Free Fall Friday Ep. 234

Join Bob and Texas Toast as they close out the week with a look at the markets and top stories

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thank you.

(00:30):
All right, guys.
Here we go.
We had to reboot.
Thanks for rejoining.
I just played that little clip there from this Neil deGrasse Tyson interview.

(00:50):
And, yeah, it was very interesting.
I think everybody should watch that one.
Sorry for the technical difficulties.
I guess I didn't talk up Elon and the X team enough yesterday and thank them for allowing us to run a pre-scheduled space.
But here we are. It is Friday, guys. It's Bitcoin Veteran Spaces number 234.

(01:14):
If you didn't know, welcome, welcome.
Always fun. And I don't know, maybe I just need to take a hammer to all my devices and start over.
Maybe it's me. Not sure. But here we are and we're doing it again.
If you guys don't know, we do this every weekday, 10 a.m. Eastern.

(01:35):
And again, thanks for joining us. Have a few announcements today.
We're getting a little late start since we had to do the reboot and the technical difficulties.
No infra today. No Robert today.
Fortunately, he sent me a message that he forgot he was scheduled to be interviewed by Marty Bent this morning.
So we'll let him off the hook.

(01:57):
Hopefully you can come back and talk a little macro and the dollar and all of those things with us next week.
If you weren't around yesterday, we did have a great discussion with Neil Flesher on his new book, Modern Chains.
Go check that out. Follow him.
If you didn't listen to that one, go back and definitely listen to that one.
That was a good one.

(02:18):
Next Thursday, we're going to have Rob Warren on the show to talk about Bitcoin Park.
and their Imagine If Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, this September 19th and 20th.
So we'll look forward to hearing from Rob about that.
And it looks like we have a few people who have joined us on stage.

(02:39):
So I want to start out by saying good morning to Texas Toast.
Thanks for co-hosting this morning and putting up with all of the technical difficulties, sir.
Good morning.
I'm in the process of acquiring coffee, so don't talk to me until I've had my coffee.

(03:00):
Perfect. BFP, how are you doing this morning?
Doing well, Bob. Thanks for having me. I'm drinking my coffee.
It's coffee time. AC, good morning, sir. How are you?
Good morning, Bob. Good morning, everyone.
Yeah, like I always say, it's another beautiful day in Bitcoin.

(03:21):
and coleman we have you up here are you lifting some heavy things in the gym are you uh able to
speak this morning i'm lifting heavy shit in the gym i don't need my coffee just joking i need coffee
i don't know why i just had a feeling i'm not tracking you coleman i just i just had a feeling

(03:44):
you might be lifting heavy things so that's good it's because of that comment i gave you yesterday
I called you good looking.
Now you've got to stop it.
Exactly.
Hey, Coleman, real quick, before we hop into things,
did you get to the Houston meetup last night?
Was that any good, or did you skip it?
I did not go to the recent Houston meetup.

(04:06):
I've been to two.
It's more on the mining side than the energy side,
and so I get pretty bored pretty easy with it.
Not that you shouldn't go if you're not interested in that stuff.
There's a good group of people.
but it's not really my cup of tea, so I don't make a big effort to go out there.
Plus, it's quite the hike from the world.
Yes, sir.

(04:27):
All right, well, thanks for that, and, yeah, thanks for joining.
Good stuff.
Guys, as a reminder, please do share the space.
You can do that by hitting that little purple pill
and then hitting the, I guess it's arrows up and down to repost the space.
You can also like the space.
That helps.
And if you want to come up, it's Freedom Friday.

(04:50):
Would love to have you hit that little microphone button.
Happy to have you on stage.
But remember, no shake coining.
All right.
Got that out of the way.
And let's look at some of the topics.
Where do you guys want to start?
Maybe we start with this story of security best practices.

(05:11):
Bitcoin Jimmy's story.
Since we have AC on the stage, he's made some comments.
I've kind of poked around this topic, but AC, do you have the ability to tee this one up for us?
Yeah, I think so. I don't personally know Jimmy or Lily, but their story has been pretty interesting.

(05:35):
They were on a recent podcast and shared that they've been stacking since roughly 2017, and their entire net worth was in Bitcoin.
And they made a fatal flaw.
They made a terrible mistake, and ultimately they were rug pulled for 7.4 Bitcoin.

(05:55):
And, yeah, it was just it was interesting in the comments and one of the posts for the video.
They'd shared the FBI report partially redacted.
They did leave. I think it was either a transaction ID or an address unredacted.
And so the Bitcoin Twitter hive mind kind of descended on it, pulled it up in mempool.

(06:20):
and I did the same, did a little bit of analytics from, you know, what a lowly
pleb like me can do. And it, it a hundred percent appears like they were rugged by some scammers.
You know, it was, the funds were commingled almost immediately. Then they were broken apart.

