748 sats \ 3 replies \ @MKZI 9 Dec 2022 \ on: r/bitcoin mods have completely lost their mind bitcoin
This is rather misleading.
What you're seeing as an attack on your company is Bitcoiners providing transparent information about the HW wallet solutions available to us. I have yet to see anything that's been said about any of the commercial offerings that wasn't fact above personal preference and opinion.
This is your customer base. You should be taking criticisms on board. Not trying to change the rhetoric to fit your product.
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6127 sats \ 2 replies \ @joko OP 9 Dec 2022
This is not "providing transparant information". This is censorship and everyone on r/bitcoin except for the mods seem to agree on it. It's also obviously not just about our company - but against almost every single hardware wallet maker.
I don't have a problem with people giving feedback about the security of certain products or generally advising people to use something else. Locking down threads, stickying your obviously flawed opinionated post, then hiding the votes on that stickied post, discrediting users who actually like using a hardware wallet and labeling user posts as "misleading" because "they are bots" is the opposite of providing transparent information.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @MKZI 11 Dec 2022
I can't comment on what the mods are doing (I'm not a mod). But I also have no impressions that Reddit is a democracy. My guess is they're trying to prevent the sea of opinion from drowning out technical conversation.
But if you had evidence of otherwise - if someone, above personal preference/opinions had any legitimate rebuttal to the concerns that your (potential) customers are voicing, id love to hear it?
From what I've read, these are two main areas of contention for your products in particular:
  1. Shitcoin support - I know you have Bitcoin only firmware but the concern is that this misleads newcomers into believing that Shitcoins are on equal standing. Bitcoiners are concerned because as a commercial product supplier you are in a position of influence and are leading them down a path towards pyramid schemes, rug-pulls and scams and ultimately - this affects adoption because those new to the space may not be able to disassociate the two. Above profits - what excusable reason would there be for doing this? Saying "its what the customers desire" isn't really a valid reason - Some people want to take life endangering drugs too - doesn't mean you have to be the dealer.
  2. Claims that USB connectivity gives similar security benefits to an airgapped solution - This is obviously a little more nuanced but clearly using a USB connection adds a potential attack vector. When ranking self custody solutions, we make the obvious statement that, no - it does not.
Look, I understand if you've chosen your path and don't want to build a solution that a more serious Bitcoin owner would want. I mean you're a business and if its not profitable enough due to demand, that's fine. But you must understand that when newcomers enter to the space, it wont be recommended by anyone who sees these as potential attack vectors on the network, when there are solutions that make these considerations.
If you are a Bitcoiner you probably understand why we prefer verifiability over trust. Our ethos pushes us to protect the sovereignty through property rights that Bitcoin enables, above all else. This is why we do not agree with heading down the path that prioritises complacency and convenience, even if this may improve "adoption" - we believe the tradeoff is too great. Sovereignty over your wealth is an all or nothing thing, You either have it, or you don't.
Lastly I just want to point out that I don't think anyone in the space wants a company that supports Bitcoin to fail. We just want you to do better. We want to make sure you don't end up inadvertently becoming adversarial to the Network and to the individuals who use your products by making concessions in security, verifiability or morality for the sake of profits.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @joko OP 11 Dec 2022
I don't have an issue with people critizing us - I actually want people to give us feedback on what we can do better. But this is not what this post is about. We've seen actual censorship happening on r/bitcoin and mods alleging we are scammers every time someone mentions our wallet. Why lock down threads so nobody can discuss anymore? Why label user posts "Misleading" as soon as someone mentions their BitBox02?
To your points:
  1. I get it - partially. I think having a bitcoin-only version and a version that supports all kinds of coins actually does let bitcoin stand out. Because there's no "ethereum only" or "cardano only" version. We are reacting to demand from our customers and when the multi-edition doesn't sell anymore, we're more than happy to not work on it anymore. At least I myself identify as a Bitcoin-Maxi and so do many others in our company.
Tbf what the multi-edition supports is literally just a fraction of the stuff trezor and ledger support, so it's not like we waste time implementing each and every shitcoin on coinmarketcap. It's only the top ~5 coins.
  1. I don't think it's that easy. There's actual security benefits to having a USB connection (like anti-klepto or device attestation). You can't just claim that "a hardware wallet needs to be airgapped". This imho is misleading and will lead people buying airgapped hardware wallets that will end up being insecure.
Regarding concessions about security, verifiability or morality: All our products are FOSS, the BitBox02 is incredibly secure and we as a company are at the top of transparency. We pioneered secure multisig, we've implemented Taproot before other "bitcoin only" wallets, we developed Anti-Klepto (FOSS). I wish other companies would be held to the same standards as us.
Again, all of these things deserve to be discussed. Deleting, banning, mislabeling, stickying opinions does not help anyone but lazy reddit mods that are not interested in a discussion.
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