Should the recent issues with hardware wallets discourage self custody?

[Exitoral]

Let's shift away a bit and look at the big picture. Self custody is good. Yes. But you can't just do it like that. The tools you use aids that. The problem should be from the tools and not necessarily self custody. I read one comment here and he says the does it himself. Home made. That's good. Someone like that can never be a victim of all this catastrophe that has been happening since. But there is some level of risk for the person. But not as much as all this recent incidents. Let's be guided.

[Pablo-wood]

To be frank, nowhere is really safe again.

That is not completely true, remember that hackers aren't magicians, so before them go fix exploit any vulnerability, it has to first be in existence. There is no system that is 100% safe, but there are definitely safe ways you can store your bitcoins without having to lose sleep over it. Plenty open source wallets dey wey you go fit store your bitcoin, plus many of dem they very well reviewed by people with the expertise in the bitcoin community. So if to say any vulnerability exist, them for don spot am and alert the community.

A case like Coldcard wallet where wallets were accessed as a result of software bug just proved even the most structured technology can be prone to vulnerability if proper caution isn't taken. I keep wondering why the company resulted to deterministic pseudo-random generator instead of the original hardware-backed true random number generator and now a mistake from 2021 has resulted in users losing their bitcoin to hackers.

[Son Of Blockchain (SOB)]

 If not self custody what more, giving a third party access to your asset? No bro that shouldn't be encouraged at all, if there was no alternative after that hack maybe i would've said that self custody is dead cause there's no secured way of doing that and ensuring safety of the asset but there are better alternative.
 Which is using a multi sig wallets, adding extra security to the wallet with a passphrase. The recent hack should never discourage anyone to give centralized wallets a trial, it's more risky.

[Coyster]

A case like Coldcard wallet where wallets were accessed as a result of software bug just proved even the most structured technology can be prone to vulnerability if proper caution isn't taken. I keep wondering why the company resulted to deterministic pseudo-random generator instead of the original hardware-backed true random number generator and now a mistake from 2021 has resulted in users losing their bitcoin to hackers.

The Coldcard firmware bug does not represent what the bitcoin network is or the technology behind it, that is a flaw/mistake on the part of Coinkite developers and they should bury their heads in shame for such a critical mistake.

That said, it does not make the bitcoin network any less secure, neither does it make other software and hardware wallets bad. It only calls for greater responsibility from the bitcoin community, in auditing and reviewing wallet codes, to ensure there are no critical flaws lurking somewhere.

[ColdLava40]

No matter how you want to put it this person will definitely loss some confidence and trust in the self custody because he wouldn’t want to be a second victim again. I mean a lot of people haven’t even recovered from the first incident and loses.
Is this not leading to where self custody is going to be disregarded? We know the advantages but the losses are brutal and not easy to take on. What the best form of cold storage? What could be the possible solution to this?

It is really disappointing, tiring and frustrating.

Waking up one morning, having plans on spending your long term live savings on something really worth it, then see that your balance had a transaction that wasn't initiated by you and now everything is gone.

It will not be easy to move on, no one will move on from such experience quickly.

Starting again? From where exactly? This occuring incidents shows that nothing can be 100% trusted. You could still play your part right and be at the bottom of the line.

[IjawMan]

It can be deeply hurting losing money in a way that it is not your fault, no mistakes done but just that a company could not provide the security they have established about their wallet.

To your question. I will argue that it should not be a discouragement to using hardware for the storage of crypto coins. Hardware wallet still remains the safest compared to online connected wallets. There are good hardware wallets to still use.

Discouraging any one from using hardware wallet is almost similar to telling the average Joe not to use the bank again for fiat services because a bank got robbed yesterday.

[Franklyn-wood]

It's quite unfortunate that self-custody had to experience something like this. The issue with Coldcard will definitely make a lot of people distrust hardware wallets, and thopeopleons includes me. I now prefer to use the traditional storage medium, which is a cold wallet and a paper backup stored in a good location. At least with this storage medium, we haven't heard any funny story about an external entity snatching away our coins from our wallet.  Maybe all that glitters isn't truly gold.

This experience can be discouraging as losing investment can be discouraging and results to making decisions that could make of not to continue investing and quit. Using cold wallet is good and safe due to the increasing rate of coin highjacked through internet access and  sometimes as a result of low security measures put in place to safeguard investments against being hacked by internet fraudster.
Write the phrases and other security information on a piece of paper can further lead to more danger, as it may be lost and takes by another person, exposing it to greater accessible risk.