How strong is the strongest?

[Lontor]

I could be asking a stupid question right now without knowing but I don't think it is, I feel this way because I don't see anyone asking something similar, forum search is not helping either.

Multisig seem to be the better option for someone who can handle it but I am curious to know if weak entropy can affect the strongest method of keeping Bitcoin.

Can weak entropy still affects multisig?
I also want to know what is the weakness of Multisig?

Thank you all.

[Charles-Tim]

The issue for the hackers is that they can not know the number of the keys until the wallet spend some coins. If the multisig wallet make transaction, the number of keys can be known, but to know which of the vulnerable keys that made up the multisig wallet will be hard. Making the attack harder to be successful, unlike singlesig wallets. You can see people advising people to use multisig wallet after the Coldcard vulnerability, that it is resistant to the attack.

You can also decide to generate each keys of the multisig wallet in different reputed open source wallets. The first keys can be generated on Electrum, the second on Sparrow, while the third can be generated on Trezor. And not necessarily generated on a single wallet.

[BlackBoss_]

Can weak entropy still affects multisig?
I also want to know what is the weakness of Multisig?

Security is like an exponential thing, not like a sum, so if you add one or more layers of security, security level will be exponential and stronger. That's how a multisig wallet can secure your fund better but if possible, wallet software used to create wallets either single signature or multi signature must be strong and secure, in how it generate wallet seed phrase and have enough strong entropy.

If you already use a good wallet software like Electrum, to create single signature wallets with strong entropy, it's good. If you want to improve security, you can consider to create a multisig wallet with a same wallet software, Electrum.

Single or multi signature wallet, make sure back up your wallets, and test backups for recovery before using your wallet.
[Guide] Creating an Electrum multisig wallet.

[Zaguru12]

Multisig seem to be the better option for someone who can handle it but I am curious to know if weak entropy can affect the strongest method of keeping Bitcoin.

If weak entropy can affect multi sig? Yes it’s possible only if all the private keys or seed phrases were generated from the same source which is same wallet and then the hacker needs to be sure that this two keys are are multi sig which you know it’s not that possible that’s why vulnerability with coldcard didn’t affect multisigs or seed phrases with passphrases. Yes you can see from a multi sig transaction that it’s multi sig due to the number public keys in the data but you know you cannot run it down to private keys. This is why multi sig is save even in the face of weak entropy.

One key take away when setting up a multi sig wallet is that you should avoid one point of failure, that’s different wallet or device or software should generate each keys, for example you can have hardware wallet + software wallet for the co signers as this will make one avoid a single point of failure

[Lontor]

The issue for the hackers is that they can not know the number of the keys until the wallet spend some coins. If the multisig wallet make transaction, the number of keys can be known, but to know which of the vulnerable keys that made up the multisig wallet will be hard. Making the attack harder to be successful, unlike singlesig wallets. You can see people advising people to use multisig wallet after the Coldcard vulnerability, that it is resistant to the attack.

You can also decide to generate each keys of the multisig wallet in different reputed open source wallets. The first keys can be generated on Electrum, the second on Sparrow, while the third can be generated on Trezor. And not necessarily generated on a single wallet.

WT?

How is this even possible?

Generating the keys separately and they would work normally?
Wonders shall never end, here I am thinking I've known what's needed to know.

Is there any video or tutorials about generating multisig separately and still make them work together normally? This is my first time hearing this, I thought it's only possible with single sig wallets.

[Antidote47k]

I think it generally boils down to how the weak keys were generated in the first place, whether the keys were generated independently or share the same flawed generation paths. The threshold and entropy usually work hand in hand, more of an interdependent relationship in my opinion, while multisig can handle compromise of a limited number of keys the safety reduces to an extent if enough keys becomes predictable.
It’s definitely harder to get around for sure, but if two co-signers key of a 2-3 multisig setup were generated through a flawed or vulnerable process then yeah, the protection becomes less rigid compared to the standard setup.

