This article is not sponsored and contains no referral links to any products. I acquired all mentioned hardware wallets at my own cost.

TL;DR: BitBox02 is a quality and well balanced hardware wallet good for general public and small-to-medium funds. There are some controversial design choices. Power users will still prefer Coldcard MK3.

What I find nice

• Similar to Coldcard, BitBox02 employs the “best of both worlds” approach to open-source vs secure-element and packages it into a less scary (but less powerful) UX.
• BitBox App (desktop/mobile) is exemplary with respect to security copywriting and security usability. It carefully onboards and teaches a newbie user…

It’s pretty well established DeFi is actually CeFi — centralized finance — as ultimately there are always some actors running the show from behind the curtains, at least in the Ethereum smart contracts world. There is tons of counter party risks involved.

However, decentralization is just means to an end. The end goal is uncensored, parallel financial system resistant to regulations and tyranny of the state.

Surprisingly, on that front DeFi is actually delivering some value. Instead of comprehensive decentralization, DeFi employs layered obfuscation.

DeFi goes well beyond usual “blockchain” obfuscation layer. A web of cooperating smart contracts is a…

A pro-tip regarding connecting Ledger Nano S to your Electrum desktop wallet.

If you face the following error:

Failed to create a client for this device. Make sure it is in the correct state.

error getting device info

open failed

Remember that you need to:

1. Close Electrum wallet
2. Run Ledger Live
3. Install the Bitcoin app via Ledger Live
4. Start the Bitcoin app on the Ledger — the Ledger should display “Use wallet to view accounts”
5. Close Ledger Live
6. Only then run your Electrum wallet and pick hardware device

Hope this helps!

The hardest thing about backups is not preventing data loss but preventing data leakage, either by accident or by targeted attack.

Requirements

Here are my personal requirements for a backup solution:

• Locally encrypted. Solution must natively support modern authenticated encryption. Files metadata must also be encrypted. Archive structure must ensure it is not possible to reason about existence of specific files in a backup (for example, based on size proximity).
• Offsite. Backing up to external HDD or NAS is a no-go. That wouldn’t protect from malware, theft, fire or confiscation by LE. …

It’s very simple (but not documented) for byte arrays of 1 to 32 elements:

use rand::Rng;

fn main() {
    let random_bytes = rand::thread_rng().gen::<[u8; 32]>();
    println!("{:?}", random_bytes);
}

If you need more than 32 random bytes than this is one way to do it (although I am not sure if it’s optimal):

use rand::Rng;

fn main() {
    let random_bytes: Vec<u8> = (0..1024).map(|_| { rand::random::<u8>() }).collect();
    println!("{:?}", random_bytes);
}

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-521_en.htm

Quote: “Technologies like blockchain can help reduce costs while increasing trust, traceability and security”.

Let’s tackle this one by one.

Blockchain

Firstly, they failed to recognize that invention was never about the dumb blockchain data structure, which simply serves to batch transactions. It was always about decentralized cryptocurrencies — digital scarcity, censorship resistance of financial transactions, and seizure resistance of ownership.

Reduced costs

Secondly, decentralized systems (what they mean with “blockchain”) are more expensive and less efficient to run and maintain than centralized ones. The “reduced costs” point is completely misguided. Related invention was never about cost minimization.

Traceability

Thirdly, they quote traceability…

(I changed “kill” to “centralize” in the title to make it more specific; although in my book it’s the same in context of decentralized cryptocurrencies)

Every few weeks there is a new “next big thing” coin or token shilled and taking over CoinMarketCap by storm. Recently, Nano coin (formerly RaiBlocks) seems to be the “wonder” cryptocurrency. Nano is only live since Oct 2017 and already valued over 2 billion dollars.

Nano does not feel like a scam. It’s a genuine 3+ years effort by a single programmer, a new codebase. …

I propose a simple test to group cryptocurrencies into “state compatible” and “uncensorable”.

This is to make things transparent for users and investors, so they can consciously pick cryptocurrencies appropriate for their individual needs.

The test covers three areas: payments, data and contracts and runs as follows:

• Is it possible to block or reverse payments that are considered strictly illegal in most jurisdictions? (say, payments to radical groups)
• Is it possible to block or reverse embedding data that are considered strictly illegal in most jurisdictions? (say, leaked military secrets)
• Is it possible to block running a contract that is considered…