(06:40):
You can tell that they were rejoined at some point and broken apart again. And
that's where I kind of lost my ability to track it. You know, in the very beginning,
people were saying, oh, this can't be true. This is a scam. Somebody who's been around since 2017
wouldn't make that type of mistake. But the on-chain analytics kind of suggest that
it's highly likely that they were in fact scammed. So I'll kind of land it there and see where the

(07:04):
conversation goes related to this recent news. Yeah, I'm always skeptical with these things.
Definitely feel bad for them if it's true. And we can kind of maybe talk on the assumption that
It's true. So people can learn from it. But I do, I am skeptical of these things, especially,

(07:25):
I don't know. It just really surprises me that someone would be in this space for eight years,
be self-custodying their own Bitcoin, have nearly $800,000 worth of Bitcoin in self-custody,
and then not continue to learn to make sure that they don't make mistakes with that sum of money.

(07:45):
um and so that's where i'll i'll kind of um land with it like i think what we want to do here guys
is we want to make the assumption that it's true so that again people in this space can learn from
it but um yeah i don't know it surprises me that someone would um make such a fatal mistake with

(08:10):
their stack. When, you know, to them, if it's true that everything is in Bitcoin, I mean, that's
everything that you have. And two, that they just didn't continue learning. So that's where I'll
pause and let's keep it civil. Let's be nice. Despite the fact this guy made what looks to be

(08:34):
a really stupid mistake uh bfp i see your hands go ahead oh sorry i was just real quick what the
specifics were with like the the whole thing i didn't i saw a tangent you know that this happened
but i didn't look at like he had it in cold storage and you know uploaded his seeds to a
fishing attempt is that what happened or what am i i don't know yeah in bfp maybe um i'll just

(08:59):
lay it out a little bit further. Essentially, the story goes, this gentleman was using a cold card,
I believe. And so he had an air-gapped cold storage. He was using it with Sparrow Wallet,
which is an excellent product, by the way, if you haven't used it. Make sure you're getting

(09:22):
the actual Sparrow Wallet from sparrowwallet.com. But he was using that desktop wallet
in combination with his cold card, which is a good practice.
And for some reason decided to go into the Apple App Store
and download an app called Sparrow Wallet for mobile.

(09:46):
And if you've been around long enough,
you know that there is no mobile wallet on Android, iPhone, or otherwise for Sparrow Wallet.
So if you download one of those, it is a spoof, right?
It's a fake.
And for whatever reason, he decided to enter his private keys into that app and recover his wallet.

(10:12):
And immediately, because the wallet was fake, it moved his Bitcoin out of that wallet to wallets that the attackers control.
So hope that lays it out well.
Like this is the story.
This is the part of it.
If I miss anything, AC, jump in.
But hopefully that kind of tees it up for our conversation.

(10:35):
So BFP, unless I met something in AC, BFP, go ahead.
I heard the same thing, very similar.
And that's where the story goes north as far as someone just downloading that from.
But Apple letting that app in is pretty bad.

(10:56):
But I heard it on This Week in Bitcoin with, I think it's Chris Fisher, and he assumed it was true.
He just kind of briefly went over it.
But I think the positive, if you're going to pull a positive out of this and assume it's true, which I'm kind of skeptical of that, but to say it is true, it lends to the fact that Bitcoin is pretty good at being pseudonymously anonymous.

(11:22):
For them to just take that money and then poof, it's gone.
Like you can't track the Steelers.
I mean, it's not good that the so-called person got stolen from, but it's pretty cool that, you know, it acts as cash like that.
Yeah, I mean, you would think in the Apple App Store that like there would be some sort of tracking there where like some sort of KYC to put an app on the App Store.

(11:50):
and maybe they can find somebody through that.
But yeah, I mean, it sucks all around.
It's like, if it's true, you know, it's pretty crazy.
Yeah, I mean, you got to continue to learn
and continue to educate yourself

(12:13):
if you're going to hold your value in this asset
and then cold storage and it's radical self-responsibility.
And it's like a lot of times we, you know,
we think about Bitcoin and cold storage and all this stuff.
It's like you can read books about it.

(12:33):
You can, you know, listen to all these podcasts.
You can be on Spaces and ask guys about cold storage
and best practices and stuff like that.
But you're not getting paid to do any of that.
So it's like you're in, it's hard to find value in that.
But, you know, these stories like this, that's where the value is.

(12:55):
It's like you are getting paid to learn about this stuff in the sense that, especially at
that level of stack, it's like you are, you got to think about it like you're paying yourself
to keep your stuff safe.
It's your, you're not paying a third party security to keep your stuff safe.
If you have to be, you know, the one to make sure that you're continually reassessing your security and kind of how you're storing everything.

(13:28):
And then, I don't know, it's a hard lesson.
I don't really know how to feel about it.
Like part of me gets pissed off at the guy and the other part just feels sad.
I just have a lot of trouble believing it.
That's a nice shot.

(13:48):
Yeah.
To add a little bit more color to this, and part of the reason why I actually believe it's true, is there's somebody who attends the Meetup I Run where I am, and it happened to him back in March.
Almost the exact same story.
He downloaded this app off of the Apple App Store and he did what he was supposed to do in the beginning And he tried to import a watch only wallet using his X and it errored and it you know it said enter your 12

(14:27):
or your 24 words. And that was his, his fatal flaw. And so for, for this experience, you know,
I got a little bit more involved with the person at my meetup. And ultimately we ended up
involving an on-chain analysis company as well as the FBI.
And I won't go into too many more details, but the funds were eventually on USDT and Vietron.

