Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies

Lightning Lord Rule said:

BTC and ETH both up double digit% in the last 24hrs. Could this be the refuge that the Russians are (ironically, IMO) running to with their currency being destabilized?

Both of these have been fairly well coupled to NASDAQ/SPY recently, but this may be different since neither of those indexes moved that much since Friday. I highly doubt that crypto is becoming a leading indicator rather than a trailing indicator to stonks overall... so, maybe this is what we're seeing? If so, I think there's a good chance there's another ~10% move they could go up before they recouple to the indexes.


Caveat: all predictions wrong or your money back!

Click to expand...

Bitcoin, crypto soar, decouple from stocks as Russia-Ukraine moves from bad to worse

Bitcoin rocketed by over 5% on Tuesday, even as risk aversion drove down blue-chip and technology shares that cryptocurrencies have been linked to for weeks.

finance.yahoo.com

Lambourne said:

Russians apparently paying well over spot price on those exchanges where they can still get crypto, just to get out of rubles. It seems inevitable that this will get framed by western powers as an attempt by oligarchs to get around the sanctions so I'm expecting the regulatory Eye of Sauron to renew its focus on crypto. Could be a rocky ride coming up.

Click to expand...

Tmac said:

I have Exodus wallet, Coinbase wallet, and Phantom wallet.

Where to move my shit?

Click to expand...

Spoiler

decent places to start

10x Security Bitcoin Guide

btcguide.github.io

GitHub - SeedSigner/independent_custody_guide

Contribute to SeedSigner/independent_custody_guide development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Bitcoin Privacy: Best Practices | dergigi.com

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy.

dergigi.com

Bitcoin Privacy by Matt Odell

You may get overwhelmed at first but do not let that stop you, every small step you make in the right direction helps and at scale helps all of us use bitcoin more privately.

www.swanbitcoin.com

This Month In Bitcoin Privacy

A monthly newsletter about privacy-related technology developments, events, and conversations in Bitcoin that catch her eye, as well as the tools or strategies that can be used to combat threats and protect our right to informational self-determination.

enegnei.github.io

Tmac said:

I have Exodus wallet, Coinbase wallet, and Phantom wallet.

Where to move my shit?

Click to expand...

Tmac said:

My position is that hardware wallets are retarded, because they create an additional level of failure.

Think about it, you have software on an independent piece of hardware. What if the hardware breaks? Where's the redundancy? There is none. You're fucked.

Hardware wallets create a single point of failure, potentially outside of your control, and that scares the shit out of me.

I'll stick to software wallets.

Click to expand...

Tmac said:

My position is that hardware wallets are retarded, because they create an additional level of failure.

Think about it, you have software on an independent piece of hardware. What if the hardware breaks? Where's the redundancy? There is none. You're fucked.

Hardware wallets create a single point of failure, potentially outside of your control, and that scares the shit out of me.

I'll stick to software wallets.

Click to expand...

Flobee said:

I'm not sure that you understand hardware wallets sir. There are legitimate reasons to not like or distrust them (trust in manufacturer, device is a tell for crypto ownership) but the above is not that.

Hardware wallet redundancy is achieved through seedphrase and additionally a potential passphrase. These are used to generate your private key. You can lose/steal/destroy the wallet and still retrieve the funds via this backup. Wallet acts as the private key (signing device) for any transactions for your addresses. This device must be accessed and provide confirmation for transactions to take place. As such the device itself is just an interface between the physical world and the blockchain and it stores the keys OFFLINE.

Software wallets can be similarly secure if properly gapped (not on an internet connected device, thus acting as a HW wallet in practice) but in most cases they are internet connected and they have all the security vulnerabilities that go with that.

Both options are really just storing a unique hash that is used with a RNG to create addresses for UTXOs. If you're concerned about HW wallet reliability consider a mutli-sig configuration and spread the risk across multiple devices.

Simplified explanation on the differences:

Hardware Wallets - A complete Guide - Bitamp

A detailed guide on Hardware Wallets and how to keep your crypto safe.

www.bitamp.com

Click to expand...

Tmac said:

So, I guess the wallet is stored on chain, but can't be access without the seed phrase, which is stored in the wallet?

Click to expand...

Flobee said:

I fully expect heavy regulatory pressure coming soon. Significantly higher KYC requirements seem like the most likely avenue. Potentially attacks on sovereign wallets as well depending on how it plays out. We're likely looking at the beginning of the walled garden developing. If you want to participate in the free BTC economy (if it survives) you should probably withdrawal your coins asap. You'll likely be able to deposit them back into the system later if you want, but you may struggle to withdrawal them if things swing that way. Coins on an exchange are just IOU's if you believe in a future where dollar potentially loses its status you probably want the coins in your custody. I am fairly certain exchanges/GBTC/Blockfi etc have been rehypothecating BTC, if true you don't want to be the last ones withdrawing.

For now though, exchanges are resisting

Click to expand...