[hmbdofficial]

Well, this is definitely not a stupid question. because it actually raises an important security question to think about which is the weakness in entropy. yes multisig can reduce certain risk, that would not mean that it automatically remove every weakness in the bitcoin key generation and storage.

weak entropy will definitely affect multisig, because multisig doesnt fix a wealky generated private key. let say for example in a 2-of -3 multisig wallet, if an attacher recovers one private key, they still need another key to spend the funds. this is one of the advantage if the multisig. however, if the attacker did much and was able to recover the two keys, then that's when they will be able to spend the coin. and that is more reason why each key is supposed to be generated securely with a very strong entropy and even using different device just to reduce the risk.

also i realize that miltisig has it own challenge that you must keep proper backups of your own keys and wallet configuration. because if you happen to lose too many keys, you may not get access to your funds, and also setting up and recovering a multisig wallet can also become more complicated than actually using a single signature wallet. but if you can do it right multisig will sure give more security than just a single key wallet.    

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

I don't know, but I will have to leave some similar topics about multi-sig, it's pros and cons,

• How does Multi Sig work?
• Multi-sig is the future of enhanced security
• Is Multisig Worth the Extra Complexity?
• Using One Seed with Different Passphrases for Multi-Sig Setup
• Distributed Passphrase > Multisig? Poke holes in this.
• conversion or switch from single to multisig
• Bitcoin multisig setup

So perhaps the OP or the rest of us might find our answers with multi-sig since we are now perhaps moving from hardware wallets because of the recent incident to a more secure way of backing up our seed phrase.

[Alvin_talk]

Can weak entropy still affects multisig?

Yes bro. Imagine you have a 2 of 3 multisig setup and all of the keys are generated with weak entropy, it means that the attacker can brute force the key the same way it happened in colcard attack. Since all the keys are generated by weak entropy, the attacker just need repeat the process twice to get the second key. Just know that weakness is weakness, you can't have a weak foundation and expect the building to be strong, just because you used durable materials for the walls.

[Charles-Tim]

Is there any video or tutorials about generating multisig separately and still make them work together normally? This is my first time hearing this, I thought it's only possible with single sig wallets.

I do not know of any videos that can be a guide for generating multisig on different wallets, but that is not necessary. All what you need to know is how to generate multisig wallet on all the wallets that you want to use for it. If you know how to do that, it should not be difficult for you to make use of the wallets to generate a multisig wallet.

[YellowSwap]

Weak entropy is weak entropy, either multisig or not I don't recommend keeping your Bitcoin on a wallet that's known to have weak entropy, avid them at all cost and generate a better one.

Although how severe it is depends on how many of your signing keys are compromised.
You can use roll dice to manually supply randomness.

Do not expect that a weakly generated entropy will become stronger if keep in Multisig, Multisig is not a weak seed fixer.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

forum search is not helping either.

Maybe you are not searching the proper way or you need to just understand how you could search to get your result adequately, there are also mega threads that talks about various aspect of Bitcoin and over the time, members have always been suggested on some of these links for the resources, but you asking your question in this manner is still not bad, at least you will have a precise answer to what you wanted an ensure that you go through every response that has been given above.

[d5000]

Generating the keys separately and they would work normally?
Wonders shall never end, here I am thinking I've known what's needed to know.

I hope I have understood your question correctly. What you perhaps may want to read is about the P2(W)SH methods to build transactions, which is the way multisig are built (P2TR - Taproot - also works but P2TR has some challenges to make it "more secure" than a regular single-signature / P2(W)PKH transaction due to the so-called "key path").

As you probably know, the receiver of a Bitcoin transaction has to solve a mathematical challenge. The challenge for a regular P2(W)PKH tx is: "Provide the public Key corresponding to the address I stored in the transaction and then sign the coins with the private key associated with this public key".

In the case of P2WSH or the older P2SH, the challenge is different: "Provide a script which corresponds to the hash I stored in the transaction. If the script contains public keys, provide signatures for all private keys associated with it." (this is very simplified, there are also other kinds of scripts possible)

All these keys can be generated in the way you want, so you can use several different entropy sources (e.g. different Bitcoin wallet software) if you want -- you only have to be able to build the script, and then provide the hash of the script. And of course you need to know / store the private keys somewhere (offline preferrably).

The nice effect Charles-Tim described is that the "redeem script" is not visible until the coins are spent. A hacker only sees there is a P2WSH transaction, he can't see if it's a multisig or some other kind of contract.

