Quote from: pigsonthemoon on December 23, 2024, 10:25:43 AM

Hi, I would like to open a discussion about an idea which I have since couple of months. So maybe some people here are interesting in joining this discussion.

I think one of the biggest challenge with Bitcoin is that there is no standard process to recover a private key. When you lose it, it's gone. You are fully responsible for keeping it secure, but also to keep it safe. This gets a lot of people out of Bitcoin, because all of sudden, they become fully responsible for their own money. It's like you have a lot of cash, and now only you need to make sure that you (A) you hide it to prevent it from being stolen (B) you never forget where you have hidden all your money.

Because it's difficult to solve a and b together, it becomes easier to trust a third party like a bank. Most people have other problems than constantly worrying about their money, which is, of course a good thing

So, if would have a physical key to my secure deposit, i would hand over a copy to the most trustful person in my life (which is usually a partner or someone within your family). But you can also slice the key into smaller chunks, and give it to some of your friends, where you know only them together can open it up. And if one friend disappears, the others can still open it. As far as I understood, this is multi-sig, which already exists for Bitcoin.

Now, the crucial question: Could the name (or let's say some identifier) of my friends somwhere be stored secure, in an encrypted way? The "name" of my friends would usually something like a SIM or MAC address; in TCP/IP stack at network layer (or physical link in OSI model). Because this is where we all get connected, either with a modem at home (for fix line access), or with a SIM card for mobile networks. And I would argue that most of people using Bitcoin have either one of those two access (unless you are constlantly using public WiFi / enterprise WiFi).

So if we could bring this part into Bitcoin, we could probably solve the issue with lost keys. It doesn't mean that anyone has to use it, but for those you want to define some people who could act as a backup, that would be awesome, if this gets standardized, and without having any other blockchain, token etc.

Because if that's the case, I could define a group of real people, which are able to recover my key, in case I would lose my key, e.g.

Alice
Bob
Charlie
David
Eve
Frank
Grace

Out of these 7, at least random 5 people must agree to unlock the key. Or Alice & Bob can do it alone, because they are my kids, and I trust them that they would never steal my money. Because we trust people in our life all the time, and, at least my perspective as a bitcoiner, I would rather trust some very close people around me than an anonymous institution like a bank, to solve problem (B) from my introduction text..

I know this is probably the part of multi-sig (which I don't fully understand technically, but the concept).

But I think the issue is, that those people should not have to carry part of this key with them, but rather having is somehow automatically technically assigned in a way they access the internet (and this data being encrypted).
For mobile network access (SIM), there are MSISDN (phone number), IMSI, ICCID, IMEI (device)
For fixed network access (depending on technology, if xDSL, Docsis or Fiber) it's MSIDN (phone number), OTO number, and/or MAC.

Of course there are some other identifiers which could be used. And the tricky thing is they can change over time (SIM switch, network operator switch, relocation etc.) But it's unlikely that all identifiers change for all of your 7 people immediately, under "normal" circumstances.

But I am basically wondering if it's possible to use something from the network layer and combine it with the application layer (where Bitcoin is, at least from my understanding how the internet is working)

And yes, this may break anonymity for people, but made for some people it's a good trade off.

Happy to hear some good input

I hope I could explain a bit the idea.

Hi,

You've outlined an intriguing concept for improving the security and recoverability of Bitcoin private keys using a form of multi-signature (multi-sig) and network-layer identifiers like SIM or MAC addresses. By involving trusted friends and family members and leveraging network access identifiers, you aim to create a secure and practical method to recover lost keys without sacrificing complete control over one's assets. This could help more people feel secure in their Bitcoin ownership by providing a fallback mechanism through trusted individuals. It's an innovative idea that could indeed find interest in the crypto community!

olivia36mcdowell

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