I can give the benefit of the doubt to most people who promoted Coldcard to other users, such as podcasters and online influencers and other Coldcard users. When I was brand new to Bitcoin in 2020/2021, Coldcard was pushed by EVERYONE as best in class for secure Bitcoin storage, and being new to anything you simply have no choice but to trust people while you find your way through it all. I’m a creative who happens to be technically-inclined, not a coder/dev, so personally auditing source code is never an option for me anyway. I imagine most Bitcoin podcasters/influencers are in a similar position as me. When essentially every reputable voice around said to use Coldcard because it’s the best, why would you doubt them? They’re the experts, right? I don’t think it’s fair to hold anyone accountable who promoted Coldcard in that regard. But NVK and Coinkite employees who were involved in their devices’ security do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. They deserve the highest levels of scrutiny and accountability at this point.
Replies (24)
#trusttheexperts
At some level I have no choice but to do so, especially when it comes to code. I’m not a dev and never will be. Even outsourcing it to AI is still trusting. Not sure the best answer.
That’s how I feel about it.
💯
Exactly the same boat.
I'm technically inclined and severely autistic and recognize the dilemma I'm in.
To the point I'm debating to fucking learn code
For sure 💯
Lol gotta do what you gotta do 🤣
You're Canadian as fuck.
"Douchecanoe" "The beave" 😂 insane.
Strangely enough, I'm not a canuk. 🤷♂️
💯🫡
influencers are whores
What, pray tell, does that statement have to do with the topic of the conversation?
I am PoWing away with dice rn. It is hard work setting up multisig with dice rolls...
That might be my future...
Don't belittle the work prostitutes put in. Influncers put nothing on the line for their "work".
sounds like you might be stupid
It sounds like you're a pompous ass.
You still didn't answer the question. Whether I am stupid or not (in fact I am a retard), that kind of response is not at all within the bounds of generally acceptable. So... Would you please answer the question?
I want you to beg
No thanks. Bye.
too late beggy
Even if you could look at code and understand it, there is still no 100% security. How do you know if what you are looking at is actually what is on your device? Most people don't build from source and upload it themselves. Then there are still tools needed to build it, which could be backdoored (looking at you, xz), or even the hardware itself could in some way be buggy or sniffable with something.
The only way we can learn is from mistakes like this. It was not the first, and it will not be the last and it's tough for the victims, but it improves the quality for the future.
With respect this sounds like a reversed Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
Excuse / explain away utter incompetence or fraud by influencers in the “kind” learning environment of coding the ONE job of the ONE thing needed for self custody wallets of ONE single money they advocate….
Then forget that the same influences opining about much harder things with much much more “wicked” learning (economics, politics, health, medicine, raising kids, justice, society).
Ie If they are incompetent or fraudulent at checking the work in “their thing” it is safe to assume they are incompetent or worse at anything that interests you or should be interesting. It does not usually work the other way around.
@corndalorian the people recommending it in 2021 had no way to check the rng either, and nobody actually read that code until this week.
I don't see this as a black and white thing. People have been involved, paid by coinkite, promoted coinkite, sometimes even VCs for coinkite.
So I would think some of it's kind of a sliding scale. The deeper those things were being promoted, the more onus I believe those influencers would have had to run audits, maybe even pay for audits on the code.
This is such a glaring and hideously gaping hole that we were falling back to a tinker toy RNG. It really becomes close to inexcusable for anyone who was profiting from the sale of these devices.
I have heard some really good podcasters that coin sessions comes to mind owning their part and apologizing and I find that to be admirable.
Interestingly though, we are still waiting on more input from some of our more "humble" "thought leaders".
I'm not ragging on people, I'm not angry, but the truth is the truth, and people are gonna need to own this shit.