(14:56):
And because that's kind of a centralized cuck chain, the FBI was able to, you know, use some subpoena power and freeze those funds.
And so it's looking like the individual is going to be made whole or be made somewhat whole. I made the same recommendation to Jimmy, but the stories align so closely that I tend to believe it's true.

(15:23):
But to what everyone else is saying, this is definitely a reminder for Bitcoiners, especially Bitcoiners earlier on in their journey.
You know, there's a reason why we call it cold storage.
There's a reason why we call it air gapped.
And those are the things that people really need to study.
Because if they don't, they could be in a situation where, you know, they're distracted or they're in a sense of urgency.

(15:51):
and that's when people start to make mistakes.
So I'll land it there, but this is, you know,
assuming it's true in Jimmy's case,
it's a horrible thing to happen, a terrible mistake,
but for everyone else, it's an opportunity
to learn something as well.
Just a few things is why wouldn't you keep it

(16:15):
in more than one wallet with that much, you know, value?
and also there's got to be recourse with Apple.
I mean, at least some kind of lawsuit, they would just pay you to go away, I would think.
I would bring a lawsuit against them for letting that app in.
I mean, it's so hard to get an app in with compliance.

(16:39):
You would think they could track the guy, something.
I can speak on that.
I'm an iPhone developer.
Getting an app on App Store is not that hard, but you do have to have a company.
contact person or a personal account. They have to have a physical phone that they can reach you
in. So they can't help track them down. But they don't do a full code review of apps. They get

(17:03):
access to the binary. They don't have access to the code. They can run the app, but there's no way
that they're going to be putting in, let me put in my Bitcoin seed phrase and test this.
They're not going to go that far. So there are apps that do malicious things,
but if it's not noticeable by the reviewer and most of it's all automated now anyway

(17:23):
they're not going to see anything like that and be able to prevent that but but the onus is going
to be on that company that uploaded the app but his lawyer should be able to get a hold of somebody
at that company through apple and get the information from apple and hopefully get some
kind of recourse but i don't know man this is sounding like the the 2025 version of the boating

(17:47):
the accident. Yeah, I do wonder. So AC, maybe you know about this, but just in your case,
seems like it was a few months earlier, same app maybe. And if so, did they remove it for a time
and then just update the app? And now it's out there again, because I just did a search. Maybe

(18:11):
it's not available for iPad. I don't have an iPhone, but I have an iPad that I test things on
and I do not see that same app in the app store anymore.
So wondering if Apple took it down,
if it gets removed and then it could come back.
What do you guys, what do you think about that?

(18:33):
I think they'd definitely remove it
if they got reports that it was draining people's wallets.
I've had apps get removed for less.
Yeah, so I do think it is one of those things to be vigilant about.
Go ahead, Pullman.
I don't see why they would make this or fabricate this story.

(18:57):
They probably did lose it.
I don't think that it's the new voting accident you're losing your Bitcoin.
But to kind of go back to a couple points, I think it's BFD.
Matt, you can have a really complicated security system, have your Bitcoin and multiple wallets,
but it just makes it that much harder for some people, right?

(19:18):
Your only good is your weakest link.
And if they struggle with memorizing 24 words
and an extra C phrase or a 25th word or multi-sig,
if they do that for multiple wallet setups,
they could be in the exact same situation
where they just lose it themselves.
So, again, you have to kind of understand
where people are going.

(19:38):
And this is where, you know,
I'm really big on sub-questioning to Bitcoin.
But for some people, like, the ETF might be the best option.
And what is that rule?
It's like 70% of all car accidents happen within a mile to a home.
You're going to probably see more OGs losing their Bitcoin just because they're complacent.
You've been doing something for so long, you just kind of think it's second nature.

(20:02):
And then you just make a silly mistake on that.
So this might be something that we see more often.
Again, I don't think there's any reason to believe that they're fabricating this story.
but I wouldn't be surprised if you see it happen a couple dozen other times.
Yeah, thanks for that.

(20:23):
I do think it's, I mean, at some point it's what AC said,
which is people just have to realize,
and maybe even Texas Toast mentioned this,
we've all been kind of dancing around it,
but at some point, like, why would you be putting your key
or your private key into a hot wallet, unless it's, you know, a small amount.

(20:46):
There's just really no reason to do it.
I don't care if it's convenience or otherwise.
Like, it just doesn't make any sense.
There's plenty of tools out there.
And so it's either, you know, fundamentally, you just don't understand what you're doing.
And I do understand, like, the way this happened was he downloaded the app out of convenience,

(21:08):
I would think. And then the, that when you try to put in his public key, which is fine to do,
you might be giving up some privacy, but if he's putting in the public key and then the app is
designed to give him an error. And so I think that's, that's the thing that probably tricked

(21:30):
him that it said hey this is an error and somehow he was convinced that you know on the subsequent
screen that said you know you're gonna have to enter your private key in order to restore
this wallet uh he he didn't think about it and decided to put put uh put that information in so

