Store Your Bitcoin SECRETLY | Andrew Poelstra

Welcome to The Bitcoin Layer, where we bring you research, analysis, and education for all things bitcoin and macro. In this episode, we are joined by Blockstream's Director of Research, Andrew Poelstra. Andrew has released a new book that provides a fascinating offline solution for secret sharing. We discuss how his book works and how it applies to bitcoin storage and verification. Andrew also shares his early motivations for working on bitcoin.
Relevant websites:
Codex32: Shamir Secret Sharing Scheme Book: secretcodex32.com/
Blockstream Research Twitter account: / blksresearch
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The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.
Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction and Background in Bitcoin
00:05:48 - Becoming Head of Blockstream Research
00:11:56 - Bypassing Censorship Structures
00:17:04 - The Rise of Cryptography and Bitcoin
00:22:43 - Using a Bubble as a Decoder Ring
00:27:56 - Verifying the Integrity of Data with Checksums
00:33:03 - Destroying Secret Data Properly
00:38:15 - Secure Secret Sharing and Data Transport Methods
00:43:38 - The Process of Splitting Secret Data
00:49:08 - Latest Research and Analysis

[@stevengreen2440]

This is one of my favourite Bitcoin Layer episodes. Andrew is the real deal.

[@ikust007]

Very good indeed

[@valerianocossu]

interesting

[@ericreslock100]

This is nuts! Love this guest.

[@bilthon]

Poelstra is slowly turning into a real-life Bitcoin wizard

[@ikust007]

8:20 bravo for that question. First time ever. And this is a subject I love . Cheers

[@coonea1]

This is some cool stuff! For the average person though, I would just recommend using a wallet with a passphrase. You can travel with the seed which is useless without the memorized passphrase. You can also create multiple wallets with different passphrases, all linked to the same seed. The "decoy" wallet can be the seed without a passphrase holding a small amount of funds.

[@downwithosama1]

This is a good and practical idea.

[@LarsLarsen77]

The government can crack your passphrase without breaking a sweat.

[@LarsLarsen77]

Who would seize your seed phrase at the border? Oh yeah, the government.

[@coonea1]

Fair enough. I guess in this situation you would have to access the wallet before the seed can be brute forced. @@LarsLarsen77

[@Satssetyoufree]

​​@@LarsLarsen77Not if you create a passphrase like your supposed to with sufficient bits of entropy e.g. 4-6 words from a dictionary.

[@user-mq9hk2vs9m]

Brilliant!

[@BatmanBoss]

Thanks guys

[@magnetic-pulse]

Great Guest for sure !! very interesting !!

[@ikust007]

Just for that episode , subscribed

[@medmoney3167]

Pure genius

[@downwithosama1]

This guy is wicked smart. We need this product even if we don't know it.

[@EdCross]

Book link doesn't work, looks like the book isn't for sale on their site?

[@TheBitcoinLayer]

secretcodex32.com/

[@HowardARoark]

Great guest, great interview - this guy looks like a good sort of "wizard" !

[@saltpony]

Andrew has a beautiful smile. 😊

[@TheRealDerekS]

a real life wizard. your magic is strong

[@weslee511]

Interesting

[@ChristianPecksteiner]

If this guy trims his beard and cuts his hair... he would look like Snowden!

[@chrismale9976]

It's him lol

[@m.vonhollen6673]

Search “Edward Snowden”… images!

[@tommyseacat3580]

Holy crap most interesting video I've seen in a long time. I'm thinking I'll laser cut my own Volvelles and sell on Etsy.

[@surfsidedigital]

Wow, this just changed everything in my head - Fucking awesome!

[@alexandergoldnatznworeptil9652]

This is the type of guy i wouldn't want to have a tabletop game against, as he would calculate all the averages needed on all dice rolls in a heartbeat and just win the math war just kidding, i would want to have him on my team.

[@derrikarenal3308]

OTOH; this guy publishes maths, daily, with the full awareness of the really heavy, global conflict implications that his own publications affect governments and decisionmakers. I'm guessing that he plays tabletop games, purposely to do something frivolous, and enjoy the true randomness and escape from reality that the game offers.

