ANDREAS ANTONOPOULOS EXPLAINS HOW HE SECURES HIS #BITCOIN: "I WOULD CERTAINLY NOT PUT MY ENTIRE NET WORTH ON MY COMPUTER" "I ASSUME EVERYTHING I’M DOING IS MONITORED, INCLUDING MY PASSPHRASES, INCLUDING MY KEYS" "I BOOT ONTO A COMPLETELY BRAND NEW MACHINE OFF A CD" "I PRINT PAPER WALLETS, AND... THOSE KEYS HAVE NEVER BEEN ONLINE" NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR BITCOIN 🔥show more

Hey, I released my seedphrase over 900 days ago and hackers still can’t get at it.

Unfortunally printer can hold copies of the paper wallets he prints out...or even send them to manufactorer etc.

Grab an old laptop, remove its drives and, if possible, its Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card. Set up Secure Boot. Boot it from a USB running minimal Linux + Bitcoin Core, and communicate with the outside world via QR codes. Pretty easy with ThunderDen:

This guy believed when few did. His conviction in his mission is what sent me down the rabbit hole. He introduced and explained to me what Bitcoin is. A network. And yes, that is exactly how we used to hold bitcoin. Paper wallets off an old labtop.

When I started this was considered "best practices"

might still be.

enjoy the full dinner talk, its so worth it.

Booting off a CD and printing paper wallets is the old-school version, and it still works. The modern version is a 2-of-3 multisig on hardware wallets kept in different places, so one stolen seed can't drain a stack worth $81,400 a coin.

I prefer multi-sig personally

paper wallets never online is the only way i trust tbh

Advice from 2014 is completely irrelevant today.

Use an old printer connected via a cable. Avoid those modern, sophisticated WiFi printers - after all, you never know who else might be reading what you’re printing.

This is all mostly a bad idea.

Best to err on the side of caution.

How do we expect btc to be mainstream if this is what's needed. No one will bother.

What's with the CD. Why not USB stick with Tails?

And this week proved the supply chain matters too. Galaxy counted 213 BTC drained from Ledgers sold by one reseller. An implant read the seed off the screen at setup. Buy direct from the maker. Real stack? Multisig across vendors. Trust nothing, verify everything. 🫡

There are also a number of theoretical risks. These include, for example, the fact that the keys are held by the printer. HW Wallet Trezor is open-source and verified. If you add a passphrase to the seed—which is not stored in HW Wallet—you’ll have a secure solution. Then write down both the seed and the passphrase on a stainless steel plate and store them securely and separately.

booting off a CD in 2024 while assuming the feds are watching his passphrase is such a specific flex, meanwhile most of us just have a seed phrase in notes app.

That's why we CKB

the printers are the absolute most cucked devices in IT...

booting from a fresh CD is old school but still solid. i'd keep a hardware wallet offline for the bulk, just like the post hints.

print??? print? printers have so many attack vectors and can leak a lot of electromagnetic signals

video from 2013

Thats what i told everyone how to do it. But ppl still ask about hardware bs wallets..

@BrettMetaX @OxGambino

Guys, he said just Bitcoin fundamentals here. Whats the point?

His caution is smart. Bitcoin is digital money. Whoever holds the keys controls the coins. So self-custody matters. Exchanges can freeze funds. They can fail. “Not your keys, not your bitcoin” is true. But his setup is extreme. A brand new machine off a CD is hard for most people. It can also create false confidence. Paper wallets can be lost. They can burn. They can flood. They can be photographed. They can be thrown away by mistake. Assuming everything is monitored is wise. But security must match your skills. Too much complexity can lock you out forever. If you die without a plan, your Bitcoin is gone. A balanced approach is better. Use a hardware wallet. Keep the seed offline. Use steel backups for fire and water. Test your recovery before you need it. Split funds between hot and cold storage. Consider multisig for large amounts. Tell a trusted person how to recover. Never store your whole net worth on one computer. But also do not make it so hard that you lose access. Bitcoin gives freedom. It also gives full responsibility. So be careful, but be practical.

Security should always come before convenience. 🔐 Your Bitcoin is only as safe as your key management. Cold storage, offline backups, and secure recovery plans can reduce risks. Self-custody means taking full responsibility for your assets. ₿

You should not have to be an espionage level international spy just to hold your Bitcoin on a wallet/computer. It shouldn’t have to be so cloak and dagger. And the fact that it is sends the crowds to ETFs, and why not?

I just derive them inside a secure encrypted vault (never plaintext) on Tails.

Who owns a printer these days?

Gotta trust your library 😂

Sounds good, you know you can dice your seed phrase offline too? It's real simple. No need to over complicate things

@grok how do you print a paper wallet as Andreas talks about here

The part people skip is the payout side: a miner only needs a receiving address on the pool, so the keys that spend those coins never have to touch a networked machine.

The future of finance lol

He is paranoid