(21:52):
i think i mean sorry sorry yeah it's a great lesson for like any of these other apps that
you know, and wallets, like we got to get back to fundamentals on some of this stuff. It's like,
yeah, you're, if you are self-custaining, if you are holding your stuff in cold storage,
your private key will never hit any other device ever. Like you're not putting it in your computer

(22:15):
into Sparrow. You're not putting it in a phone. You're not putting it into Nunchuck. You know,
if you don't understand public private key and like what that means for the security of your
Bitcoin, you shouldn't be self-custody. I mean, at least any significant amount. Now,
there's an argument to say like, okay, you know, start small. And then as you're, you know,

(22:38):
more and more confident in kind of what you're doing, then you can add more and more funds to
whatever setup, you know, you're comfortable with. But without any knowledge of like, of how these
things were, uh, that was, that was really irresponsible. I mean, obviously, but, um,
yeah, it's, it's, it's wild. And it's like thinking about nunchuck because it's like,

(23:01):
I, you know, I've used that before where I've put a, a watch only, um, into, you know, the,
the nunchuck app and watched while it's that way. And, and I've done, you know, other things, but,
um, yeah, I think it's just one of these things where we, we gotta, we gotta hammer down, um,
You know, what it means to actually self custody.

(23:23):
What is a hot wallet?
What is a cold wallet?
What's a public key?
What's a private key?
It's like, it's not that many things to learn about.
And to not understand that, I mean, obviously, it was like a catastrophic flaw.
But it's just wild to me that that happened.

(23:46):
Yeah, I see TC down there, too.
and maybe we can get him up to come up and talk about it.
We were chatting about it maybe a little bit last night on the space along with some other things.
Jimmy, I see your hand up.
Welcome to the stage, sir.
Thanks for coming up.
What do you have?
Good morning.
Well, first off, Sessions yesterday, BTC Sessions, did tweet out that it was still on the app.

(24:08):
The Apple app was still there.
They didn't ever have it on the Android.
I could never find it, but they did have the Sparrow logo,
which is really disturbing that they would have that available when Sparrow doesn't make a mobile wallet.
But one of the things that bothers me about this whole thing is, and I've seen this with cold card users,
even people that are more OG than me, when the cold cards first came out,
they would get into the details how to use it.

(24:30):
But after using it for a while, I'm talking to somebody, and I'm not going to name them,
but more than one, actually, they didn't understand, really, get the concept.
And I was like, guys, it's a seed signer.
It signs the transaction.
That's why you have to take it out and do it.
But it was like they didn't really get the concept behind you never let the seed touch the Internet.

(24:52):
So if you understand the concept, you would never type your seed anywhere, not into an email, never give it to a tech, never give.
But I've heard people actually give them to text, fake text.
I've heard people doing this kind of thing.
And it's like if you understand the concept, no matter what happens, you never put the seed on the Internet.
That's why you're using a cold card.
And I use this example to a guy that just is right now getting a cold card.

(25:15):
And I sent him what happened.
I didn't tell him, you know, and then he came back to me and goes, well, the guy put his seed.
And I go, you got it.
You understand the concept of the mistake.
He goes, yeah, you told me, like, vehemently.
That's the one thing you never do.
And, you see, that's what it gets me is people get into the details of how to use the equipment,
but they don't understand why they're doing it.
And if they really get the fact that you're disconnecting, air gapping it, so it never, ever hits the Internet,

(25:39):
I've worked in computer security since the 70s.
I mean, we've been doing this kind of stuff of disconnecting and getting off the Internet and things and not letting your passwords out and all that.
So it's something to me.
It's just like, wow, when people use high-tech equipment and don't understand the concept behind why they're doing what they're doing, they get so involved in the steps.
They don't – the details, they don't really understand the basic concept behind it.

(26:00):
And it's sad because it really, if you understood that, you would never – I've had texts off, you know, please, you need to do this with a lightning wallet.
Give us your seed.
put it on this site and i'm going that never happens guys and they and so i did it finally i
just okay i'll do it and i did it with a blue wallet had like 30 in it and then i wiped the
20 29 out of it and they got a dollar and i knew that's what i'm just waiting to see and it took

(26:22):
days for them to clean out what was there but there's nothing there and that's why i did it i
wanted to see it's like really you guys think that's stupid because the guy goes well there's
not enough in like yeah go ahead no i was just gonna say yeah i almost appreciate the uh all the
spam and like, uh, phone calls and texts I get, um, from scammers. Cause it keeps me on my toes.
I'm like, all right, here's, here's the new rollout of how they're, how they're trying to

(26:45):
operate. Um, but cause it's like, it feels like it's like at least a couple of times a week. Um,
I'm getting a coin based support call or, um, you know, some sort of email or any of these other
things that, um, yeah. And that's what makes it even crazier is like, if, if you're like me,
which I'm sure this guy was, and you're getting bombarded with this stuff all the time, because

(27:09):
whatever, you know, information has been leaked and, uh, and stolen from these, these different
companies, um, he's probably getting the same things too. So, uh, it's just, yeah, it's sad.
I don't know. Maybe his wife did it. I don't know. That's my only other thought. Like it wasn't him.
and uh i don't know well i'll even give an example of mvk who created the cold card

