Quote from: makrospex on December 07, 2019, 10:51:48 PM

Quote from: AlcoHoDL on December 07, 2019, 10:43:04 PM

Quote from: makrospex on December 07, 2019, 10:27:09 PM

By the way:
This week i was up for a visit to the bank. A bank of which i am not a customer.
As i don't really want to keep my seeds and (future) paper wallets at home, i asked for the price of a safe and if the contents are insured an all.
Mr. bankster asked me about the value and physical size of the entities i plan to put in there, so i said it would be foldable paper and a handful of items of the size of a matchbox. When he asked me for the value, which determines price and insurance, i said it is volatile in value and it might be anything between x1 (by current btc price) and x100 or even more in the next 30-50 years. So Mr. bankster said he has to contact his boss, who is the local manager of the safe, who in turn should call me on the same afternoon for speaking about details and possibilities.
I never heard of them again, no call from either of the two.

Well, this leaves me with the impression that safes seem to be a pain in the ass for banks (or this bank only, idk).
I found it quite unfair to base the price to rent a safe on the value of the content. Insurance, yes, that didn't surprise me that much. Seems like they out the amount which was estimated the value of the safe contents for. I can't just pay only for the safe and insurance covers the value of all that's in it, in case of physical desctruction, theft and loss.

Trying to get useful service from a notary will be coming next. I'll keep you posted.

No need for a safe. With Bitcoin, you are the bank! Just follow these simple steps:

1. Get a Trezor or Ledger.
2. Initialize it and write down the recovery seed.
3. Use an additional passphrase and keep it in your head (don't write it down).
4. Transfer your coins to that wallet (seed + passphrase).
5. Store the seed (but not the passphrase) in 3-4 separate places.
6. Done! Your coins are more secure than any vault in Zürich.

That's the beauty of Bitcoin. Being non-physical has its perks!
Now, try do this with gold or silver...

That's how i planned to do it originally, since i already have the ledger, but i wanted to keep it for active future use, with a small amount on it. A second one wouldn't be bad, i guess, but the main reason for keeping cold storage in a secured place is the "thug-with-a-hammer case", for example. If a family member gets kidnapped, i will have to get to the safe, for example, and i could call for professional help by asking an employee, without the bad guys knowing.
Just going through possible cases in my mind...

Valid concerns. What you can do in the "thug-with-a-hammer case", is to store a very small amount of coins in the wallet that corresponds to the seed alone (without a passphrase), or use a second, decoy passphrase. So, if anyone comes with a $5 wrench and tries to torture you, try to resist as much as you can, and then reveal the decoy passphrase. Let him have whatever small amount you've put in there.

Perhaps an extreme case of plausible deniability would be this example:

You have 100 BTC. You store 1 BTC in the wallet with just the seed (no passphrase). You store 5 BTC in the wallet with the decoy passphrase. You store the remaining 94 BTC in the wallet with the main passphrase (which you NEVER reveal).

Thug-with-a-hammer kidnaps you and starts torturing you. You play difficult, but soon enough you reveal the seed. He gets your 1 BTC and sets you free. That's the best-case scenario. But he may be smart... He suspects you have an additional passphrase, so he tortures you more. You resist, and at some point you "break" and reveal the decoy passphrase in crying tears... You beg him to leave you the 1 BTC and take the 5. He grabs everything (of course) and leaves. You still have 94 BTC.

All of the above can be done with only one Trezor or Ledger, and there is no way for anyone to tell how many passphrases you're using in addition to the seed. In fact, you're already using an infinite number of passphrases (wallets), they're just empty. It's an immensely beautiful mathematical construct.

The above example seems quite extreme, I know, but soon we'll be hearing about such kidnappings, and we must be prepared. Bitcoin, being non-physical, is a double-edged sword. That's why it's a stupid, immature thing to boast and advertise how much BTC you have. Because if you're stupid enough to advertise you have 100 BTC, you can be absolutely sure that the "thug-with-a-hammer" will torture you like hell until you give him all your coins...