Satoshi's Plebs

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You need to know how to actually secure your Bitcoin beyond leaving it on an exchange! In this episode, Kenshin and McIntosh break down everything you need to know about Bitcoin wallets — the foundation of true self-sovereignty. You'll discover why wallets don't actually store Bitcoin (they manage your private keys), the critical difference between hot and cold storage, and how to properly backup your seed phrases without losing everything to fire, flood, or forgotten passwords.

Learn their personal recommendations for beginners, advanced multisig setups for serious Bitcoin holders, and the essential 3-2-1 backup strategy that could save your Bitcoin from disaster. Plus, real horror stories of people losing millions and how you can avoid their mistakes.

Whether you're taking your first Bitcoin off Coinbase or planning a bulletproof inheritance strategy, this episode gives you the practical roadmap to true Bitcoin self-custody.

News and Notes

https://atlas21.com/coinbase-69461-users-affected-by-december-2024-data-breach/

https://atlas21.com/bitcoin-malware-discovered-chinese-printer-manufacturer-involved/

https://atlas21.com/ecb-digital-euro-by-mid-2028-says-cipollone/

Eight Cases of Lost Bitcoin Keys

Stick around to the very end for the v4v track, “2 Billion Heart Beats” by Jawbone

Bitcoin Price at Time of Recording
May 21th, 2025: 107,500 USD | 94,500 EUR
Block Height at Time of Recording: 897,733

Episode Page

https://satoshis-plebs.com/episode-209

Music Credits

Jawbone
2 Billion Heart Beats

Website

https://satoshis-plebs.com

Podcasting 2.0 Apps available at http://podcastapps.com and Value4Value information page available here: https://value4value.info

McIntosh can be reached by email at [email protected] and on Twitter at @McIntoshFinTech. His mastodon handle is @[email protected] and his Nostr.  Kenshin can be reached on Twitter at @kenshin_ninja or on Nostr. Kenshin’s email is [email protected]. You can also follow the Satoshi’s Plebs podcast account on Nostr. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

We are looking forward to hearing from you!

[00:00:00] McIntosh:

What is up, Pleb Nation? Today is May the 22nd,   and this is   episode 210   of Satoshi's Plebs.   Today, we're diving into Bitcoin wallets, the foundation of self sovereignty in the Bitcoin ecosystem.   We'll cover what wallets actually are, essential security practices,   and share our personal recommendations.  

[00:00:39] Kenshin:

Yes. So whether you're confused about hardware versus software options or just want to make sure you're securing your Bitcoin properly, today's episode will give you the practical guidance you need.   But first,   let's check-in on Bitcoin's price.  

[00:00:56] McIntosh:

I'm glad you asked, Kenshin, because today,   we did what?  

[00:01:02] Kenshin:

Oh. Oh, no. You did.  

[00:01:04] McIntosh:

I did. Well, that's true. You euro people are   I don't know. Are y'all watching Eurovision? Are you watching a soccer game? What's going on over there, slackers?   Alright. Today, we did hit an all time high,   in US dollars at a 109,900.   There have actually been a few all time highs, not just us.   I saw, like, a couple days ago, the Argentine peso hit an all time high. Just I don't know. There's a few. I think somewhere on Twitter, I reposted   a chart of what was current.   But we did hit a hundred and $9.09 today.   Right now, we're at a 107,500   .  

Sorry. $1.00 $7,500   as we record.   And where are we at in Euroland?  

[00:01:54] Kenshin:

We are 94500.   So we're still 10 below the euro all time high. That was a hundred and 5 k. I know what the problem is, Kenshin. You you, sir, have not bought enough Bitcoin.  

[00:02:07] McIntosh:

Go out and do it. That is,  

[00:02:10] Kenshin:

plausible. Yes.   Yes.  

[00:02:13] McIntosh:

You it's your fault. You're $10,000   below.   Dang. Yeah. I'm not even sure Michael Sailor could buy that much bit. Well, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Right. Anyways   and the price last May   was 70,143.   So, in US dollars. So we're up 53.3%   from a year ago.  

[00:02:36] Kenshin:

Right. And in   market cap terms, Bitcoin is at 2,200,000,000,000.0   USD.   And if we compare to gold market cap and gold is at 23,000,000,000,000   USD, which brings us to 9.5%   Again of gold's market cap. Up from 9.3  

[00:02:54] McIntosh:

last week. Yeah. So we got another statistic we should throw in here later, but   this is a gonna be, in my opinion, a pretty big deal when we hit 10%   of gold's market cap. Yeah. There's another one there's another stat for 10% that we'll talk about later. And our block height right now is eight nine seven seven three three as we start recording   with a difficulty adjustment coming up on May.   We just had one,   a couple of days ago on the seventeenth, I think.   But right now, we're looking at 1.25%   up, and our previous one did end up being right at 2%. So 2.13%   is where we were at.  



[00:03:35] Kenshin:

Right.   And our fees in the mempool are $3.03 and 3 sets per vbyte.   And only 26 megabytes of unprocessed transactions,   which is around 8,000   transactions   left in the queue.  

[00:03:49] McIntosh:

We're actually up in terms of transaction. It was interesting, but down in terms   of size. So I don't know what to make of that, but yeah.   Best  

[00:04:01] Kenshin:

Best images?  

[00:04:02] McIntosh:

Less less spam. Yeah. I don't know. Alright. What's going on with you, sir?   I hear you've got a new girlfriend. Oh, sorry. Yeah.   I Oh. Mean to spring that.   Wait. Claude is a male name. I'm so sorry, Kenshin. Yeah. I thought so too.  

[00:04:18] Kenshin:

I thought, oh, is Claude a female in in US?  

[00:04:24] McIntosh:

Alright. See, this is what happens when we're live. We get ahead of ourselves. So there you go. You you know, I was about to write mister Claude's  

[00:04:32] Kenshin:

Mister Claude.   That's how I see it. But, yes, Claude's It's your butler. You got a new butler. Let's see. I got a new butler. There we go. Mister Claude.   And, oh, he's,   he's very, very good, actually.   It's Claude is is the AI from Monthropic.   So it's the Claude three point seven SONNET, and I just paid for the first time the subscription, the monthly subscription   to use it. And,   it actually, it's mind blowing.   I've been trying for the past couple of months all sorts of combinations of AIs and Mhmm. Versus Code and plugins   and APIs and sort all sorts of things.  

And now, yes, for this month, I am just mind blown. It just gave me   the capability   this one   with the the setup I did. I installed it on my PC,   and I connected it to my file structure so you can actually edit my files on my PC   and I I had to I told you, I don't want to say specifics but I have a project with my wife Right. We have been developing for a few years and we were always stuck in the final implementation. Like, oh, we need to do it with WordPress and find the right plugins and buy 10 plugins, and they all have their own limitations.   And  

[00:05:53] McIntosh:

It was too much hassle as WordPress always is.  

[00:05:58] Kenshin:

Yeah. And and you can never go through it.   And now all of a sudden in three days,   starting from zero, no templates,   no code, no nothing,   and I have a functioning web app.   That is cool. Credible. Yeah. And I can say I can change it.   Like, whatever comes into my mind, I can do it. There is no limitations. Like, oh, I need this plug in or that plug in or   it's it's just mind blowing in this in this place.  

[00:06:28] McIntosh:

So you did tell me before we started recording kind of what's going on, and it's an amazing project. I can't wait till you tell people about it. But that is just mind boggling,   What you've been able to do in just a couple of days versus  

[00:06:43] Kenshin:

months and months, I think. Three three days. Yeah. I mean and I have a working prototype.   And it looks good. It it actually looks good. Like, what I couldn't get with other AI, I could get some basic   structure. Right. But I had to fight a lot to make it look good.   But this just   spits out code that actually   is already CSS and everything and looks decent.  

[00:07:08] McIntosh:

So what I'm hearing is that I should start using this to do my websites because mine never look good.   That's the truth. I'll tell you that.   Just go to satoshis-blebs.com   and you'll see an example.  

[00:07:23] Kenshin:

Right? Yeah. It's a WordPress.  

