People can go on about the pros and cons of various hardware wallets, but in the end, the instruction manual for the wallet is going to tell you to write down your seed phrase on a piece of paper.
That’s going to be your primary threat. You can put the piece of paper in a (easily seizable) safe deposit box, or bury it, or keep it in a safe, or try to get fancy by engraving the seed words into a piece of metal instead of paper. But at the end of the day, you’ll end up with some clunky physical analog item, aside from the device itself, which you’ll have to protect.
Yes, you can enter some kind of multi signature arrangement with the wallet provider. It’ll require no more than a quick phone call from a government agency to get them to cough their side your key set.
Then, even if you’re ok with all of that, some wallet providers (but not all) can push out firmware updates, which is basically the same thing as a back door.
Not trying to dissuade you from hardware wallets at all. Just trying to say that you have a lot to think through. It’s not the security slam-dunk that many assume.
sworder / David Sworder
npub1yk…4037v
2023-09-17 19:09:22
in reply to nevent1q…2nzr
Author Public Key
npub1ykxry467y6jcy3xwxwm537wxly9n0v3fm73ksvm8retvfqxklq9sa4037vPublished at
2023-09-17 19:09:22Event JSON
{
"id": "170908454380837c8d79fd24dd466a4294a6b3c2a93e06428512f22ec248c0f7",
"pubkey": "258c32575e26a58244ce33b748f9c6f90b37b229dfa36833671e56c480d6f80b",
"created_at": 1694977762,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"3c403306edf67cfce29cd513e6beca0674643d9a38f9aa926cd77b67cb2ecb2c"
],
[
"p",
"eab0e756d32b80bcd464f3d844b8040303075a13eabc3599a762c9ac7ab91f4f"
]
],
"content": "People can go on about the pros and cons of various hardware wallets, but in the end, the instruction manual for the wallet is going to tell you to write down your seed phrase on a piece of paper. \n\nThat’s going to be your primary threat. You can put the piece of paper in a (easily seizable) safe deposit box, or bury it, or keep it in a safe, or try to get fancy by engraving the seed words into a piece of metal instead of paper. But at the end of the day, you’ll end up with some clunky physical analog item, aside from the device itself, which you’ll have to protect.\n\nYes, you can enter some kind of multi signature arrangement with the wallet provider. It’ll require no more than a quick phone call from a government agency to get them to cough their side your key set. \n\nThen, even if you’re ok with all of that, some wallet providers (but not all) can push out firmware updates, which is basically the same thing as a back door.\n\nNot trying to dissuade you from hardware wallets at all. Just trying to say that you have a lot to think through. It’s not the security slam-dunk that many assume.",
"sig": "9d9183dfd3f556d6b3338796c678383ff0c5a75624307bd68ea82cbe640246073e770ba705d2ca69031b942044e81c1b90d969972fafc4475882c9d45b3e3d72"
}