[Davidloki]

I could be asking a stupid question right now without knowing but I don't think it is, I feel this way because I don't see anyone asking something similar, forum search is not helping either.

Multisig seem to be the better option for someone who can handle it but I am curious to know if weak entropy can affect the strongest method of keeping Bitcoin.

Can weak entropy still affects multisig?
I also want to know what is the weakness of Multisig?

Thank you all.

Multi-sig wallet is no doubt one of the safest way to secure bitcoin but with weak entropy (randomness), it is not the same. For a multisig wallet that has 2 out of 3 or 1 out of 2 private keys, when either of these keys are created out of randomness it becomes less secure because an attacker that has access to one of these keys can have access to the bitcoin as well.

Weak entropy eliminates any trace of bitcoin security, whether multisig wallet or cold wallet.

[Proty]

Yes, weak entropy can still affect multisig because how secure a multisig is depends on how strong the keys generated are. If the keys can easily be predicted by attacker's, then it becomes an issue.There are still problems that can occur even while using multisig.
Managing multisig can be complicated because there are so many things involved such as, the user will need to keep track of different keys, backups, which may be on different devices or different location making it to be tedious to the user. It is even possible to lose access to ones bitcoin if there is no proper recovery plan.
Therefore, multisig can provide good security but it all depends on how it is being done. Also how secure a wallet is does not depend only on the method of security used but if the method is properly used.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Multi-sig wallet is no doubt one of the safest way to secure bitcoin but with weak entropy (randomness), it is not the same. For a multisig wallet that has 2 out of 3 or 1 out of 2 private keys, when either of these keys are created out of randomness it becomes less secure because an attacker that has access to one of these keys can have access to the bitcoin as well.

If you don't know that those private keys are from a specific multisig wallet, you can not compromise that wallet. Technically, I am not sure that will hackers be able to decode things and identify which Bitcoin private keys belong to a multisig wallet, I guess they can not. I could be wrong so if it's wrong, correct me, please.

If hackers can use machines, AIs to not only find wallets, mnemonic seeds, private keys, but also can identify multisig wallets and related private keys of co-signers, severity of security risk will be too high.

My assumption is they can not do that, exception is if you store all co-signers' backups in one place and they successfully hack and get it from you.

[pooya87]

Can weak entropy still affects multisig?

Yes. For example if you use a 15-of-15 multisig but use private keys 1 to 15 (the numbers) that is going to be the weakest multisig ever. Or if you use a broken code that produces a broken entropy then again it will be weak and can be broken and your coins can be stolen.

In other words if the entropy generation has a bug, then using multi-sig won't provide you with meaningful security.

I also want to know what is the weakness of Multisig?

If you create all the keys in one go on the same machine and store them in the same place and in the same manner. It is not so much a weakness but rather a pointlessness.

Multi-sig is useful if each key is produced separately and is kept separately. Otherwise there is not much point in it.

[tbct_mt2]

If you create all the keys in one go on the same machine and store them in the same place and in the same manner. It is not so much a weakness but rather a pointlessness.

Multi-sig is useful if each key is produced separately and is kept separately. Otherwise there is not much point in it.

Similarly, in security the principle is never install wallets, 2FA application, exchange application and login email, exchange account on a same device that has 2FA there. If people want to increase security of their accounts, wallets, they must keep different security layers in different places, on different machines/ devices.

This principle is applied the same way with multisig wallet, it's not recommended to create co-signers on a same device, and store all backups of cosigners at one place.

Any hack if happens will steal everything, then hackers manage to import all necessary things, and get access to that multsig wallet and bitcoin.

[Mia Chloe]

I could be asking a stupid question right now without knowing but I don't think it is, I feel this way because I don't see anyone asking something similar, forum search is not helping either.

It's not actually a stupid question besides it is logical to be concerned about entropy these days especially based on how the previous hacks have been conducted by exploiting firmware flaws in entropy generation. The fact is entropy is as safe as you try to make it.

Regardless of using a multisig, I've come to discover that the safest way to seed generation is to use custom words In addition to your regular 12 word seed. The more random and non existent the word is, the stronger the entropy.