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Comment by tevon | Hacker News Reader

Is it me or should he have literally just gotten a hardware wallet, transferred everything to that account, then burned the old key?

Of course that txn would show up on-chain, but if you don't have possession of the private key for the first account, and no digital device has ever "seen" the hardware account then he would've been fine.

This is assuming the key piece of evidence was his private key, and he wouldn't have been prosecuted without it.

Additionally, putting your key in cloud storage sounds like the dumbest thing ever... Just memorize your seed phrase and write it down. Its 4bn for christ sake.

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Yeah, a hardware wallet is good, although for a billion dollars, 100 hardware wallets would be better. Could even go so far as to split a private key into seven horcruxes using Shamir's Secret Sharing and bury them in locations around the world.

Memorizing a seed phrase leaves you vulnerable to a $5 wrench attack, I wouldn't recommend it.

> Memorizing a seed phrase leaves you vulnerable to a $5 wrench attack, I wouldn't recommend it.

Of course the problem is the attacker may not know what method you used and resort to the $5 wrench attack anyway :)

Not stealing $3.6B might be an even safer bet.

still: physical threat + seed phrase cracked > physical threat

The famous Bitcoin family reportedly spread their hardware wallets across the globe.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/11/bitcoin-family-hides-bitcoin...

Wow.

> Taihuttu has two hiding spots in Europe, another two in Asia, one in South America, and a sixth in Australia.

> We aren’t talking buried treasure – none of the sites are below ground or on a remote island – but the family told CNBC the crypto stashes are hidden in different ways and in a variety of locations, ranging from rental apartments and friends’ homes to self-storage sites.

I hope this is all a decoy or else it’s the worst opsec I’ve seen since about five hours ago.

I would not want to be a friend to the sort of idiots who would say stuff like this. Having a target painted on my back as a decoy somehow makes it even worse.

The article suggests each location contains 100% of the key, not using Shamir’s Secret Sharing.

> Taihuttu is trying to put a crypto cold wallet on every continent so it’s easier to access his holdings.

I hope it’s at least encrypted with an additional passphrase, otherwise it’s only as strong as the weakest bank’s security.

Or the Winklevoss twins who store their codes in separate banks across the country.

You don’t need splitting the private key. Bitcoin has multisig setup. For example, you can setup your wallet such that 6 out of 10 private keys need to sign in order to transfer funds. Spread that 10 private keys out. Or 3 out of 10. Or 2 out of 5. Any n out of m.

You're right, gathering multisigs would be much safer than gathering SSS shares because you wouldn't be carrying around bits of the private key.

Any single SSS share does not disclose any additional information about the private key (i.e. it is not like splitting the key itself into parts).

And SSS also allows n out of m.

Reminds me of the man who was sent to jail for refusing to reveal his keys. think this happens alot.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/man-who-refused-...

For the attacker, the problem isn't about protecting the crypto but to launder.

If gov got to you, it probably doesn't matter how well you got it protected.

You're still memorizing the seven locations around the world. It's the same thing with extra steps.

With a hardware wallet there is still a paper trail that you bought the device. So the feds will be looking for them.

Printing the paper wallets, putting them in a $1 glass jar with a silica packet and burying in your back yard would have been 100 times smarter.

There is zero link between a hardware wallet's private key and the original account that purchased the wallet.

> Just memorize your seed phrase and write it down.

The article mentions he had many wallets.

There really is no such thing as a "hardware wallet."

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