Quote from: walletrecoveryservices on February 21, 2016, 02:31:58 AM

Quote from: molecular on February 19, 2016, 11:50:01 AM

@Dave: I've always wondered: how do you make sure you get your cut in case someone used the method where he doesn't share the keys?

Hi Molecular.
As you know, the method of producing 'limited' wallet information from a bitcoin-core wallet has been proven to be 'safe' for the owner of the wallet. By this, I mean that if someone sends me the limited wallet information, there is literally no way for me to take possession of the coins.
So, in answer to your question... I have no way of being sure of my cut in this situation. In practise, I have been very pleasantly surprised by the number of people who are honest enough to send me my success fee when I have helped them recover their money. I would say that fewer than 15% have reneged on their part of the deal. Given that most people that contact me remain anonymous, that is surprisingly low. I guess that when you are looking at losing the entire amount of bitcoins, then to receive typically 80% of them back is pretty pleasing, and most do pay me the fee.
To add to this explanation, in fact most people these days just send me their wallet.dat file directly. I guess that I've been around long enough, and gained enough trust for people to feel comfortable doing that.
Plus other wallet formats (like armory, BitGo, airbitz, BIP38, Eth-pre-sale, etc) do not even have the ability to send 'trustless', limited wallet information, so those people just send me their wallet file.
I am well aware that my business model relies heavily upon trust and my reputation, so I ensure that I act honestly at all times with my clients (who now number over 900).
Cheers
Dave

"over 900"?!? That's pretty damn impressive.

It's pretty interesting about the people trusting you when they actually wouldn't have to. They choose the perceived risk of trusting you above the hassle of going through using some obscure process to treat the wallet.dat with.

Almost seems man wants to trust. Makes him feel warm and cozy inside, I guess. Probably this was at some point (maybe still is?) an evolutionary advantage.

I wonder what this means regarding our beloved trustless currency. Will people be easily lured into possibly dangerous offchain schemes because they're easier to use? We've actually already seen this: mtGox. It was just easier and more convenient (ready to trade) to keep the coins on the exchange.
I used to comfort myself with the fact that a "bank run" would always be possible. But looking at the blocksize limit freeze, bank runs might be slow and costly. Thing about bank runs: they need to be quick to be effective. If there's transaction backlog the "bank" has the luxury of time and thus remains capable of acting. The threat of a run is therefore greatly reduced.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent there.

keep up the great work, Dave.
over 900! wow.