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235 sats \ 21 replies \ @ek 21h \ on: How do you hedge self-custody? bitcoin
I have been considering trying Unchained or Casa for a while. So not a custodian (because I don't want to worry about the risk that comes with that), but just some professional help with my 2-of-3 multisig setup. But I also want to look more into Glacier. @nerd2ninja has mentioned it quite a few times.
I'm skeptical of places like Unchained and Casa because I worry that they're honeypots. I'm pretty sure in both cases you have to give them your xpub or your descriptor.
If you rely on them for "collaborative custody" I worry that you give them more power over your stack than you realize. In the case where you share one key with them and one with a "third party," there's really not much control over collusion. In the case where they only have one key and you have two, I think you might be better off just giving the one key to a friend. Sharing custody is just really difficult.
Why not roll your own multisig? there's a number of good options for doing it these days (Liana, Nunchuk, Keeper, Bitcoin Safe, Bitcoin Core, Sparrow...)
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I don't want to reveal too much about my setup, but I already rolled my own multisig with Sparrow+TailsOS.
I just want them to hold another backup without any xpubs. Since I always need two keys anyway, I designated one key as the backup key with many copies, and none of these copies have xpubs. This way, I can give these copies to family and friends, and they can't look up my balance with them. They also can't collude against me, because they all have the same key.
I'm pretty sure in both cases you have to give them your xpub or your descriptor.
So yeah, that would be a deal breaker for me
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ah...the situation that you lose one of your keys, but still have the other and your xpub...so you could rely on a third-party held backup key that doesn't have a descriptor with it.
I wonder if Unchained would offer this service? I don't think at the moment they do (I've done no research to back this claim up). If they don't offer this service, it might be cool if someone did.
Backing up descriptors becomes pretty important in this scenario though, because without a descriptor, the extra key is useless. In the scenario where you lose one of your main keys and all you have left is your 2nd main key (and descriptor) and your backup key at the third party, your wallet is more or less a 1 of 1, though isn't it? Unless there are also a number of descriptor backups in alternate locations.
This is the kind of stuff that makes my mind fuzzy. It's very easy to paint yourself into a corner without realizing it.
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Unless there are also a number of descriptor backups in alternate locations.
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But in any case, if I don't have two keys, my descriptors are also useless, and one key is guaranteed to have the descriptors
This is the kind of stuff that makes my mind fuzzy. It's very easy to paint yourself into a corner without realizing it.
Yeah, but I'm actually quite happy with my current setup. It's my second iteration. In my first iteration, I had one of the three keys in my brain, but then I started to wonder what if I memorized it so hard I start saying it in my sleep? lol
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Very very early in my bitcoin experience, I experimented with memorized elements. I quickly abandoned this. There's just no good reason do memorize things (unless you're fleeing across an international border...that might make sense).
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I use Casa for collaborative custody because I don't trust myself
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So much for p2p payments protocol revolution then - It is now just a speculative commodity plaything custodied by rentseeking third parties.
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The thing with glacier btw, is I'm not recommending people to use the glacier software necessarily (I've never used the glacier software), just that its a good reference as a guide for tools you know and love already.
The thing about custodians, is that I just don't like my collaborative custodian (because I'll never use full custodian eww) to be a company. I'd rather my collaborative custodian not be a government protected entity, but a real person and preferably, family. That's all, and even then, I'd prefer if those collaborative custodians only really have access to a timelocked key, such as what's provided in liana wallet.
In fact, because glacier does not include timelocks, its an incomplete guide and maybe even outdated?
And obviously descriptor wallets are not as easy to work with as "Just memorizing 12 words (and the wallet and version you generated it from to avoid additional footguns)
Here's a neat tool to help deal with that. I probably wouldn't bother with it until your Bitcoin starts to look more like a retirement account than a savings account tho.
https://seedhammer.com/
So in other words, what I prefer as the ultimate solution, is full self custody with keys in multiple locations, which only failing that after a timelock, collaborative custody of keys where multiple people who are not likely to collaborate together, sign a psbt you create from a watch only wallet (to ensure they don't collaborate together).
But ah incorperating timelocks into people's setups and even multi-sig on its own is such a new idea to so many people. I was about to bring pre-signed transaction possibilities into this lol.
Anyway, arman the parman's guide is a little more simple and goes over "levels of custody" rather than "This is how you do it" You know like, imagine sending glacier to a newbie right?
https://armantheparman.com/zerotrust/
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If you think you might have trouble with multisig you will absolutely fuck up glacier. I don't understand what people think is so hard about multisig. Or, just like learning the basics, fuck around with it with a small amount until you understand it. Create a 2/3, wipe it. Wipe everything, build it back. Try to fuck it up. It's not that hard.