[00:07:25] McIntosh:

It is WordPress. It's the only thing in terms of web that I know how to do. Sorry. It's just what it is. I don't like it, but it's what I got.  

[00:07:35] Kenshin:

Yeah. I have completely reevaluated   that my actually, my future this past week, to be honest. Your future?  

[00:07:43] McIntosh:

This?  

[00:07:44] Kenshin:

Absolutely. And, actually, this, I will not announce it publicly. No. No. Don't do that. Be because   I will use my real name as a as a proper business to start it. Very cool. So we   at least in Sweden. So we use my real name and and make it a proper business out of it. And Well, you and I need to talk afterwards. You may need a US rep. We'll   We'll see. Yes. For sure. I'm just kidding.  

[00:08:07] McIntosh:

Alright. So very cool. Glad to hear it. I have followed along with your AI journey ever since, you came on board, and it's been interesting.   And I will say this just   humbly, you're ahead of me in some ways.   I've actually been using I use chat GPT for a co like, two years, basically, ever since it kinda came out.   In my day to day job, I've used it more and more, and,   I actually tried Claude myself. Something we need to have a conversation about. It may be too long for right now. My one complaint with Claude   is it keeps stalling out of me. And I don't I was curious if you're seeing that. Like, I'll tell it something, and it'll start spitting out,   you know, data. And then it just pauses. And it just, like, freezes up until I reset it. Are you seeing that?  



[00:08:59] Kenshin:

I saw it only once, and I used it many, many hours. But I I used the pro version, of course. Well, I did too.  

[00:09:07] McIntosh:

The the it the twenty dollar a month, roughly, model. Is that right? Yeah. No. I'm using it's not because I'm running out of   well, maybe I'm just overusing it. I don't know. I need to look into that.   Okay.   Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. This week, I did spin up sorry.  

[00:09:26] Kenshin:

Yeah. And you? How about you?  

[00:09:28] McIntosh:

Well, I did spin up a new server this week for satoshi's plebs. I'm beginning that setup. It's going to take me a few weeks, but I got the basic setup done. We're going to be using Tailscale, by the way, Kenshin, to access this one.   And I think that will make our setup simpler in terms of, like, having like, right now to get to various   web tools that we've got, we have to do, like, port forwarding.   I don't think we'll have that with Tailscale. I think it'll just be   a a node that you go to. Right? And the routing will happen automatically as long as you have Tailscale set up. And, of course, that's not something we would be passing around to anyone, so that will remain safe.   Right. But I've I've got Tailscale set up. I've got   the Incas, which is, not a super well known program, but it's used it's a lot of you maybe have heard of Docker, which is a container management program. This is kinda like a big boy version of that. A little more kind of production worthy.  

And so I'm gonna try and set up all of our toolings and   nodes and,   well, all that stuff in containers this time. So, again, I've told y'all I'm a crazy person, and I go in and tweak things. And I I I just can't I I don't know. It's a sickness.   Yes. I know the feeling. And at some point, you're gonna take the keys to the server away from me and say no more Macintosh. It's good. Just stop it.   Alright. Yeah. Yeah. Now we did have some support this week, though. Let's, chat about that real quick, Kenshin, and we'll we'll move on.  

[00:11:05] Kenshin:

Yeah. We had sent it to Mike as usual. Thank you very much, mister Mike.   He boosted us on fountain with 2,069   sets. Mhmm.   And he says, great episode. Love this tech focused but not overly technical overviews.   He answers the question of the day. He says, I've explored around mempool dot space.   Before, there is a lot of interesting aspects of unchained data   all out in the open to see. Right.   Love that all of Bitcoin is transparent from top to bottom, keeps people honest us when everything is out there from the code   to the transactions.  



[00:11:42] McIntosh:

Yeah. Very cool. Thank you.   Yes. Appreciate your support, Sendit, Mike. I would say this real briefly, and maybe we just need to make this,   I almost wanna say, a separate episode.   But I love the transparency of Bitcoin, but at the same time,   I wish there were more privacy. And that's a difficult thing to balance.   Right? I I I don't wanna get into a big discussion about Monero versus Bitcoin or whatever.   But with Monero, you do have more privacy for certain.   But the problem is it it reduces your auditability.   Right? It's that transparency   that's keeping   people honest, that's keeping governments honest   ultimately.  

If The United States had a treasury of Bitcoin,   we could monitor it.   We have no idea really   how much US dollars we have, how much gold we have, anything like that. We're just   depending on the government to provide those statistics to us and believe them. And how many times I'll just raise my hand for The United States. How many times has The United States lied to us about various things? I don't know.   How many atoms are there in the universe? No. I'm just kidding.   It's been a number. Right? It's been a lot, and you don't find out until after the fact.   Or if you have an idea or a suspicion, then you're called a conspiracy nut. So   I don't know.  

I I did it's an interesting   conversation, though, because I would like more privacy there on Bitcoin, and that's something that we've talked about a number of times. Maybe it's time to kinda circle back to that again.  

[00:13:29] Kenshin:

Yeah. But, of course, then we also have the layer two stuff, and we can have Very nice. There instead. Mhmm. We'll see. Mhmm. Alright. Well, let's dive on into this week's topic, which is Bitcoin wallets.   Right.   So we would like to talk,   to start with with some wallet fundamentals.   And   I think we chose this topic, we can say, because it's   I personally,   of course get some questions, how to get started with Bitcoin, what wallet, you know,   how to keep wallet, how to keep Bitcoin safe.   So   yes, we think it's a important   topic,   and   to, to promote self sovereignty, of course,   and store Bitcoin,   safely   under your control fully.  

So   what is a wallet?   It's actually not an actual wallet that stores Bitcoin.   In, Bitcoin wallets,   they   just store keys and we will get through that.   But there is no actual Bitcoin stored there.   So the Bitcoin is stored in the actual   blockchain.   And you get   a key that you can sign and prove that that Bitcoin in the blockchain Right. Is actually yours.   Right? Mhmm. And the Bitcoin wallet that you select, any of them,  

[00:15:00] McIntosh:

is storing that private key. It's simply managing those keys for you. So it's really a key storage,   not a wallet   in in the sense of storing money.   When I think about a wallet, I'm pulling out and I'm pulling out my dollars and paying for whatever   or my credit card.   That's not the case here. And it is misleading and I don't know, maybe unfortunate, but it also has a very long history   and it's not gonna change. So get used to it.  

[00:15:31] Kenshin:

Yeah.   It's one of those Bitcoin things. Right? That we put a name to it,   because it sounds   beats vaguely   what it is. Mhmm. Like, I would say, like, Bitcoin,   mining. Mhmm. It has nothing to do with mining in any way.  

[00:15:49] McIntosh:

It's such a transition.   It sounds cool.   Come on now. Don't don't knock the Bitcoin mining.  

[00:15:56] Kenshin:

Okay. Okay.   But, yeah, Bitcoin wallets. I mean, we we need them,   unless if you keep your Bitcoin in in exchanges, which you should really not do Right. Then you need to to get a Bitcoin wallet, going.  

[00:16:13] McIntosh:

So there is a phrase   I'll I'll let me just springboard off of that. There is a phrase in Bitcoin circles called not your keys, not your coin. And this is really what we mean. If you don't store your own keys in your own wallet of whatever   shape,   you don't own that.   It's in someone else's custody,   and   that could be very bad for you.   Oh, you literally have I did not actually see that kinship.   Oh. That's funny.   Really? No. I didn't.   I promise.   I'll cut that out. But, yeah, that's that is actually hilarious.   No. That's good.   Alright. So, yeah, I mean, that's just what it is.  

And we all start on exchanges. I think if you gathered a hundred Bitcoiners,   90 nine of them started on an exchange. There was one who somebody took the time to teach them how to do a peer to peer transaction,   gave them some Bitcoin in their own wallet,   and that's how they started. But the other 99 started with Coinbase, who's in the news this week, or Binance,   or Kraken,   or whomever.   So   that's okay. Just don't leave it on there.  