(27:33):
when using nostr he screwed up with nostr and it was he even admitted it he came out and goes i
blew my i blew my seed like i put it out public i made a mistake and you're just cracking up it's
like out of all people but he goes yeah you know it's like they didn't get the concept of what
nostr was about why you have two keys and why one key never gets seen never gets used and he got his

(27:54):
contaminate or something happened and he's got i got hacked and had to open up a new account
but i'm sitting there going you're the owner of gold card and you did this and he was just yeah
i know i know so it happens the best that's why you really got to stick to the concept and
understand certain things just never do it tc what's up what's your thoughts on the this whole
uh this was the most recent you guys yeah you guys said it all um just to the last thing that

(28:20):
Jimmy said, like, it really is just a conceptual thing.
It just like what is your what is what is the framework in your mind that you operating with It crazy because people can have disasters of all kinds
And I think people are really good at keeping simple rules and simple concepts to keep them out of trouble.

(28:48):
It's like you only put gas in your car.
If you put, you know, orange juice in your car, you'd probably fuck it up pretty bad.
I don't know.
I mean, when it comes to this stuff, like maybe you can just think of it as simply as can you keep a secret in your private key?
Maybe we should be calling it a secret key instead of a private key.

(29:08):
That's all it is.
That secret is your ownership of your Bitcoin because anybody else who has the same secret owns it just as much as you.
and it's a race to see who moves it first.
That's the simple concept.
That's the thing that people need to just get in their head.
It's an ownership paradigm that is totally new.

(29:32):
It's whoever owns this information can send it to some other address.
And in the case of scammers, in the case of a fake Sparrow wallet on Apple Store,
it's like moments.
you might be lucky if you get 60 seconds after you put that in they probably have a script

(29:52):
literally like code written that takes those words and writes a transaction and fires it off
and then i guess you're basically racing you know against when the next block's gonna hit
you know and your shit will move it's just it's really a simple thing and if you can put it into

(30:13):
those terms of, okay, these words, these 12 words or these 24 words, that's like a, that's a secret.
And that's all I have to do to make sure that nobody else has my, my sats is I got to make
sure that secret is mine and mine only. It's like, if you get that simple concept in your head,
now, some of these slightly more nebulous things are, are a little bit easier to put into context,

(30:39):
like the air gapping, right? And the cold versus hot. I mean, a lot of times I just think it's just
tricky issues of semantics and the words we choose. And I think in the era of, you know,
cloud everything where every normal person out there is like sticking their stuff on someone
else's computer, this is a different pattern. And so it's, I just think it really does when you're

(31:03):
talking to new people or you're, you know, helping a friend, you got to just try to get it down to
that, boil it down to that simple thing. Like that private key, that C phrase, that is a secret.
And don't even show it to me. I'm helping you set this up. This is the time when I'm going to walk
in the other room and you make sure that you document that secret and you don't share it with

(31:28):
anyone because that means nobody else has access to those sets.
That's the level of it. It's not complicated at all.
It's just kind of a slightly unintuitive thing.
And it is an opposite pattern of what people do with most of their digital
information, their passwords and all that kind of stuff.
Everyone's trusting some cloud server somewhere.

(31:51):
So I don't know, that would be what I would add.
yeah i do think a lot of people have just been lulled to sleep and don't realize
that they spend most of everything that they do is trusted by uh or they're trusting third parties
and so um it is it is quite the difference uh bitcoin so yeah i think if you don't understand

(32:19):
it you probably shouldn't be doing it and and you know guys this is the hard part too right
because we preach self-custody.
But then you hear stories like this, and I think it slows people down
or it makes them think twice or it makes them say,
well, it's just easier to not do that because I don't want to lose my funds.
AC, I think I see your hand there.

(32:39):
So go ahead.
Yeah, I was just going to say maybe – well, first, sorry, lost my train of thought.
there for a second. TC, I put two things up in the nest. Was wondering if you had any issue or,

(33:03):
you know, identify anything that I could fix with that graphic. I think it's second from the last.
And then maybe to kind of move the conversation a little bit, Udi had posted something that I'd
shared there and kind of wanted to get the panel's thoughts on his post. I think it was from yesterday.
yeah the mind the air gap graphic is it's good everything it's saying is correct but again i

(33:41):
think the trick is what's the language that's going to actually help people form a functioning
mental model in their head. And that really is the challenge in trying to communicate this to
someone who doesn't get it yet. That's why recently I've been playing around just with
the word secret, because I think that's something that people understand from childhood. You're like,

(34:08):
here is a secret. Can you keep that secret? Can you not tell anyone this? Can you take this
information and like make sure like nobody else has it. And then I like to say things like,
if you're the only person on planet earth that has that information,
that Bitcoin doesn't belong to anybody else, but you, that's the powerful thing.

(34:32):
And it's a simple little concept, but that's what needs to be communicated.
Cause some of the stuff about like online and offline, again, I think we take for granted,
Like we know instantly what that means, but so many other people don't.
And again, we're living in a world where every single house people go into their wifi and
your devices automatically connect.

(34:53):
And like, we're just in a constantly connected online world.
So it really is a somewhat counterintuitive kind of like thought process.
I think, I think that graphic's good, but I would, um, I would try to like
massage the words to get it like pointed in really simplistic concepts that are not technical.

