Safer ways to own Bitcoin

[LawsonJames]

Greed turned to fear in the cryptocurrency markets this week, following what was believed to be the largest theft of cryptocoins ever.

Last Friday, thieves hacked into Coincheck, a cryptocurrency exchange in Japan, and walked away with over $530 million worth of Nem, an alt-coin that saw its price rise 574% to $1.90 in one month from early December to early January. It’s now sitting at under $0.70.

For its part, Coincheck has said it will reimburse nearly every Nem at $0.81 on the dollar.

Still, this speaks to one very big uncertainty when deciding to invest in cryptocurrencies: How do you keep your investment safe?

http://enternations.com/thread/213/safe ... currencies

[Jomorey]

Stealing cryptocurrencies has become a common thing than we would wish. Sometimes I think that the market or wallet owners themselves might organize the theft.

[Robert543]

Greed turned to fear in the cryptocurrency markets this week, following what was believed to be the largest theft of cryptocoins ever.

[Yogay]

Yes, the problem now is not about buying a cryptocurrency, but where to keep it, because even a market can be hacked, to say nothing about crypto wallets. That's why you need to take it seriously.

[Jomorey]

Yes, greed kills a lot of traders. I don't know if they understand this, but they can lose absolutely everything.

[jitenrajput]

• After Trading on an exchange, transfer them to a personal secure wallet.

• Never share your wallet's private key.

• Keep your wallet information safe, secure and confidential.

• Keep yourself updated with latest market and technology advancements.

• And lastly, keep a check on your government's policy regarding bitcoin.

[BestW1shes]

I think that it is impossible to secure crypto assets 100%

[Ciaran]

The best way to secure your crypto is to always back up your private key as securely as possible and to perform regular security checks on all of your devices.

Always try and use wallets that give you full control over your private keys.

[grabberfish]

The best way to secure your crypto is to always back up your private key as securely as possible and to perform regular security checks on all of your devices.

Always try and use wallets that give you full control over your private keys.

Concise advice right there. I highly recommend the use of hardware wallets for larger amounts of coin, and a well thought security and disaster recovery plan. What do I mean by that? Consider that your hardware wallet may be secure from access, but is the recovery phrase written down and lying in your sock drawer? That's poor opsec. If someone burgles your home and finds 12/16/24 words on a piece of paper, it will not take long before this is common tactic to grab and run.

As a starting point (and others are a lot more paranoid than I am) you should consider:

• Multiple hardware wallets. If one goes missing, transfer everything from the other to a new seed.
• Use GPG for encrypting your seed phrase. Do this on a computer not connected to the Internet; use a bootable distro.
• Send copies of the encrypted file (name it something insignificant, like employment-contract-scan-$random_date.gpg) to one or two trusted third parties who live far away from you.
• Consider a safe deposit box for storing an active third hardware device.

The $5 wrench attack vector is real. Villains are less likely to rob someone if they will have to escort the victim to the bank on a Monday morning, because the bulk of their wealth is in a vault. Even better to have the keys split in multiple 2-of-2 vault locations: First 12 words in Stockholm and Zurich banks, second set of 12 words in New York Ottawa and Reykjavik banks.

As much as we all hate the finance industry, there are some synergies that can enable us to work together. When they wake up. Remember that it is not so much the retail bankers that are the arseholes here, it is those who seek to "issue and control a nation's money and...care not who writes the laws" - the privately owned central banks. I think we will find a balance between the organic creation of money and the role of community retail banking services in a more fair and transparent system of money management, and this model only excludes the central banks.

[handycash]

Stealing cryptocurrencies has become a common thing than we would wish. Sometimes I think that the market or wallet owners themselves might organize the theft.

I am forced to agree with you. As encrypted and secure as these algorithms, people still manages to break in and steal. These coins network is sophisticated as hell. For some persons to easily walk away with that amount of coin, raises suspicion.

[grabberfish]

As encrypted and secure as these algorithms, people still manages to break in and steal. These coins network is sophisticated as hell. For some persons to easily walk away with that amount of coin, raises suspicion.

The mathematics are strong. Humans are weak and greedy. In security circles we know that 80% of incidents are internal. If not a straight forward exit scam (custodial businesses), a breach is usually down to poor opsec or a disgruntled colleague/associate.