[00:17:37] Kenshin:

Yeah.   And there is another analogy here which,   I don't fully agree, but it's there is an analogy saying that is like a safety deposit box that everyone can see.   So in essence, yes.   The the blockchain is open so everybody can see,   how much an address has in Bitcoin.   So it's it's open out there, but you have the key to sign those transactions, and that key is stored in the wallet. Right.   So I it's  

[00:18:10] McIntosh:

mostly valid. I would I would argue. I mean,   the information is out there. So last week, we talking about mempool. Right? Mempool dot space   and whatever.   Funny thing is, like, just recently, I was clicking around in mempool dot space, and I came across a transaction,   where the address that it was going to, they were sending,   300   and something Bitcoin. And I'm like, oh my goodness. I can't even imagine.   Like,   it may have I'm sure. Well, I don't know.   It probably was like a corporation   moving some money around   or an exchange maybe consolidating   things while fees were low.  

I don't know,   but it kind of is out there. You kind of can see,   like, the total amount, but there is a layer of an anonymity   to it   that is provided by   here's an address that's not directly associated   with me.   It doesn't have my name or my email address on it. It just has a set of  

[00:19:20] Kenshin:

of keys. And if we go through what types of wallets there are Okay. There are these so called   hot wallets Mhmm. That are connected to the Internet.   So, like, you have a mobile app. It's a Bitcoin wallet or a desktop,   PC app. Mhmm. And they are connected to the Internet, so they're called hot because   they are   if we say   They're always on. Fully accessed. Listen. Right? Yeah. They're always on in that sense. Yeah.   Then we have the cold wallets. So we have offline,   wallets.   Again, they can be mobile.   No? Yeah. They could be technically. Yeah. Could be technically mobile as well, but   but it's mostly the hardware wallets that we talk there or you have a a computer that is completely offline. Would it be possible that it could just be a piece of paper?  

It could be.   But those are the paper wallets. Right? But they're offline.  

[00:20:20] McIntosh:

I   mean They're offline. Yeah. You have a different set of issues there. Right? Paper's fragile,   but it is offline.   It's not connected to the Internet, and you can generate   your seed phrases   and create that completely offline. You don't have to be online. I did wanna make a small point about the hot wallets. In my opinion, and this is my opinion,   in terms of kind of   how safe these are, I would argue that the web versions are the least safe because you're   you have a custodian, obviously. There's there's somebody involved there.   A mobile app,   probably   not as safe as the desktop, although I would they're probably close.  

But I can strip down a desktop, especially if that's all it's doing,   and keep it minimal   and   manage my thing my wallet there,   in relative safety. I still personally   would not keep to me, a hot wallet is kinda like my walk around money.   Right? I'm maybe I'm comfortable   carrying   a couple hundred bucks. And if I lose it, yeah, I'm gonna be upset, but, you know,   it's not that big a deal.   Anything above that, and I   and I'm keeping it in a cold wallet personally. Now   people call me paranoid, but I'm a I'm a database administrator, and database administrators are paranoid.   That's what makes good ones. So  

[00:21:54] Kenshin:

We have a good news story about paranoid Yeah.   Scenario.   So that's So  

[00:22:00] McIntosh:

so from   there, you know, the trade off is simply convenience versus security.   It it is definitely more convenient to have it on a mobile app   than your desktop.   And it is definitely more convenient to have any of those hot wallets versus   a hardware wallet of some kind. And, frankly, the only hardware wallet I personally could recommend at this point would be a seed signer, and I'll just say that.   That's just me.  

[00:22:30] Kenshin:

But And and maybe yeah.   I will go through the recommendations in the end.   But maybe we can say a bit like because we said hot wallets are connected to the Internet. Right? And that's a very   high level,   description.   But I would say hot wallets then it means since it's connected to the Internet,   it has your sign in key.   So you can see your Bitcoin   and you can sign a transaction instantly from that app and send Bitcoin around.   Right?   The cold wallet, since it's offline,   you cannot really transmit Bitcoin.   You can only sign a transaction. So you need some sort of other way,   create a transaction,   sign it on this cold wallet, and then send that signed transaction   to another device that is a hot device to transmit   that transaction to the mempool Mhmm. And and the blockchain.  

So and there   we go then to the watch only wallets.   Okay. So you have those   watch only wallets that   you   connect it to your addresses,   but without having your sign in keys on them.   So you can see how much Bitcoin you have,   but you cannot transmit anything.   You cannot sign any transactions.   And that's where those two come together, the hot wallets and the cold wallets. Because then you can create a transaction in the watch only.   You can take that transaction to your cold wallet, sign it, bring it back   to that, hot   watch only wallet and transmit it. At least that's what I So essentially,  

[00:24:16] McIntosh:

I think we both do a very similar setup. That's what we do with SeedSigner and Sparrow Wallet. Right?  

[00:24:23] Kenshin:

Mhmm. Right.   Exactly.   So I think that's important for people to understand.   And some hot wallets, you you you can put your private key   and make them completely hot wallets with sign in capabilities, or you can just put,   it's called the next pub   or maybe something, some other way to only watch,   your addresses.   Mhmm. So it can be a bit more advanced, but it's it's,   most wallets support those those capabilities, I would say. And it's important to to get the distinction right when when you try to secure your Bitcoin.   Should we then talk what are those keys that we we store and how do we   we store them? Okay. So there there is there is a this so called seed phrase.  

And the seed phrase is is a representation   of of your private key   in in a human readable   words.   So you get, for example, 12 or 24 words   and you write them down or you put them in an app and then that app understands okay that's a Bitcoin key private key and then it can sign those transactions in the wallets.   So Now So those Sorry. I did wanna mention  

[00:25:49] McIntosh:

I've seen arguments 12 versus 24.   Historically,   I've always used 24   because, again, I'm paranoid.   But Me too. Yeah. I have seen arguments saying that the 12 word passwords   seed phrases are essentially no   less secure   in today's environment at least than the 24  

[00:26:13] Kenshin:

phrases. That's an episode on its own. Maybe. I don't Can go down that rabbit hole, but I don't think I I don't agree.  

[00:26:20] McIntosh:

Why why would you even yeah. It doesn't matter to me. I'm just gonna use 24.  

[00:26:26] Kenshin:

Yeah.   It's   it's double   double the amount of words that someone needs to use. Know  

[00:26:34] McIntosh:

how many seed phrases there are?  

[00:26:37] Kenshin:

I know   I know it's   first of all, there there is   a   list of words. Yes.   The the Bitcoin,   words is based on the BIP, b I p 30 9.   And there are 2,048  

[00:26:58] McIntosh:

awards in that list. So it's twenty forty eight. That's what I was looking for.   For some reason, I thought it was a 24.   So it's double that,   which makes it twice as hard. No. It's exponentially harder than that.  

[00:27:11] Kenshin:

Yeah. It's not twice. So and then you get the amount of combinations   that you can have with 24   words is like almost the amount of atoms in the universe.  

[00:27:23] McIntosh:

Yes. It's ridiculously   high.  

[00:27:25] Kenshin:

Yeah. And the 12 words is is a lot,   but it's not I don't think it's the same. So BIP 39  

[00:27:32] McIntosh:

was used to,   kind of start this process.   And I believe well, that's one of the earlier bips. I mean, they're numbered in order. So,   I wonder what they did, honestly, before that. I don't   I don't know.   I'd have to look it up. Oh, just,  

[00:27:51] Kenshin:

like, a password key that we have now? No? No. Like the no like no sir private key like an n sec   Bailey. Random   Interesting.   I think so.   Yeah. I think it was just a random   string of characters.  

[00:28:07] McIntosh:

Okay. A hex. Was it hex? Or You know what? We'll look it up and get back next week on that because I don't I don't wanna stop everything for that. I probably shouldn't have been going down that rabbit hole, but just out of curiosity. I mean, clearly, BIP 39 was an improvement.   Right? Yeah. This is why I say   in a worst case scenario,   you could memorize your seed phrases.   Most of us, I probably could not, but let's just say we could.   And walk across the border   and   reconstitute that   wallet   somewhere else.   Yeah.   And I'm not telling you I look. I'm just giving you a scenario.  

Just saying. You do not have to have a wallet. You do not have to have   a custodian.   You can just put it all right here in your head,   and it's there.   So as long as you keep up with that.  