(35:18):
Cause that's the thing I think was good about the secret kind of way of framing it. It's not
a technical thing. I think that goes back to our childhoods. You whisper in somebody's ear and
you're like, tell a secret. Okay. Don't tell anybody else. Like that. I think that's the
level that has to be brought to. Cause, um, I, I agree. Like it is shocking how, how many people

(35:38):
don't understand that part of the concept, then I think it can get lost in all the technical
jargon.
Yeah, it reminds me too of something you said a little bit ago, TC, when it's like, hey,
I'm going to walk out of the room now.
I don't want to see it.
I think the big issue is it's as much a risk for you, right?

(36:05):
Because if they do something stupid with their key in the back of their head, they might be like, oh, well, TC saw my 24 words or however it's set up.
He must have a photographic memory.
He saw that.
And he's the one who swiped my funds.
Yeah, I've literally done that with multiple people.

(36:26):
More of helped them in person set up this equipment.
And every time it comes to that point twice, I'm like, you need to set a pin on this device.
This is just so that you get into this device and nobody else gets into the device.
I'm going to walk out of the room now and you need to write that pin down.
And then you need to test it and make sure it works.

(36:46):
And don't show it to me.
They're like, okay, I get it.
And then we get to, that's what the one thing I like about the cold card, the flow of onboarding to it.
It gets you kind of primed for that.
And then it's like, okay, now it's time for the seed phrase.
That's really important.
I don't see it.
Nobody else sees it.
That's the big secret.
Walk out of the room.

(37:07):
Exactly.
I think that that's what I think maybe a lot of people are missing if they're doing all that stuff on their own without any other kind of input.
I don't know.
It's tough, man.
It's not an easy thing to solve.
And every individual is going to have a different way of thinking about it.
yeah and you really do have to make a big deal about it right and and that's like you said what

(37:30):
is missing sometimes with people that they really don't realize the gravity of it right um so jimmy
i see your hand again sir go ahead yeah real quick i just applaud no tc the idea of using secret key
instead of private key is fundamental to me words mean so much that's why i use casino coins but
secret key and signing device. I don't use hardware wallet because it confuses people.

(37:54):
They think it's a wallet. Then they go, why do I have this other wallet? I go, no, Black Sparrow.
That's the wallet. OK, over here's your cold card or your trade. That's the signing device.
And now I'm going to tell people that signing device holds your secret instead of the private key.
It makes more sense. I mean, it really he's right. It's it's amazing how people don't get.
And the idea you have a signing device means you're air gapping. You're off.

(38:14):
So you never let that secret. And that's why you're using a signing device that holds the secret.
and that's what the signing device provides.
And that makes perfect sense.
I appreciate that.
That'll help a lot.
Good stuff, guys.
So we're about three quarters of the way through.
Happy to continue talking about this.

(38:35):
It looks like, Wade, we have your hand,
but if there's other topics people want to hop to,
we can do that too.
I do think that this is valuable though.
Like I said at the beginning,
I want to make sure the reason that we talk about this
is not to over scrutinize whether or not this is true or it actually happened,
but we're just going to go off the basis of it did happen.

(38:57):
And then hopefully everyone can learn about it and we can we can talk about it.
So thanks for doing that so far today, guys.
Wade, go ahead, sir.
I couldn't agree more about using the term secret phrase.
And I kind of think that it makes a lot of sense for veterans to kind of be educating
and taking the lead on this because, you know, veterans understand the idea of compartmentalization,

(39:24):
secrecy, special access programs.
And I think maybe it might be worth couching it as your secret phrase is something you need to handle
as basically a special access program.
And you yourself, as your manager for your family, are the program manager for that special access program.
And you are responsible for setting security protocols for keeping that seed phrase secret.

(39:49):
So I just wanted to see kind of what you guys' thoughts about that were from an InfoSec kind of perspective.
Yeah, I agree.
It's a good way to frame it.
Not, you know, most veterans that aren't in, like, special programs or anything like that, they won't understand that.
But a lot will.

(40:10):
And that's a good way to put it.
I mean, you are, it's your responsibility. So, um, yeah, all these different like forms of
language that people can understand for veterans that might make sense for, you know, the average
Joe just saying a, saying that it's a, it's your, your secret phrase or secret key. Um, you know,

(40:31):
that that'll work very well too. So yeah, I think it's just whoever your audience is, you can kind
of tailor your language to whatever works for the other individual. And as long as they get it,
that's really the point. Yeah, I know TC really wanted to talk about the micro strategy earnings
call. So do you have any thoughts on that? No. That's my co-host, Texas Toast. Thank you, sir.

(41:03):
That was brilliant.
No, I did want to give people one last chance on this topic.
I know we've kicked it around quite a bit, but any other best practices or thoughts that people have?
If someone was to start, what are the best air-gapped wallets, guys?
Like, I know we've talked about Coldcard.

(41:24):
Are there others that people would recommend or that you've tested out?
Are there other hardware wallets that are air-gapped that you would suggest for someone for ease of use or security or for what reason?
So feel free to chime in.
I think we should kind of round this out at least, guys, before we hop into that amazing earnings call from MicroStrategy.

