Category: Self-Custody & Security
The Self Custody Manual: A Practical Guide to Buying Bitcoin and Hardware Wallets
The Self Custody Manual is a step-by-step guide on buying Bitcoin and securing it in cold storage. Get your free copy at: The Self Custody Manual.
What is a Seed Phrase – BIP39 Standard Simply Explained
Understanding seed phrases is essential for protection of your digital assets. I already covered best practices of seed phrase protection and today I’ll explain exactly what we’re protecting. Private Keys vs Seed Phrase The ownership of a crypto wallet boils down to having the private keys that control it. A private key is a string of alphanumeric characters that …
10 Requirements: Choose a Good Hardware Wallet
Choosing a hardware wallet is a serious and extremely responsible decision. A user has to do dedicated homework instead of picking the cheapest or the first available option. When I was evaluating which hardware wallets to buy, I relied on the following list of requirements. Read on and see the reasoning behind each. 1) Has to …
Review of the Keystone 3 Pro Hardware Wallet
A couple of days ago, the CEO of Keystone stumbled upon my post “Is Ledger a Hot Wallet?“. This initiated a discussion and he offered to send me a Keystone 3 Pro device to try their Bitcoin-only firmware. I’m exceptionally selective in accepting gifts to avoid reciprocity bias, so I explicitly asked if there is anything …
Hardware Wallets Comparison (Trezor, BitBox02, Ledger, Coldcard)
Practicing self-custody comes with the burden of picking the right hardware wallet. That evaluation is highly personal journey, as the circumstances and needs vary from person to person. In this post, I show you my thought process and requirements. Below, you can find a comparison between a few of the industry-standard hardware wallets and my conclusions. …
Is Ledger a Hot Wallet? Analysis of the Recovery Service
Ledger used to be the standard hardware wallet choice for most crypto investors. Some time ago, they announced Ledger Recover. It’s an optional service aimed at n00bs that don’t trust themselves to take care of their seed phrase. If you were a Ledger user with significant capital secured by it when this news came out, …
Introduction to Hardware Wallets (Cold Storage for Beginners)
If you’re reading this, you probably accumulated sufficient amount to start worrying about security. You also probably use an exchange to store your coins and understood that it defies the purpose of decentralization. Lastly, you most probably heard the phrase “not your keys, not your coins” but are uncertain what it actually means. Let’s start …
5 Common Crypto Scams
With crypto summer emerging, the scammers are back with their old bag of tricks. This post is a n00b-friendly introduction to the most common crypto scams you should be aware of. Note: even if you self-custody, that’s not protection against lack of common sense. Having control of your coins makes you your own bank, i.e. …
The Byzantine Generals Problem – Simple Explanation
The Byzantine generals problem is a distributed computing problem introduced in 1982, in a paper of the same name. In this post, I’ll give a simplified summary of a formulation of the problem. Then, I’ll explain how the Bitcoin blockchain and its use of Proof of Work solves it in practice. The Byzantine Generals Problem: …
Protect Your Seed Phrase (10 Tips to Secure your Crypto)
Having control over your seed phrase is equivalent to having control over your crypto. I already covered the importance of self-custody before, so if you’re reading this post, make sure to know the basics. With that being said, let’s dive into how you can protect your seed phrase and increase the security of your crypto assets. …
Self-Custody Explained – “Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins”
Self-custody gives people total control over their digital assets without having to trust anyone. Ownership without trust is something that has never been possible in human history until now. And yet, many ignore it – even investors with hundreds of thousands in the cryptocurrency market. In this post, I’ll cover why and how a person should take …