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Comment by wyck | Hacker News Reader

Are you not aware of cold storage? Do you think people store millions on their laptops? Smart people use traditional means to store their crypto, literally paper in banks, custodians with insurance, actual vaults, etc, etc.

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Cold storage just means that you key is kept offline, but the whole system is on the internet. The central part of crypto is the blockchain, which holds all your assets.

So if someone is able to guess your key, or just happen to find it, or if the encryption has been defeated by a leap in computing or algorithms, they will have access to your crypto without needing to access your key.

First off no one is guessing your key, do the math, it's ridiculously impossible. Secondly if someone finds your key that's your problem, its the same as any real life key, it's not magic. 3rdly no leap in computing, even quantum is going to change the fact that no one is guessing your keys. And bitcoin does not require the internet, it only needs to communicate with other nodes, there is even a blockstream satellite you can use right now without internet access. This level is technical ignorance is pretty astounding.

Wouldn't these "traditional means" defeat the whole purpose of "crypto", which is to avoid reliance on a trusted third-party?

you can use shamir secret sharing or other similar stuff (like multisignature wallets), so that you need m of n keys.

Thus someone accessing some of your keys would not help them at all (and other things can be helpful lile time locks in combination with other features)

No, it gives you more options to handle security in a more robust way and how you see fit. There is no "purpose" of crypto - it's a tool and a tool that has more options than current popular asset protections can offer.

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