Is self custody getting a bit too complicated for beginners?

[Bit-Mj1014]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

[UchihaSarada]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.

Lol, people nowadays can spend many hours a day on social media and they feel no issues. I am asking myself how setting up a hardware wallet can cause things like "eyes completely glazed over". Frankly, in my opinion, your story is like a fake one.

It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

It's not complicated as you think, and people must learn and practice with small fund first. It's a key principle, after testing what they learned with a small fund, if things are well, they can fund that wallet with all bitcoin they have.

This article is long but not too complicated to understand.
How to back up a seed phrase?

There are close source and open source hardware wallets, the recommendation is choosing open source hardware wallets, and buy them rightly.
[LIST] Open Source Hardware Wallets.
GUIDE] How to buy a Hardware Wallet the right way.

[Cookdata]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

Using a hardware wallet isn't that complex, anything you are not used to as first time wouldn't be easy to navigate, even centralized exchanges can be complex if you are a first timer and have never used any before, instead of starting over with an exchange custody mentality, it's better you get used to hardware wallet.

You don't need nothing much than a seed phrase from your hardware wallet which should be properly backup, most modern wallet generate native segwit wallet address(some support both v0 and taproot upgrade v1), so you don't need to bother about generating any of the legacy addresses because of how you pay more fees on transactions compare to segwit, unless you need them for other purposes.
The passphrase is an option for extra security which you don't need more than one, and should be a word you can remember even in your sleep. This all you need to use a hardware wallet.

[Charles-Tim]

How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

Just common phones, if you give it to your children, they will easily find it easy to locate all your games on the phone. Do not also see it surprising that the children can go to application sites to download more games and play. Telling you the games you have not heard of before. Only what they will not know are necessary securities and avoiding malware.

Just tell your friend to see hardware wallets to be easier to operate than phones, but teach him about privacy, security and safety.

I know about bitcoin wallets within a short period of time.

[Smartprofit]

I believe that using Bitcoin was much more difficult in 2010 or 2013 than it is now. Back then, Bitcoin wallets were truly complex programs. And competent technical advice was only available from a human. That's why Bitcoin was primarily of interest to techies back then. 🙋

However, the situation has changed dramatically in my opinion. For example, lightweight wallets like Electrum have emerged. They're much easier to use than the standard Bitcoin Core wallet.

Technical advice is no longer limited to humans. You can consult the language model, and it will happily explain all the technical aspects of Bitcoin. And if you don't understand it the first time, it will happily explain it again. It can give you technical advice a thousand times without getting frustrated. Gaining technical knowledge has become very simple. The most important thing is not to be lazy, but to strive to understand all the technical aspects.  However, sacrificing security and privacy for ease of use, in my opinion, is wrong. 💁

[noorman0]

Their literacy level determines how complex you teach them. Even if you teach them basic things, the concerns don't end there, especially if you see they don't even know how to properly store their own phone account credentials and don't know how to handle minor device errors, , even after receiving repeated assistance. The question arises: how will they manage their own bank responsibly?

The reality of the situation makes it difficult to teach someone about Bitcoin, I have to understand the OP's situation.

[dansus021]

Is self custody getting a bit too complicated for beginners?

Hmm I dont know bro, but in my opinion getting self custody especially hardware wallet like you said is super duper simple, I mean if you can setup wallet from extension like Metamask, Trust walelt, yoroi, sui and lot other you basically do the same with the hardware wallet. The only different maybe is one or two things and you get more control of your money rather than in CEX.

Also self custody today is getting much simplier with much more tutorial in youtube and other

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

Is self custody getting a bit too complicated for beginners?

Hmm I dont know bro, but in my opinion getting self custody especially hardware wallet like you said is super duper simple, I mean if you can setup wallet from extension like Metamask, Trust walelt, yoroi, sui and lot other you basically do the same with the hardware wallet. The only different maybe is one or two things and you get more control of your money rather than in CEX.

Also self custody today is getting much simplier with much more tutorial in youtube and other

Self custody is not too complicated but people who don't want to learn and change their storage practice will see it complicated. They accept risk and ignore learning, hopefully they won't have loss and painful lessons later with their bitcoin and bitcoin storage on CEX.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts.
Events made you scare about custodial wallets, centralized exchanges.

If they want change, they can filter and choose a good non custodial wallet to use.
https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet
http://walletscrutiny.com/

[bitmover]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

When I started with bitcoin in 2017, basically every guide in the told that before you buy, you need to set up a wallet. Only then look for an exchange

I dont think it is that complicated , there are so many good wallets and exchnages nowadays.

Maybe starting with a hardware wallet was the problem. He could start with a web or mobile wallet  and after buying a few bucks setting up the HW

[OgNasty]

Considering Bitcoin isn't used as a p2p currency much anymore (I used it this morning as a p2p currency) it doesn't make a ton of sense for newbies to be risking learning how self custody works with their real money...  The ETFs have taken over Bitcoin.  People are buying it in their brokerage accounts so they don't have to worry about $5 wrench attacks and don't want to mess with learning all the ins and outs of Bitcoin just to have some exposure.  The cypherpunk days are long behind us...

