Phynti: Friend-protected wallet (early beta)

[thovden]

Guys,

We're looking for early beta testers for Phynti - a friend-protected wallet.

Perhaps I don't have to reiterate for you the pains of managing your private Bitcoin addresses, i.e., your cash. Either you have to trust a third party to manage them (bad idea - Mt Gox), keep them on a physical device only you can access (bad idea - they break and disks fail), or keep them somewhere in the cloud with strong encryption (don't forget that password, because if you do, all is lost). People get anxious and lose sleep over this.

We believe we have a better alternative by using secret sharing to your existing trust network - your family and friends. With Phynti, you can reclaim your wallet from a quorum of your friends (currently 3) even if you have lost your password.

If you're interested in participating in an early beta feel free to sign up at:

https://phynti.com/

Thanks,
Torgeir

[AussieHash]

Sounds like this project

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2io2hg/video_of_my_talk_on_multisig_and_ultimate_vault/cl3yhqf
http://oleganza.com/MultisigOctober2014.pdf  (Page 31 - Friends as Custodians)

[arnt]

That's a bit different. Just one bit, but it's the MSB.

I can't watch the video for lack of speakers, so I may have missed something. But as far as I understand it, that wallet aims to provide security by making some of your chosen friends sign the transaction before it can go ahead. Which is IMO wonderful for purchasing departments with four-eyes policies, but not for everone.

For example, suppose you make a purchase from nobra.de, which makes custom-made artisan vibrators, optionally molded to match a certain penis. Would you want your bitcoin wallet to tell five of your friends about that purchase? No? Would you like them to accept a transaction without details? "Bob wants to pay €300 to an unnamed vendor to purchase an unnamed product. Accept?"

What we have uses the same math, but functionally it's much closer to lastpass or 1password, except that we don't store just passwords. As long as you have the key to your wallet, you can buy your Christmas presents without revealing to your friends what you're buying for them. You only bother your friends if you lose or forget the private key. Less tedious for your chosen friends, less restraining for you.

Arnt

[thovden]

The way I understand Oleg's multisign proposal is that he's doing some arithmetic to "blind" both public keys and transactions to address the anonymity issue, but yes - it's different. Phynti solves the "loss of your wallet problem" through secret sharing with friends.