[00:29:08] Kenshin:

Yeah. If something happens to you, that's  

[00:29:13] McIntosh:

that's the worry. But yeah. Okay.   So are there go ahead.  

[00:29:19] Kenshin:

Yeah. And those, since those are are human readable Mhmm.   The seed phrases, those 12 words, 24 words,   then this is basically your backup   and recovery   mechanism.   So it is super important.   And and that's why they're also super important The   way you back them up.   So so,   first of all, you don't want to do it in a in a digital form. You don't want to write them down in a computer. Of any kind. And we have an in if any kind. And we have a news item that goes into that type of really paranoid scenario that happened for you.   And then   then you don't want to write it down or not for long in paper   because paper is prone to damage.  

And we just posted actually, half an hour, an hour ago, we posted on Oster, on our account,   eight stories   of people, real stories of people losing their seed phrase.   So it's,   it's an interesting ways that you can do, you can lose your Bitcoin. Mainly you can lose it by fire   and Flood   Or   tornado? Flood or I mean Yeah. Locked hardwares,   hard disks.   So that's been happened a lot. Yes.   Or accidentally   someone throwing it away, you know. They think it's just a random piece of paper or random hard drive or something.   I mean, there are plenty of stories like that, and and we're talking about millions that are lost in this way. You need to approach this.  



[00:31:00] McIntosh:

You're sovereign.   You're in control.   There's nobody that you're going to call and bail you out.   And that means   you need to be careful. You need to be thorough. You definitely do not need to be putting this online.   And you need to have redundancy.  

[00:31:18] Kenshin:

Yeah. And when you say redundancy, I see here in our notes,   we have this three to one strategy. Right?   So you have three copies,   two media types, and one of sites.  

[00:31:32] McIntosh:

Right. Right. That's one that's certainly one way of approaching it or having a multisig setup where you have   various people that you have to trust,   and that's important.   But maybe they're in the same town, preferably they're at least out of the local area, preferably they're maybe even in different countries.   I mean, in an ideal   scenario, because frankly,   no one knows what their country is going to be   in a state of   is that right English, proper English? But, you know, ten years from now, like, things could be completely different.   I don't know.  

So, anyways,   it's not saying that you have to do all these things immediately, but you do need to be thinking about them. And as your   your wealth in Bitcoin grows,   you do need to spend some time thinking about it. I it makes me so sad   when I hear about the guy who in England, and I don't know if he's on your list. He probably is. His hard drive ended up in a landfill,   and that hard drive now is worth   a lot of money,   millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, I think. And   they the the county,   the town, whatever, they refuse to let him excavate the landfill.   He's he's offered to pay for it. He's offered to improve everything   because he knows what that's worth, but they will not let him do it   so far.  

Mhmm. I I don't know.   But, you know, obviously, he had no redundancy because, again,   going back to one of our earliest premises,   the Bitcoin is not on the hard drive. What is on that hard drive?   His seed phrases.  

[00:33:21] Kenshin:

Mhmm. Yeah. And there is a classic way of of backing up that seed phrase is with metal.   So you get those metal plates and you stamp   those 12 or 24 words. And I can tell you from experience, it's such a frustrating process. It's a hard time. Don't like it.  

[00:33:42] McIntosh:

I'm not sure that one is for me. I'm not gonna talk about the details about how I back it up,   but I'm just not. But,   you know,   it is a lot of work. But it is also   especially if you cannot have, like, a multi sig setup what or whatever because maybe you just don't have people in your life that you can trust.   It is definitely one of the best ways to back it up in terms of permanency.   That kind of thing   can survive a house fire, can survive flood if it doesn't get swept away or, you know, whatever.  

[00:34:18] Kenshin:

So   Yeah.   And there are ways also you have this Shamir's,   secrets.  

[00:34:25] McIntosh:

Do you know it? I have heard of this, but I am really honestly not that familiar with it.  

[00:34:30] Kenshin:

It's very similar to multisig but it's only one key.   So you take a key and you split it in   you choose five pieces   and you choose how many pieces you need to recover that key. So three or five. Three out of five. Right. Yeah. So it is like a multisig, but you recover one key, essentially.   So you don't need three different device or three different   private keys. You you just take the one,   you split it in five pieces. Essentially, it's the same result, I would say. That's interesting.   Kind of. Yeah.   You can you can then stamp those five pieces   in in metal and spread them around the world or whatever. Okay. Very cool.  



[00:35:13] McIntosh:

When we're talking about seed phrases, when we're talking about Bitcoin   addresses,   there's different kinds. We should probably talk about that.  

[00:35:22] Kenshin:

Which one?  

[00:35:24] McIntosh:

A seed phrase. So there there's   the original,   you've got SegWit and then a native SegWit as well. Sorry. Yeah. It's okay. Right. Right. Right.  

[00:35:35] Kenshin:

Yeah. I mean, there are different   address types   with,   used to be called,   legacy. Mhmm.   So when you you you were generate you were making a new wallet and you were generating your addresses,   then   you had the original technology and you were getting an address that looked like   one   starting with the number one and then,   a random number.   Okay. And then over the years, they improved the Bitcoin protocol   and with these VIPs   and   and found better ways to be more efficient how how to transfer Bitcoin around   that would take less bytes per transaction. So essentially making it cheaper for   to make a transaction.  

So we had SegWits, native SegWits.   I don't really know exact difference between them.   But what we use now when you see more modern address is the b c one. That's a normal address these days.  

[00:36:39] McIntosh:

Yeah. So the legacy address is not really less secure. It's just   larger.  

[00:36:46] Kenshin:

Yeah.  

[00:36:47] McIntosh:

Okay. It's, and maybe not be supported by your world anymore. I would yeah. I could definitely see that being a challenge.  

[00:36:56] Kenshin:

So I I would say it's good to   usually use the default in in the modern Bitcoin wallets,   unless you use a very advanced wallet that's it doesn't have any defaults, and then you really need to know what you're choosing. But normally,   choose,   the defaults, and it should be the Segwit.   And you should double check that you get this b c one addresses out of it. And then you know that you're in,   let's say, in the right,   modern way.  

[00:37:29] McIntosh:

Okay.  

[00:37:30] Kenshin:

And that's important because you can actually move between wallets. Right? You you can make your initial wallet with with with one app. Right.   And then   save your seed phrase in whichever way you you feel is appropriate,   not digital.   Right. And   delete that app,   install another app,   import that seed phrase there. Right.   Recover it and then it should, if you have done,   yeah, use the defaults with with the with the modern addresses, then you should get your wallet back up and running. So BIP 39 there is the standard. That's why you can move from wallet to wallet.   Yeah. Mhmm. Exactly.  

Very cool. And and you can it's really cool. If you Google BIP 39,   you go to a GitHub, the official GitHub page from Bitcoin and you see the list of words. Mhmm. It's really interesting. And there is did you know there are multiple languages   of those lists?  

[00:38:30] McIntosh:

Really?  

[00:38:31] Kenshin:

Yeah. There is an Italian.   There is, I think, Japanese even. There is French, Spanish.  

[00:38:38] McIntosh:

Wait. You mean this is not all centered around the English speaking universe?  

[00:38:43] Kenshin:

No.  

[00:38:44] McIntosh:

I'm sorry. I'm just kidding.   Now you're so it's like a completely   different like, the French it's not French words in the   there's not one list. You're saying there's multiple lists. Is that Yeah. There are six, seven. I did not know that. Yeah. That's Wow. They're called to read. Yeah.  

[00:39:05] Kenshin:

But   if you take for example one word like,   I don't know, town. Mhmm. And town   is reflecting to the number,   let's say 2,500.   Okay. It's a 2,500   word, and it's the word town.   So the French   words   in place of 2,500,   it will be whatever,   French words that is around that t or something in the alphabet.   So that word in French represents   again the 2,005   hundreds.  

[00:39:41] McIntosh:

It's like the location.   Right? Yeah. It's not that   the two words mean the same or anything like that.   It's strictly like an index, really.  

[00:39:52] Kenshin:

Yeah. Interesting. So you could mix them up.   I think. You could mix up languages.  