[goldkingcoiner]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

It's not complicated, they just don't trust themselves. They won't understand the value of non custody until their custody third party screws them over in one way or another. Eventually they will have to learn the lesson the hard way and then they might be more willing to abandon the system that they got so used to over the years...

financial third party custody has been indoctrinated into our minds to the point where we actually believe that giving someone else our money is safer than holding on to it ourselves.

Sure, the risk of loss is greater in self custody but only because of sloppiness. Everyone seems to prefer comfortable UI and giving someone else the responsibility over their money than to risk being sloppy.

[mcdouglasx]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

Unfortunately, we're in the age of AI and instant gratification. I assume people are looking for advice on Bitcoin on TikTok, trying to understand the security of passphrases and their importance. It's not difficult at all; it's just that people these days prefer plug-and-play. I remember a friend the other day asking me for advice on tuning TV channels on her smart TV, and she also wanted me to disable the looping playback of songs on her phone. I think social media and current technology are designed for instant consumerism.
If someone wants to buy Bitcoin, which is a financial investment, they should at least spend a couple of hours researching it. It's not that difficult; they just want everything done automatically.

[Lida93]

Would you want to leave your hard earned funds stored in a kind of lock that isn't to your best knowledge secured and safe? Until you have to be a victim of some of the centralized-exchanges-shutdown then you can learn to appreciate the somewhat meticulous processes required in setting up your hardware wallet.
Some of us today finds it common to spend the entire time gambling and losing our funds to the house but when it comes to the means of securing our funds we just wanna find reasons to complain.

[Franctoshi]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

I doubt nothing is complex here; even settling up an account with the centralized exchange is much more stressful than setting up a hardware wallet because you have to go through the registration process, email verification, facial verification, address verification, identity verification, and setting up a password, your withdrawal PINs, and Google Authenticator codes, and the rest of the other security measures too. You taking measures to protect your funds isn't a big deal.

[Mahiyammahi]

if you value your money, then I think this small hassle is nothing for you. At the end, all you need is money. So if you want care about your security, then who will, let me tell you who will care about your secrets if you don’t, hackers always have their keen eyes on you. If you just do anything, strange then they can notice and make use of that vulnerability.

I think in this world, the less you know the happier you wil. I think you can just teach your friend all the basics he would have needed, the rest you can leave it to your friend cause he or she is really enthusiastic about this technical thing then they will always pursue that path

[Die_empty]

Unfortunately, we're in the age of AI and instant gratification. I assume people are looking for advice on Bitcoin on TikTok, trying to understand the security of passphrases and their importance. It's not difficult at all; it's just that people these days prefer plug-and-play. I remember a friend the other day asking me for advice on tuning TV channels on her smart TV, and she also wanted me to disable the looping playback of songs on her phone. I think social media and current technology are designed for instant consumerism.
If someone wants to buy Bitcoin, which is a financial investment, they should at least spend a couple of hours researching it. It's not that difficult; they just want everything done automatically.

One could easily get information about anything with little effort. There are tutorials on how to set up any type of wallet from the producer's website. Some artificial intelligence tools could also help set up wallets.

Bitcoin users have the choice of enjoying privacy or relying on third parties to keep their assets. Anyone who wants to use Bitcoin as a decentralised currency or asset should be willing to take responsibility. And learning complicated processes is part of the price they would have to pay for self-custody.

[Ucy]

Ofcourse, we believe the best way to carry everyone along to avoid centralization of knowledge and ensure that most people understand things well enough to help maintain a decentralized Bitcoin is to teach members of the crypto community not to complicate simple things, and to make complicated things simple

And always remember to appreciate simplified works rather than seeing them as not deserving big reward or respect since they are easy, because I notice part of reason people complicate their works is to be respected or attract more rewards.

[Jegileman]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

At first, it may feel very complicated to a beginner the whole process especially while explaining it to them for the first time after showing their first interest in bitcoin and needed a guide on how to go about it and have a secured wallet. Sometime people don’t learn easily until they are been hit by a situation that pushes them to actually learn it forcefully, that’s when they know to which extent their capability of learning and understanding quickly can be.

We don’t hope for such, but some people learn only when they’ve lost their coins due to negligence in not keeping their seed phrase safe and also not using a more secured decentralized means of saving to secure their funds will they learn and adjust. Nothing is complex here, anyone that’s ready to learn will do it, their reaction is human nature and can’t be used to justify any claim that learning about security and privacy of bitcoin is complex to beginners.

[Ruttoshi]

It's a norm for anyone to find it difficult to operate something that he has no idea about. Hardware wallet is part of the technical aspects of bitcoin and if you're not use to it, it might be difficult for you to operate for the first time but the more you use it often, it becomes easier.

However, having a good security management is what matters the most because without that, your wallet can still get compromised. I have some people that finds it difficult to operate minor things because they lack the knowledge. Every process that you undergo using a hardware wallet is for the safety of your coin but only your seed phrase is what you need.

[coinlary]

Not complex ! Infact ,  I think it's getting much more easier. You don't expect to understand basic calculation like addition ,subtraction and so on your first day at school ,  you shouldn't  expect them to get it aswell the first time you explain it to them. Unless they have little idea regarding it before you explained fully .  T

herefore, it's quite normal they basically zone out the first day, they will get used to it but I think it's quite better they try to understand before setting anything up.