[codegladiator]

> Has worked as designed for almost a decade

"worked as designed" can be said for every thing. Everything works as designed. Yet gets hacked/stolen/cracked/misused. Banks are working as designed. And so is the government. Just that the majority will dislike the design because they have no say in it.

> You can store them yourself, no bank needed

And then you can loose it yourself too. Remove all the safeguards which was built thru decades of learning and allow everyone to shoot themselves and everyone else in the foot.

[pixie_]

If there were a bug found in a crypto currency, it could easily be worth zero the next day.

The fact that the current blockchain design has withstood people trying to break it for so long gives the currency a greater value.

Would you rather store value in a crypto that is a brand new design, or something that has withstood the test of time?

[tromp]

> And then you can loose it yourself too.

Admittedly, hardware wallets do a good job of keeping your private keys secure, allowing you to safely transact even on a malware infested PC.

[codegladiator]

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having soft currency ? Hardware wallets sure can be stolen physically right ? Leaving that chuck of currency useless (if not transferred fraudulently)

[Anderkent]

Think of a hardware wallet as of a credit card. You will have some mechanism protecting it from being used when you're not next to it (password/pin); you will have some cold recovery option if you lose it (like a long passphrase stored in a safe deposit box).

But, like a credit card, the send/receive operations are performed on a secure, limited scope system (rather than an easily-compromised PC)

[xorcist]

That point bears repeating: if you hold a wallet, you are responsible for having backups. It's very valuable data.

Either use two or more hardware wallets or keep a paper wallet (a printout of the private keys) in a secure place.