[00:39:59] McIntosh:

That would be interesting.  

[00:40:02] Kenshin:

Yeah. You don't really gain much because they still represent.   You might fall some some,   brute forcing   Exactly. That they are focusing only on English. But so that could help. But I I guess those brute forcing things should   yeah. Maybe it would help, actually. Maybe it will help. That's fascinating,  

[00:40:23] McIntosh:

actually.   I'm very intrigued by that.   Alright.  

[00:40:27] Kenshin:

Yeah.  

[00:40:29] McIntosh:

Very cool. Yeah. Alright. So we're gonna have, like, a link to a number of,   stories we've got about people who've lost their seeds. And and, really, you should take some time to go through that.   Right? We don't have time to go through all of these, but   I'll just throw out that one example. I know that that guy has just he's lost of he's seriously lost thousand Bitcoin. A fortune.   And 8,000 Bitcoin. Sitting in a landfill,   and the the the government won't work with him even though it would benefit them to do so,   by the way.  

And   what does he do? I've   I'm glad I'm not him because, frankly, I would I would struggle   with that. It would be hard.  

[00:41:16] Kenshin:

Yeah. 8,000   is a lot of Bitcoin.  

[00:41:20] McIntosh:

Almost as many as the guy spent on pizza day, which by the way is tomorrow as we record.   I did mean to bring that up. It was 10,000, right, for the pizzas?  

[00:41:31] Kenshin:

Yeah. Two pizzas, I think. So tomorrow on Twitter  

[00:41:34] McIntosh:

and Oster,   there'll be pizza day stories all over the place. Yay, pizza. Yeah. Remember, ladies and gentlemen,   that guy, I've read about this. He's not mad about that at all.   He yes. It seems astonishing that he spent so much on pizza,   but he was off doing other things, making more Bitcoin.   Trust me. That was not his entire stash.   He was spending money to create a circular economy,   and that's what he was doing. And you can always buy more Bitcoin.   I I see this stuff on Twitter. Somebody just did it some prominent   influencer,   which I hate that word, but,   whatever,   you know,   was saying,   well,   what who is it? Steak and Shake, which is like a a fast food chain here in The States, has started accepting Bitcoin.  

Good. I'm glad for him. That's a that's a wise move on their part. And he's like,   oh, I went to Steak and Shake, and I didn't buy it with Bitcoin because I'm saving my Bitcoin.   Okay.   Congratulations.   I've I've you've graduated   into first grade. Now you can DCA.   Good job. You know what you can also do? Take that Strike app, hook it up to your bank account   that you're doing your DCA with. You can take that down to Steak and Shake and pay for it and pull it right out of your bank account in US dollars.   I I just don't I don't   man, I don't alright. I'm stopping. I'm just I'm a put a pin in that. I'm gonna stop.  

Sorry.  

[00:43:16] Kenshin:

Yes. It's okay.   I get the frustration.   But it just to to to put a quick thing on that pizza Mhmm. Since it's tomorrow, so   it's it's actually important day because that was probably the first time   Yes. Bitcoin got a price in dollars. It was the first commercial transaction  

[00:43:35] McIntosh:

for sure.  

[00:43:36] Kenshin:

Yeah. So then there was a value assigned to Bitcoin   all of a sudden. $20. That's how much it's worth. 10,000.  

[00:43:45] McIntosh:

Oh, man.  

[00:43:47] Kenshin:

Yeah.   Yep. Okay. Yep. Let's move. We do need to move on. What are we talking about?   Yeah. I mean,   we talked about the wallets now.   You could have multiple wallets for different purposes.   Right?   You can have, you said it earlier, you can have your cash   wallet that you carry with you. And nowadays those can be lightning wallets, of course.   So it's easy to pay for stuff as well.  

[00:44:17] McIntosh:

And   I just wanna make sure to be clear,   like in my Sparrow wallet,   I have multiple wallets. It's not like I have to have Sparrow and BlueWallet or this or that.   In Sparrow, I can generate multiple wallets, and I do. So I have a number of different accounts, and each one has its own address.   And and that's just the way it works. The most wallets have that I would assume so. Yeah. It's it's really basic. So you can have your checking account, your savings account, whatever.   And one day   one day,   there will be   you go to work, your job, your fiat job,   and but they won't pay you in US Dollars. They'll pay you in Bitcoin, and it will just be sent to that address every week just like   you do direct deposit now.  

Day is coming. Strike the market. Mark it down.   I'm not gonna say when,   but it's coming.   Yeah. A lot of Bitcoin companies offer that to their employees. I just mean in general, though. Like, my company, which has nothing to do with Bitcoin.   Okay?   I do not work for Strike. I know people think I shill jack stuff too much.   I don't.   But,   yeah, they'll just be like, oh, you want Bitcoin? And I said, yep. And here's the address, and   I don't wanna get off on this.   No. I'm not going to. I'm not going to. We're gonna  

[00:45:50] Kenshin:

Okay. Good.   So so,   how's it called? Yes.  

[00:45:57] McIntosh:

I have been told I take too many rabbit trails.   This is me.   Self   self censoring.   Alright. Let's move on. Yeah.  

[00:46:10] Kenshin:

Okay. One thing.   If you start   let's say you you went to an exchange. Mhmm. You exchange some Bitcoin and then you want to take self custody.   You find a wallet. We'll talk about a few specific examples.   And then you move it there. Mhmm.   Except for backing up your seed phrase. That's super important. Mhmm. Then you should also   test   that backup.   You should destroy your wallet.   Yeah. I mean, you create a wallet, you transfer $10.   Right. No. I'm just You back it up,   then you destroy it, then you recover it. Not 10 Bitcoin, ladies and gentlemen. $10.   Did I say 10? No. You did not. No. I'm just Okay. Okay. Good.  

Yeah. Like, 10000¢.   Yeah. Then you destroy that wallet. You recover it. You destroy it again. You recover it in another wallet, in another app. Mhmm.   And then And then you can sleep well. You get very confident.   Yeah. You get confident very fast with this. You know what I did?   I I mentioned it before. We gave,   gifts   to my wife's  

[00:47:24] McIntosh:

bronch. Okay. The one you like.  

[00:47:27] Kenshin:

Yeah.   There is only There's only one  

[00:47:31] McIntosh:

who   Kitchen's like, where is he going with this?  

[00:47:36] Kenshin:

Yeah. What?   No. But it's like, we just gave him 12 words. Right.   And he didn't even know what it was about. And then we we explained. That's funny. So the first step there was to actually put those 12 words in his own I like that.   And recover that wallet with that gift.   And then all of a sudden, okay. That's   how you started. So he got already the recovery process part of the initiate   initialization   process, let's say. Very cool.  

[00:48:09] McIntosh:

So there's a few things aside from testing your regular backups   that we've got here.   I'm gonna mention this one because as someone who's maybe older than the average Bitcoiner, this is something that I think about.   Inheritance   planning. There are people in my family who own Bitcoin,   who are older than I am, and   this is something that we have to think about with them. What happens,   when they pass? Because there are two things in life that are certain, taxes and death. And death makes us uncomfortable.   We don't like talking about it, but it's real.   So what happens when somebody does die? What happens when I die? Can my wife,   who is not really,   a computer person, so to speak, can she   have access to the Bitcoin that we have? There's there's only about 10,000 sats in there, but, you know,   just   can she get access to it?  

Oh, no. In fifty years' time, they will be chasing you for those 10,000. Well, I'm going to go ahead and just go out on a limb. Neither one of us will be alive in fifty years. Okay? I'm very comfortable with talking about my own mortality.   I know a lot of people are not, but,   I will live on this earth for a limited amount of time.   So I have to worry about that. And   when you're 20, 30 years old, you   tend to not think about that.   But you should. Mhmm. Because something very unexpected may happen to you.   What happens look,   I don't wanna drag all this out. But   to be honest,   when COVID first came out, so 2020,   '20 '20 '1, '20 '20 '2,   that time frame,   my wife and I lost   one, two, three, four,   four different friends.  