(41:48):
SeedCenter is definitely a good option.
It's pretty damn user-friendly.
it's got a few different quirks to it but it's fully functional and I think if someone started
with a seed signer they could they could do just to secure a setup so that's a good one as well

(42:11):
is that one similar I have not used the seed signer to be honest I've looked at it I just
haven't done it. Is that the, is that similar, would you say to the Blockstream Jade? It kind
of looks similar. What are your thoughts? It's not exactly the same as that. I mean,

(42:32):
it got a very unique form factor There kind of like directional buttons on the left and then there three sort of selection buttons on the right And it got a little screen And then on the backside of it it has a little camera
And the way that it works best is with another slightly tricky paradigm, which is the

(42:57):
seed QR thing, where you basically generate a new seed phrase, you can actually create a QR code
version of that. You literally use a marker, you literally use a template that's got,
you know, the blank QR code, essentially like a grid, and you fill out little squares on the grid.

(43:23):
And if you do it right, you've got a functioning QR code for your seed phrase. And this is kind of
cool because on the seed signer when you power it off it's not going to hold your seed phrase in
memory the way that a cold card does so when you you know power up a cold card each time whichever
the last seed phrase you created or used is going to be in the memory of that device so then

(43:49):
the hardware functions as like a copy of your your seed phrase you should always have it backed up
you know, on steel or, you know, wherever you have it in the real world outside of these devices.
That's your ultimate version of it. But, you know, your cold card will keep a copy as you're

(44:10):
using a particular seed phrase. The seed signer does not. Seed signer is sort of ephemeral in that
sense. When you power it up, it's waiting for you to load a seed phrase to use. So the QR,
seed QR, the little QR code that you create is really functional for just being able to
scan that QR code with a little camera built into the back of the thing and boom, you're ready to go.

(44:34):
So it's a, it's a different paradigm altogether. Um, just the flow of using it feels very different
than, um, the cold card and that might feel more intuitive or better to some other people. It's,
With all of these things, there's just little unique stuff to kind of get used to and pick up on.

(44:54):
But I would say that they're both solid, air-gapped choices for these things.
Yeah, thanks for that.
I did want to welcome CP Digital.
I'm not sure if your hand was up before ACs, but go ahead.
Well, thanks.
Just keeping privacy and security as like the idea of the conversation here, like any recommendations, policies, or just quick hitters for individuals who just are used to opening up a phone and looking at their portfolio and seeing their balances?

(45:35):
What best practices would your panel recommend on monitoring a wallet without overtly leaking information and keeping privacy essential?
Yeah, I can take that one. And maybe others can chime in. But I really like, and, you know, here, first, I'll say this, you're not going to probably be able to protect yourself from all of the data leaks. But first and foremost, you should look into running your own node. That way, you're not using a public node to check transactions, query the blockchain. Yeah, whatever else would come from that.

(46:22):
because you're giving up information when you do that.
So first and foremost, learn how to run your own node.
There's a variety of node software.
Some are focused on privacy.
One that I've enjoyed is Start9, StartOS,
are probably or possibly some data leaks there.

(46:42):
Another one that I've tested out is Ronin Dojo.
And so that might be something to look into for you.
But then also, yeah, when you're broadcasting transactions through those nodes, you're using Tor, the Tor network, which, you know, people argue back and forth on that.

(47:02):
These are all like little rabbit holes to go down.
But these are just things that, you know, are out there that you could use, but you probably have to do a ton of study.
Those are probably the places that I would start.
And so running your own node would probably be a good place.
And then from the standpoint of, you know, querying the blockchain best practices, you probably just want to use a not a hot wallet.

(47:30):
Right. We've talked about it. It needs to be air gapped.
And so anytime you're using a wallet that is connected to the Internet, you should only ever have your public, your extended public key for that wallet or for your Bitcoin in that wallet.
so you're not exposing yourself to that risk of losing your secret key or your private key.

(47:53):
So that's where I would start.
Maybe that's not comprehensive.
Maybe some people have some other ideas or want to correct me,
but that's kind of the way I think about it, at least to get started.
TC, AC, anybody else?
Yeah, I mentioned it in the graphic that I threw up, Mind the Air Gap,
and it's second from the bottom.

(48:14):
So exactly what you said, Bob, is run your own node or, you know, if you've got somebody that you trust that's running a node, connect via their node, but also using a watch-only wallet.
And there are a number of them out there.
I hear Blue recommended quite often, which can be a hot wallet, but you can also set it up as a watch-only wallet.

(48:37):
And really what you do is you've got to, you know, typically somebody would use Sparrow on desktop and then export the XPub only.
So only the extended public key and then import that into Blue Wallet.
And so that enables Blue Wallet connected to your own node to go and pull the blockchain for all of the other addresses associated with that extended public key.

(49:06):
And, you know, using it in that manner, you can see all of the transactions, the transaction history, and the overall balance without exposing that private key or without exposing the secret.
And TC, I really like that. I'm going to try to integrate that into my conversations as well.
So not exposing that secret to an Internet connected device is probably the way that I think kind of meets the requirements, CP, that you're trying to accomplish.

