Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr has doubts about the security of existing Bitcoin storage solutions after his personal wallet was depleted of more than $4 million worth of coins last month.
The programmer suggested that his practice for storing his coins far exceeded “standard practices” and yet he was successfully robbed.
Is Bitcoin safe?
On Monday, Dashjr responded to a fellow Bitcoiner on Twitter who asked how others would spend their money if they woke up one day with $30 million in their bank account.
Some of Bitcoin’s biggest devotees, including MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, could make the case for a 100% Bitcoin allocation. However, Dashjr advocated a (relatively) modest approach: “Maybe 1000 BTC or so, if I could find a way to keep it safe,” he said. answeredsuggesting real estate as a potentially safer alternative.
On December 31, Dashjr lost his entire stash of 200+ BTC to a hacker who, according to the developer, compromised his PGP (pretty good privacy) key. A PGP key is an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for sensitive files, such as a Bitcoin private key.
A private key is a digital signature required to send a Bitcoin transaction from your associated wallet. Most experts recommend keeping personal keys in “cold storage”, completely disconnected from the Internet, as a foolproof way to protect your Bitcoin.
However, Dashjr suggested otherwise.
“Standard practices are obviously unsafe,” he said. “My security far exceeded standard practices, and I still compromised.”
Cold storage
the developer claim (is that the addresses from which their Bitcoin was stolen were, in fact, cold storage addresses. Not entirely sure that using a ColdCard, a reputable hardware wallet, would have protected your funds
Dashjr still doesn’t know how his funds were stolen or at least hasn’t disclosed those details publicly.
Adam Back – An early Bitcoin contributor who collaborated with Satoshi Nakamoto, believe Dashjr was attacked through his home network and his machines were compromised.
Others had harsher criticism of Dashjr, with Bitcoiners as moon boat accusing him of spreading misinformation about how easily Bitcoin can be secured.
“I just have a big problem with him saying that it is not possible to store bitcoin securely,” he said on Twitter. “Paper/Metal Seed Phrase Don’t Care About Compromised Home Network.”
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