I wanna say. Woah.   I mean, we have a lot of a few friends, but, yeah, I I think that's a correct number.   One of them was not directly COVID related, but I have a feeling maybe it was indirectly related, if that makes sense.   But some of them were directly related to COVID.   And they're all not that old, not the kind of people who'd be thinking about.   And   frankly, I know in one case,   didn't have a will set up, didn't have a trust set up, or anything like that,   and left the wife   off what's the word I'm looking for? You know, she was, it was a struggle   because it sounds really easy   while they're married and whatever, but it's not that simple when it comes   to probate and this kind of thing.  

So   you need to think about that,   even if it makes you uncomfortable.   And you need to have a plan. Well, what happens if you're married?   You could die.   The other person could die,   frankly,   morbidly. I'm sorry. This I know this is not but you both could die. It does happen.   Then what? Yeah.   If you've got young kids, how are they gonna deal with that? They're gonna have a guardian.   Right? And then that guardian is going to need access to this Bitcoin   potentially. And,   I mean,   I don't know. I'm not your financial planner, and I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but you do need to think about that.  

[00:51:47] Kenshin:

Yeah. And and personally,   I go through it with my wife, and and we we   go through the setup and   and test it. And   so at least my wife knows   how to restore stuff. But   further than that, that's a good point. I mean And that's an issue.  

[00:52:07] McIntosh:

And and to be honest, I think I'm kind of in the same boat.   I have   if both of us were to pass at the same time, I think that would be difficult,   frankly, in terms of   in terms of our Bitcoin. I I think in actually, in everything else, we're in pretty good shape.   But   there's a person who could take care of things for us, but they would not know where to go.   So maybe I should actually sit down with them a little bit.  

[00:52:41] Kenshin:

But I should remind everyone  

[00:52:43] McIntosh:

just for posterity's sake. I have lost it already or Well, I told you I only have 10,000 sats, so we're good. Yeah. Exactly. Even well, fifty years from now, maybe that's a bit more, but, you know,   I  

[00:52:58] Kenshin:

don't know. Yeah. To move. That will be useful. So  

[00:53:03] McIntosh:

Alright.   Moving right along because we're  

[00:53:07] Kenshin:

Yeah.   Right. So let's go through our personal recommendations,   and and I think we're done with the topic. Right?   So   personally,   I I like BlueWallet   for   day to   day and, like, a watch only or,   or if I want to make a wallet for, small amounts. I think BlueWallet on the phone is really good. It's open source also, which is great.   And and then there are a lot of,   Lightning,   wallets   that's,   I also use for day to day stuff. Like, Strike is also Lightning based and Albi and Zeus.   Yeah. And then whichever   is interesting to try   this month.  

But for cold storage, I don't know if I should say, but it's a it's a hardware wallet   that I like for cold storage.   It's one   of those   popular Yeah. But   reputable   hardware wallets, not ledger. Please don't Or treasure. Ledger.  

[00:54:16] McIntosh:

Sorry. I'll just harp about both of them endlessly.  

[00:54:20] Kenshin:

Right.   But yeah. I don't know what to recommend there. It's very hard to recommend the hardware order to to be I can recommend one. There is this   seed signer.   It's really cool, seat signer. I really like it with the QR codes.  

[00:54:39] McIntosh:

You can buy one if you're not comfortable putting it together. You can buy one. I mean, there's a matter of trust there, but you can do it.   It is completely open source. It is completely open components.   You can build it yourself if you're able to   saw solder solder   just a little bit.   It's cheap. I don't know. I don't know what else to tell you.  

[00:55:03] Kenshin:

Yeah. I I want to give it as a gift to to family members. Mhmm. It's really cool. Now I do like  

[00:55:10] McIntosh:

in your multi sig setup using different, you know, I use seat signer here, and I use x here, and y here. But Right. Man for   yeah. Seat signer.  

[00:55:23] Kenshin:

Sounds good. Seat signer.   Some people argue that it doesn't have a secure,  

[00:55:29] McIntosh:

chip. No. It doesn't. There's no doubt about that. So what?   I don't I don't have a problem with that personally. Now you need to understand what that means.   Do your own research. Do your own work.   Don't trust Macintosh.   But Macintosh   trusts SeedSider.   I don't know what else to tell you.   Yeah.   Good. Right.   So for me, day to day, I'm I use Strike. I mean, that's what we use for our DCA.   You know, I'm not a fan of Jack's new   loan programs.   I do not think that will ultimately be the form of Bitcoin backed loans in the future.   Maybe they're going that way.  

But,   if you have listened to him lately, he's been shilling that endlessly   because it is Stripe's new prod product.   And that's fine,   but I do use it for   DCA because   it's a great way to do that. It's very easy. And if I make a lightning transaction, it would probably be with Stripe. I've used a lot of other things.   I don't know.   Just kinda that's just the way I roll.   I don't know. I can't keep up with, you know, Satoshis in five different platforms.   I I can't. So I'm a simple guy. In terms of my cold storage, yes, I do use SeedSigner.   I use it in combination with the Sparrow wallet.  

So Sparrow sits on my laptop,   SeedSigner is not connected to the Internet,   and you basically scan a QR code,   to   do your signing. And you do it twice, and you got the hang of it. It's I do it   couple of times a month at least, probably, actually,   actually, three times a month. I do it to pay for,   mining   stuff.   It's really straightforward.   I I just can't recommend personally anything else.   Now for a multisig,   I do like the the idea of having different ones. So when I set that up,   frankly, I probably will have different ones,   because   you just don't know.  

And it's just a way to reduce your your attack service, your your vulnerabilities.   I don't have a Bitcoin day to day wallet that's a main net. I've I've actually just as a confession, I've never done that.   When I started doing kind of these small type transactions,   lightning was already a thing.   And   to me, that just makes the most sense. I don't know.   If this if the,   if the fees are low, there's no problem doing a normal transaction because it's a few cents. Right? 25¢   maybe   or less.   But,   yeah, that's just never really been a thing for me.  

[00:58:27] Kenshin:

But, Spero yeah. Spero, I forgot to mention. It is also my go to wallet on desktop. It's it's really, really good.  

[00:58:35] McIntosh:

Why you got Trezor listed on here?  

[00:58:39] Kenshin:

Kitchen. Oh, it's   it was on the list.  

[00:58:42] McIntosh:

You can take that off.   Sorry. I am not recommending that.   Anyways,   yeah. Sorry. Little little aside there.   But so let's talk about it. If you are just getting started,   what would be the recommendation for your so let's do this with your wallet, with your hardware,   and   go from there.   Okay?   I would recommend BlueWallet. Mhmm. Which is a main net wallet. Right?  

[00:59:15] Kenshin:

Yeah. K. It's an easy wallet to get started.   It has some advanced features as well. Mhmm. And and I forgot to mention, all those wallets, you can connect them to your own node. So we talked about running our own node,   and you can do that. And I think it's super important. That's the only way I do transactions through my own node. I I don't trust   any other.   So BlueWallet for a first wallet and is it beginner wallet?   And,   cold storage,   seed signer. I think it's great for beginners.   If you want to be more advanced, I would recommend   possibly   Coldcard   or Okay.  

Bitbox.   There is some good ones there or the what's the name? Passport?  

[01:00:07] McIntosh:

Passport is quite good. Foundation is the company that makes them. Foundation. Mhmm. And actually,   coat card and foundation probably would be the two others I would use in a, like, a three part   multisig.   Right. Just me personally again.   Yeah. Sorry.   So you do not have Strike on here as your first wallet?   I mean, I have recommended it to people, and and I have onboarded people to strike. Yes. I would recommend it for two reasons. It's very easy to set it up with your bank account so you can pull money, which is still a reality,   And it's very easy to DCA with.  

Yeah. And that's the only way I want people DCA ing out of the gate. I don't want them waiting for months and months, even if it's only $5   a week.   I mean, really.  

[01:01:01] Kenshin:

Yeah. I I that's the only way IDCA is,  

[01:01:05] McIntosh:

strike now. It it's look. You're KYC'd.   That's the downside,   and I'm very upfront about that.   Yeah. And and people have different feelings about that. It will be more difficult if you're gonna go down the non KYC route.  