(49:37):
And the reason I had my hand up earlier, TC was 100% correct.
You know, the seed signer, which is one of my favorite, and the Jade are very similar.
And you can actually configure the Jade to be in a stateless mode as well.
And so it matches some of the capability of a seed signer.
But I will say that the seed signer, I think, is a far more powerful device than the Jade.

(50:03):
It is approaching, but not quite as good as a cold card queue.
But definitely one of those things that I think people need to explore multiple different hardware wallets.
And you can do that on Testnet to see what works for them.
I always tell people that there isn't a single best hardware wallet.

(50:24):
There's a best hardware wallet for a particular person.
There's best practices is what there are.
That's the whole point.
Okay.
This is maybe a great way to like cap off the topic is like there are best practices.
There are Bitcoin wallets and then there's not Bitcoin wallets.
And most of these devices and most of the software that we talk about, it's dealing with Bitcoin wallets.

(50:49):
but what is the actual wallet?
The wallet is basically that private key, that seed phrase.
That is the wallet.
So how you created it and how you wield it are the best practices.
And that's what, in my mind, makes a great hardware wallet
or a great software wallet is that it kind of gets the user

(51:10):
to use best practices.
It forces you into best practices.
um the uh yeah yeah let me just leave it there yeah i got a quick thing one to cp's point i do
nunchuck with the the cold car q and that's that's my uh air gap system but as far as the words

(51:37):
that we're using.
I had heard the words are the wallet back a year or two ago,
and I think a good intertwining phrase to get TC's secret in there would be,
your secret words are your wallet.
So don't confuse anything.

(51:59):
Yeah, okay.
You just reminded me the other thing I wanted to chime in on the watch-only
wallet part to CP's question.
And it's, you know, there's no way to do that without sharing information unless you're not, unless you're running your own node.
If you have a closed loop system where it's all pointing to your own node, then you have a chance to remain private.

(52:21):
But if you are using anyone else's node, so most of these things like Blue Wallet, for instance, out of the box, it's using someone else's node.
All of these hot wallets do.
and until you configure them to use your own node,
you are sharing your public key.
The public key is not the secret that controls the movement of the Bitcoin,

(52:43):
so you're not going to lose your coins,
but it's a totality of your privacy.
It's not just the whole history of everything you've done.
It's your future, all of the future actions with that seed phrase as well,
because the same public key will yield every single address
that that wallet will ever access. And so you share your public key with some software,

(53:08):
you are giving up privacy about your activity. So it's a tricky thing and a real tricky thing
to me there in explaining that to some new people because I see sort of like eyebrow furl
at that point because the word privacy is very similar to private, right? So that's another good

(53:28):
reason. Let's call the private key the secret. And then you can talk about the public key impacting
your privacy. This shit gets complicated, you guys. It's tough. But it is important to know
that if you're doing even a watch only wallet, that is not something to casually just do anywhere
because you are sharing your the entirety of your your privacy around your activity.

(53:52):
so that's a kind of big trade-off to just kind of satisfy the itch of you want to like glance at your
balance every day or something like that that i don't think that's a good trade-off
unless you're you're setting up your own node
exactly no well i do want to know yeah i do want to give people uh final words this morning um

(54:17):
And I think this is morphed into a good topic, right?
We talked about the problem.
We talked about the pitfalls.
And now we're talking about the solutions.
And so hopefully you guys who are listeners gathered what you needed to from this.

(54:38):
You know, Bitcoin veterans, we were seeking to help people, right?
That's why we do this every day.
And so if you do need more help, you can probably message.
A lot of people up here on the stage and they can get you in touch with resources, but you can also go to BitcoinVeterans.org.
Plug your information in to get in touch and we can get you some, again, those groups, valuable resources, depending on what you're looking for.

(55:05):
So let's go around.
I'm not going to call on you each one.
We have a good-sized stage this morning, but give people here a few seconds to chime in to wrap it up.
I think TC did a good job of it, but we'll give people one last shot here before we close it out today.

(55:25):
No, all good, Bob.
I'm really bummed we didn't get to MicroStrategy.
It's really going to affect me.
I'm sure there won't be spaces all day about it.
So have a good day.
Yeah, there probably will be.
If you have time, I'm sure you can find them.

(55:46):
Thanks for having me.
I actually listened to the first part of the conference call,
and he had some good slides.
It was live-streamed on YouTube,
so I screen-captured some information that Michael Saylor was spitting out.
But, yeah, it got a little boring.
paper bitcoin summer anybody else here before we close it out well the great space i just want to

(56:13):
say thanks and uh tc i'm going to start calling the insect for nostril the in secret as well to
me it's just our words are important when we're explaining this stuff and we have a lot of
misnomers um where people get confused you know like in and nostril with client people don't
There's apps.
If we just use easier nomenclature, it helps a lot.

(56:33):
So, yeah, power to you, TJ.
That was a great phrase, and I'm going to keep using it.
So have a great day.
Yeah, thanks, Jimmy.
And I will say about the phraseology or some of the terminology that we use,
some of it is poor.
But on the other hand, I have noticed that a lot of people,