[@Joherandez-jz4jn]

Sounds good but seems like overcompensating stuff if something happens to you your family probably won't recover that crypto, not like if you have seed phrases and tell them how to use them

[@anewcreature7]

The link to the book doesn’t work. Great interview!

[@RoyvanWensen]

www.secretcodex32.com/docs/2022-09-26--color.pdf

[@dmpath]

I have so many questions. The one that comes to mind is in what way is it more secure to generate my own seed in this way, buy a new hardware wallet, recover my new seed on it then sweep my funds over to the new HW wallet from my existing device? At the end of the day in either case my seed resides on a HW device so im just trying to understand the benefit.

[@georgedickens261]

In reality a Hardware Wallet is not needed & as some state a HWW is in fact an unnecessary option that just increases risk as an attack vector, a signing device such as Seedsigner which does not store your private keys are a safer option

[@CanesFan65]

This did not make things any easier....in fact it made it much more confusing and scary.......and I have been in the space since 2016. The vast majority of people WILL NOT understand any of this and it will likely deter them from wanting to self custody their coins.

[@UniGram1]

This is next level rabbit hole for me. One thing that I have been wondering. The number of bitcoin adresses is huge. The way I understand it if you get the seed you get access the adress but does that not mean that if you brute force thru all adresses will you not find one eventually that has btc in it? There is no security beyond the seed, am I wrong?

[@joharrison3469]

The permutations for addresses is effectively infinite so the chances of finding an existing address that has BTC is effectively impossible. There is a bit of fear around quantum computers being able to have the power to cycle through permutations at speed and do this but if it is ever going to become even slightly likely then we will know about it well beforehand.

[@malkeir9781]

@@joharrison3469 yeah and if this is a concern all encryption passwords can be brute forced.

[@malkeir9781]

You can also in most cases have a 25th word that can be up to 100 characters. If you were truly that worried make it 100 characters with a starting special character (@&$ etc). That last part is simply a known way to secure a password further but doesn’t in reality do anything.

[@albertodelatorre8926]

The link to purchase the book does not work.

[@TheBitcoinLayer]

secretcodex32.com/

[@saitamassj2475]

Just use a clean airgapped laptop or PC for all of your security and arrangement. Then you can multi-encrypt it all onto multiple USBs for backup. If someone physically gets the USB/s from you and you aren't dead, it'll be useless to them because you've already moved your coins out into a new wallet before they can crack anything. Even if they could crack it in a few minutes while on the move after stealing it from you, it is enough time to move your stuff out. I have 1000's of wallets, 1000's of different coins/tokens, since 2010, never been compromised, and it's very flexible and quick to do anything...But mainly, its as secure as anything in this video, but it's convenient too.

[@LarsLarsen77]

Customs doesn't let you cross the border with encrypted data you can't open for them. Also, you'll end up on a list.

[@saitamassj2475]

@@LarsLarsen77 Customs also can't do shit about the cloud. And you're already on a list.

[@kimgaugemusic]

😁

[@Andrew-ig5sp]

Solution: create a tiny disposable device that is cheap enough to destroy. Use it privately to create and verify the split. Incinerate the tiny device.

[@saitamassj2475]

So we are talking about security, and this guy throws an ad up for RIVER, which means, "JUST TRUST ME BRO" .. smh.

[@4bizniz736]

You're actually telling viewers to depend on someone else to store their bitcoin?

[@jonathanlivingston7358]

I didn’t understand why you’d want to verify your seed? If that’s the seed that was given to you by your cold wallet it’s going to be legit. Is this guy saying the seed given to you might have been compromised by the company selling you the cold wallet?

[@vandogtrailer6701]

Unless you have the skills to independently audit, that possibility exists. You're right, but you still have to trust that it's legit.

[@abraxas511]

Too many commercials. I pay to avoid them on KZbin so when channels put them in, i unfollow, down vote and leave.

[@kaneda4]

Thanks guys