[01:01:21] Kenshin:

It's oh, we need an episode on on that. And I know that Sandy and Mike wants it too. Mhmm.   Maybe it should be our next episode because I   so hard to go no no KYC. And I have tried no k I have tried light KYC. Right.   And it's basically the same as KYC Mhmm. In the end of the day. So   it's too much effort for nothing really.  

[01:01:46] McIntosh:

Especially here in The United States, they have made it. I actually think there's more going on with with the kind of peer to peer stuff over in Europe than there is here in America.  

[01:01:55] Kenshin:

Yeah. There is a lot, but,  

[01:01:58] McIntosh:

yeah, we need to go through it in an episode because I have issues with that also. So let's talk real quick for maybe a more advanced setup. If you were doing a multi sig setup, I think we've really already said this, but you're gonna need at least three,   different products.   You can do three seed signers or three cold cards or whatever.   Our recommendation   would be just in case there's a problem with one of them,   let's go ahead and make them different things. The costs are pretty close to the same, so it's in the end, it's your money. And if you're dealing with tens or hundreds or more, thousands of dollars,   you'd probably need to spend a little money, friend. Okay?  

Cold card,   foundation, the passport, like you were talking about, seed signer. I would have no problem as part of a multi sig setup recommending any of those. I have lots of bones to pick with both cold card and passport that will not be done here. But as part of a multi sig setup, I'm good with that just for the variety.   Mhmm.   So   And then Sparo. Yeah. Sparo. Keeping it all together. Mhmm. And Electrum. You mentioned Electrum here as well. It's another another good tool.   CoinOS is a great website to get started as a lightning wallet, but you are it's a custodial wallet. They recently had an issue,   although it looks like they've taken care of everybody.  

I hope they improve their backup methods.   Phoenix would be another one. Wallet or Satoshi would be another one.   And then,   if you're really talking about real money and you're not comfortable with it, there are companies that can help you out. I am not promoting these companies. They are available.   They do charge a fee.   Do not be,   don't just to be clear, an Unchained would be one of them. Casa would be another.   So if you have a parent maybe who   has some serious wealth and they want to,   they don't wanna custody it. They just are not comfortable with that.   You could do something like this. And it's like having,   what are those things called? Like a mutual fund, like, having a manager of that, an account manager or whatever.  

Those people charge money. I mean, they do. So but   they're responsible for it, and they've got insurance and all that kind of stuff. So   trade offs.   Alright. Yep.  

[01:04:33] Kenshin:

Cool.   Some key takeaways. Mhmm. I would say so we said the wallet manages keys, not coins. Right?   So be very mindful of that and secure your seed phrase. Right.   And especially in a non digital way,   so you avoid any potential hacks. Yes.   You can use different wallets for different purposes,   and you should start   simple,   maybe with a hot wallet, small amounts just to get used to the setup.   And through those wallets, you can even learn things like how to manage your UTXOs and, you know, you start getting into this rabbit hole   to to to manage your actual   coins or UTXOs in there and how to move things around and all this.  



[01:05:24] McIntosh:

Yeah. Okay.   Very cool.   Alright.   We do need to ask a question. Right? So I think a good one   Yeah. Would be,   what was your first Bitcoin wallet experience?   Let's hear what you've got.   I think for me, man,   it's been a bit. I'm a have to think about that.  

[01:05:48] Kenshin:

I I have no clue about me.   Of course, the Bitcoin core, I think that was probably   but I never really used it much. Yeah. Because it has an  

[01:06:00] McIntosh:

it includes a wallet. Right. It still does.   Yeah.   Alright. I don't remember. Maybe blue Let's think about it, and maybe we maybe us old timers can come up with something by next week.   Alright. We need to move on. What do we have in the news this week?  

[01:06:22] Kenshin:

Let me say a quick European news. Okay.  

[01:06:27] McIntosh:

Since, like, this keeps coming up week after week.  

[01:06:30] Kenshin:

Seriously. Yeah.   More news to date came up. So it's fresh news.   Digital euro   and thus the ECB announcing it. Digital euro   should come by mid twenty twenty eight.  

[01:06:45] McIntosh:

So right in the middle of the next bear bear market.  

[01:06:49] Kenshin:

Yeah. Which is great news for me. I I thought that was great.   When I saw it, I I thought that was good news because 2028, that's far away and things change fast. So And they will crush and burn eventually.  

[01:07:00] McIntosh:

So Given that it's a governmental   organization,   maybe 2030?  

[01:07:07] Kenshin:

Yeah. Yeah. And they say if the regulation is approved at the start of 2026   in the best case scenario for the European legislative   process.   We could see the first transactions with the digital euro by mid twenty twenty eight. So that's the best case scenario.   I don't think it's gonna happen. Okay.   And they argue   about,   oh, there's all these companies that not are not European based.   The credit card companies.   And they are taking con they have control of all those transactions.   And instead, we should be the ones doing that. Mhmm. So it makes perfect sense that the ECB   blah blah blah and you have a bank note that you can spend anywhere in Europe for any purpose.  



[01:07:51] McIntosh:

Macintosh   Macintosh.   Mastercard,   this,   Visa, Discovery are probably three of the most profitable con com companies in the world.   Yeah. Crazy.  

[01:08:03] Kenshin:

And they want a slice of them for all of it. And now they want all of it. Yep. No doubt.  

[01:08:10] McIntosh:

Yeah. No doubt. Very good. Alright. So let me talk about Coinbase.   Of course, they're based here in The United States. They did have a data breach.   I don't normally talk about this kind of stuff other than to say, get your money off the exchanges.   But this actually tied in kind of very well to what we were talking about today, so I wanted to highlight this. So, apparently, they were breached back in December.   I did just get announced probably because the SEC   forced the is it the SEC? Yeah. It would be. To force them to disclose it.   And, apparently, it was basically an inside job. So they hired people,   maybe through a contracting company or something like that. They were not   US citizens, and I say that because   what that does mean, they were essentially hired for the lowest price.  

And so you're talking about people who were making not making a lot of money,   but apparently, they had access to customer data.   And so some of them apparently took it   and then turned around to scammers and said, call these people and try and scam them out of their Bitcoin. And, of course, I'm sure there was some financial arrangements about all that.   Well, you saw a number, I think, Kenshin, that said, like, 69,000.   Is that right?   Yeah. It does say here. 9,000 people. Sixty nine four hundred and sixty one,   were affected by this, which is really probably a very small amount of their overall user   population,   but still it's significant. Now I will say this. From my understanding,   Coinbase is doing the right thing, and they are making these   users whole in terms of they'll get their   their assets back,   which really because it was caused by them is the right thing.  

But, yeah, this is the kind of thing,   that makes what we're talking about self custody, using your own wallets, using a hardware wallet, using cold storage really,   would help this kind of thing. And I did wanna highlight one story   from this,   and which is super sad. I hope this guy gets his money back. Again, I I think that's what's being   what is going to happen.   But the 67 year old,   Ed Suman was is his name. He's a retired artist,   and   he lost all of his life savings in some kind in this scam. Okay?   And he lost 17 and a half Bitcoin.   Now   I don't even know anybody   who has 17 and a half Bitcoin.  

I cannot imagine   being in his position,   but he got a text. You know, the there's a story here, and I will include what I can in the show notes. I'm trying to find the original   link. It was on Twitter,   but I'm trying to find the actual original   link to all of this. I'll try to include it in the show notes.   Just be careful, people.   Especially like these people call. I know that you've had this happen to you, Kenshin. And they're they're scamming you. They're trying to get do not ever give anyone your seed phrases. Just don't do it. Do not do it ever.   I don't care who it is.  

That's a good start right there. Now that's not really what happened with these people, but, you know,   anyways. And then the last thing, do you wanna do this one?  

[01:11:49] Kenshin:

Yeah. I mean, there is   one of those paranoid   scenarios   where where you get those Bitcoin or saying   those things like, oh, don't do this because that could happen. Yeah. That would never happen. So you have here a Chinese   printer   manufacturer,   normal printer. Right?   So what you do, you buy this printer, then you download the drivers.   And in these drivers or these printers,   you had some malware.   And this what this malware did,   it was creating a backdoor   and a so called crypto stealer   designed to replace   clipboard   wallet addresses with   those controlled by the attackers.  

