org/web/20181231045818/https://people.xiph.org/~greg/attack_success.html

I was looking for this page everywhere and I couldn't remember the URL. I had already given up finding it but then I found this post. Many thanks.

[dzungmobile]

I was looking for this page everywhere and I couldn't remember the URL. I had already given up finding it but then I found this post. Many thanks.

Many thanks to you too.

You can find it in my thread too.
How many Bitcoin confirmations is enough?

Initially, I did not know it too but our legendary member @o_e_l_e_o gave me that second tool. A first tool is from Jameson Lopp, with a mini bug and he fixed it after our forum member informed him about that.

His post.

[SFR10]

I just noticed Proton finally made their wallet accessible to the public on the "10th of February" and on the same day, they also released the "Android" and "iOS" apps and despite knowing it's not the safest wallet out there, I wanted to try it to satisfy my curiosity, but for some reason, I keep getting the following error while creating an account on both their Android app and their web wallet ^{[already tried with and without a VPN]}:

- Screenshot of their Android app
- Screenshot of their website

Am I the only one who can't create an account for their services?

[icopress]

[...] Am I the only one who can't create an account for their services?

I have a Visionary account. Send me your email and I'll send you an invite (maybe it will work).