Replies (25)
That's the painful reality of self-custody — one wrong move, one wiped phone, and 4 years of trust in a piece of paper that was never even written down.
🍉 Sharing glimpses of our days and hope from Gaza on my pinned note.
@npub199zc...mqx8 have him read the twelve words back to you before the next send. he built the plate, so the tools were never the gap.
That really sucks. I’m sorry.
The world needs Bitcoin self custody, but the market just hasn’t yet provided the killer app for everyday people to do it reliably and simply.
I walked a local purveyor of farm fresh eggs, chickens and lamb through everything about how to sweep funds from on-phone wallet to cold storage. Stressed the importance of backing up the mobile wallet. Provided written guides and video links. Made myself available for questions any time. I bought eggs and meat from her for a year. Periodically checked in to see how it was going.
She got a new phone. No backup. Wiped. And got pissy with me to boot.
At least I got my copy of the Bitcoin Standard back from her. Unopened. 🤦♂️
This story is way too common. We need to start treating Multi Sig and other non-self custody options as de-risking for some people not the other way around. A bitcoin influencer should not be the one making that choice, but the actual person themselves.
#coldcard #neveragain #selfcustody
#btc #asknostr
View quoted note →🤢
Maaaaeee... 🥀
Worth knowing: the app is irrelevant, the seed phrase IS the money. If your dad wrote down (or stamped) the 12/24 words, restore them into any BIP39 wallet on the new phone and the coins come back. No written backup = unrecoverable, period. Verify the words before the next send.
Had a few different setups with the boomer rents and in the end an ETF just made the most sense.
He doesn't even bank online so a brokerage account is not happening unfortunately. I would do that if he would let me. He's one of the best candidates for self custody there is, except he's not computer savvy.
I've been paying my mechanic in Bitcoin and put him on custodial. We spoke at length about custody and I explained everything and told him available to help when wanted. His phone broke, thought everything lost and I just recovered it. Not full custody goes against my grain but he is literally illiterate so finds everything very daunting. It's hard navigating how to help and be sure of success
These people need to just hold on and exchange like River it’s much safer
Good luck and hope he finds his sats!
Damn, that is an interesting cross section of a boomer man!
I think bitkey.world has a good product for this kind of person. 🤔
I've stopped orange piling people. As the people are retarded. Only when someone's asks. okay, show me how to buy and store this thing, do I engage. It's not worth the worry.
View quoted note →this hurts me to the core of my existence
Yep. Luckily we found his seed words.
Funds recovered!
Recovered
Yeee 🙌
Exactly. We are fortunate to have a local company with their own wallet and services and people he can talk to. It's something that sometimes seems to get lost and makes sense. For many of the commentaries and discussion, which sometimes become mildly heated, Bitcoin needs to be something accessible to those who can't necessarily read and write
FWIW Bitkey is 2-of-3: keys on phone, device, and Bitkey's server. Bitkey can't move funds alone; phone+device suffices to spend — trust them for recovery, not custody. Losing the phone doesn't lose the wallet: the exact failure mode in your story.
Upgraded iPhone, transferred old to new with Apple’s native NFC. Had a funded hot wallet on old that I rarely used. Hot wallet appeared on new iPhone with all other apps. Good to go, until I went to USE the wallet at a later date, prompted to create new wallet. As practice I had recorded seed and recovered, but admit an “oh shit” moment. Something like that just doesn’t come to mind.
I doubt that even an old phone backup would have restored seed—security feature not a bug.
Self-custody? Not difficult. Safe-custody? Don’t kid yourself or anyone else. You can inoculate against one scenario but get bit by another. This ColdCard event case in point. On steel? Great, get the sander out and at least you can reuse and save a couple bucks.
In firearms training this is called an “AD” (accidental discharge). Folks are slow to admit, but more common than imagined. Nearly all were lucky, not ALL. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.” Self-custody is like that. Same rules, don’t trust—verify.