So essentially,   you   you get your your address.   You copy your address to paste it in into your wallet. And it changes it. And when you, yeah, when you paste it, it pastes through the wrong address. That is actually really sophisticated  

[01:12:52] McIntosh:

in my opinion. Yeah.   And that's   what would   keep you from being caught by this aside from not   well,   what will keep you from being caught by this is looking at the addresses.   Yeah. Right? Because your address is over here. Transmission.   It should match. And if it doesn't, stop everything.  

[01:13:15] Kenshin:

Yeah. And and you don't need to check the full address. I learned it's it's as simple as checking the first five,   characters of the address and the last five, and then the rest   is matching up.   So it's enough to do that. Okay. But you should always always double check when you paste that the address is right. Okay.  

[01:13:35] McIntosh:

Very cool. Well, not cool,   really. Yeah. But that's that's life out there, and you've got to be careful.  

[01:13:44] Kenshin:

So Yeah. And if you if you hear   a paranoid   scenario   if you hear it, it means someone thought about it. It means it's possible. It means it can happen or it has already happened. And so take take consideration of those things. So we've got a few software updates.  

[01:14:03] McIntosh:

I wanna go through those. We haven't been doing them as much lately, and I'd I'd like to try and pick that back up.   Are Bitcoin safe,   which we've talked about a number of times is a is a like a savings wallet for Bitcoin.   It really seems to be focused at families, but they have a new version one dot three,   with a number of   looks like mostly visual   updates.   Probably worth checking out if you're using that for the   for the Nostra users.   I don't know what the guy's name is. He's like one of the he might be the guy who created   Nostra. I'm not for sure, but he created some software called NoteDeck.  

And, he's got a new beta version out zero dot four dot zero,   which is the dumbest. Yeah. He's   the same guy.   And, so   that might be something you wanna look at if you're getting involved in Nostra.   Looks like a nice desktop experience, frankly.   Robosat.  

[01:15:09] Kenshin:

It comes I'm sorry. It it comes this version says it comes with a Dave Noster AI assistant. I don't know what that really means other than what it says. So,  

[01:15:20] McIntosh:

he has been talking about that on Noster. Like, he keeps mentioning it, and I guess that's what he's talking about. Dave, I I didn't know. Yeah.   He says it's like a grok, but Interesting. Well Okay. Well, that might be worth taking a look at.   We've also got Robosats, which is one of the peer to peer platforms.   0.7.7alpha.   So I'm not sure I would trust this.   But, if you're into Robosats, you might wanna track that. And then Sparrow, which we've talked about several times today.   New version v dot two dot two dot zero,   looks Dot one. Did I misread that?  

No. Ten hours ago, it came, dot one. So Well, grab that one. But this version,   has mempool, a recent blocks view to help you with your   transaction fees,   and better camera support. And those are probably the two most important things. So if you're running Sparrow, probably worth upgrading. I am planning on doing that myself.  

[01:16:29] Unknown:

Okay?  

[01:16:32] Kenshin:

Cool.  

[01:16:33] McIntosh:

Alright. Well, let's wrap this up. So this was our second live episode, Kenshin. How are you feeling about that? I don't know.   I feel so good. Do we have anybody in there?  

[01:16:47] Kenshin:

Not now. But we had three Three. At some point. Come on, people.  

[01:16:51] McIntosh:

Are we that boring? We can't be that   boring. If you need help getting onboarded with Noster, if you have any interest in joining us on this livestream,   you could go to satoshis-plebs.com/nostr,   and we've got some instructions on there to how to kinda get set up.   We took the route of set up a CoinOS account, which is a lightning wallet, and then set up your   nostril client. And then finally, we talked about how to use nostril dot or a zap dot stream, the tool that we're using for our live stream experience.   I would really like to see that build out. I would like to see more people join us. I would love to see interaction   because the feedback that people could give us   as we are recording   can be invaluable.  

So,   I am looking forward to hopefully the time when when we record. We got twenty, thirty, 50 people in there chatting away, talking about Bitcoin,   you know, throwing   tomatoes at us. I don't know.   Virtual tomatoes.   Virtual tomatoes. But Yep. Alright. Well, let's wrap this up, Kenshin.   You guys can support us. There's a couple of ways. Look. We're value for value podcast. What that means is   we don't have ads. We don't have sponsors. It   is entirely   up to you as to how much frankly we make.   People like Send It Mike,   boosting in, sending us feedback, which we do appreciate greatly,   and supporting us when they do it. He sent in 2,069   sets. So he put his money,   his Satoshis,   where his mouth was, and I appreciate that, Mike.  

We also had some streaming this week. I wanted to mention that as well. We saw that.   I appreciate that a lot.   Aside from those ways of supporting us,   frankly,   we would love to see more people listening to the show as well. You can just grab a hold of somebody and say, hey. Take a listen to Satoshis Plevs podcast. You know, it's a great   podcast. We target beginner to intermediate   Bitcoin users. We bring the news. We bring the macro. Oh,   gosh.   Japan   falling apart. I forgot to mention this. I did not go through my Twitter feed. This was one of the things on it. I am so sorry. This is really important.   Japan's   bond rate went up to   the highest level it's been since the mid eighties, if I'm not mistaken.  

And the Japan   Prime Minister said, we are in more financial trouble than Greece was.   Woah. Yes. That is literally well, he may have said it in Japanese, but that is what he said. I hate it when people say that's literally, and then it's not. I   it drives me crazy. But, yes, that is what he said.   So I don't know what's about to happen to the yen, to the Japanese economy, to any of that, but   but this may be,   the domino that starts the whole thing falling down.   I told you, I'm not gonna be some doom and gloomer on here, but I told you before we started recording,   I think it's about to get real. I think we're about to see major problems, and I didn't tell you this. But with Japan,   followed by China, followed by The United States,   or Europe, or both at the same time.  

Those four areas to me are of grave concern.   We happen to live in two of them.   So what do we do? I don't know other than stay humble, stack sats, and watch Bitcoin go through the roof because that's exactly   what will happen in this scenario. There may be a time period when people   get super scared and dump.   If they do, I will continue to buy as long as I possibly can.   But   this is the environment that Bitcoin was built for   because Fiat is failing.   Now will it catch itself? I don't know, and I'm not gonna make that prediction.   But I know based on what I'm seeing, it's about to get ugly in the next twelve, twenty four months.  

Sorry.   Didn't mean to end on a downer, but I did forget to bring that up in the news, and I thought that was super important. Yeah. It is.  

[01:21:27] Kenshin:

I need to look into it. Yeah.  

[01:21:30] McIntosh:

Our thirty year bond rate just hit   oh, man. What was it? I just saw it right before the show. It's getting up there.   The the   Trump was trying to get the bond rates down, the treasury bills, the treasury bonds for The United States. It is not happening because   because why?   Moody just downgraded us because we're spending more money than we make even though we've got all this   doge going on.   Right?   We're still we've got budgets that go in. They wanna spend a trillion more extra dollars a year. The insanity   that is going on is just crazy.  

[01:22:10] Kenshin:

Wow.   Oh, that's, that's good for Bitcoin.  

[01:22:15] McIntosh:

Well, Bitcoin hit an all time high today. I you know what? Right now, as we finish up, $1.00 $8.04   $5.04. We went up a thousand dollars.   Now look. Maybe it drops back down. Guys, it may hit $1.10, and it may drop to 80. I do not know.   Stop worrying about it. Stack your SATs. Stay humble. Stack SATs like we always say at the end. Right?   I mean, seriously, this is not rocket science. Don't be stupid about this.   Alright. That's enough. We'll stop.  

[01:22:50] Kenshin:

Yeah.   And on that note  

[01:22:55] McIntosh:

And on that note, thanks for being here.  

[01:22:59] Unknown:

We'll talk to y'all soon. Bye. Have a great week.   I've been 1,000,000   on an angel,   10 on a bad idea.   But if I'd known you back in the day, I   just to bail   you, and they're   all gone.   I guess I'll find out if it's true,   but I don't know how   long   till they're all gone. All   gone.