[Aurornis]

That’s also a downside: When your funds can be transferred away by anyone who happens to acquire the key without triggering any fraud prevention or additional verification checks, losing your entire bank account at 4AM Sunday morning becomes much easier.

[tucnak]

This is why people who happen to own significant amount of crypto typically get hardware wallets

[aurareturn]

Yes, let's go back to hiding cash and gold under our beds. Maybe buy a machine gun so you can defend it from home intruders.

[RobotToaster]

> Yes, let's go back to hiding [...] gold under our beds

The people that did exactly that never had to worry about (hyper)inflation...

[Aurornis]

The currency is never the only asset or unit of trade in an economy. As long as value and wealth were being created somewhere, inflation can exist.

Gold is interesting because more of it was being mined and produced all the time. There wasn’t even a finite amount of gold.

Thinking that a gold standard means no inflation (or in practical terms, deflation as the population grows) is a modern fantasy.

[compass_copium]

In addition to the security issues, they would have to deal with non-negligible transaction costs every time they wanted to convert it to actual money so that they could purchase something. If they were using it as an investment, they had to deal with the opportunity cost of underperforming $SPY.

[pjerem]

Still, they have to worry about them and their family not being kidnapped.

Oh but hey, checkmate, burglar who is threatening to cut my daughter’s finger, my wallet is multisig !

[alcazar]

It really comes down to the burglar's expectations. If most crypto holders used geographically separated multi-sig, these attacks wouldn't be worth the effort anymore.

It’s the same logic as iPhones bricking themselves after being stolen. Even if your specific phone isn't an iPhone, the fact that most phones are now useless to thieves discourages the crime across the board.

[mschild]

That would make it a single point of failure, no? Not a good idea if your company is riding on it.

[tucnak]

multisig exists

[dsr_]

Cryptocurrency recapitulates the history of the modern banking system, and illustrates the necessity of regulation on a daily basis.

[alcazar]

We only get better wheels by reinventing them.

Our knowledge is constantly expanding, allowing us to build things differently than we used to. Modern cryptography, which makes things like multi-sig possible, is only a few decades old; it didn't even exist when the current banking industry was being established.

[learingsci]

Doesn’t that mean a home invader can break in, torture you a bit and walk off with your millions?

[duttish]

I think there was a rash of this kind of this kind of wrench cryptocurrency robberies in the Netherlands a few years ago.

Break in, bash owner about with a wrench, get coins. <Insert xkcd>

[aurareturn]

Yep, the meme in crypto community is that you can have all the digital security possible but it'll lose to the $5 wrench attack.

[alcazar]

This isn’t just a problem in the Netherlands or a thing of the past. 2025 actually saw the highest number of attacks ever recorded [0].

There are ways to prevent this. Like using multi-sig with geographical separation (so you can't move funds alone) or setting up forced time-delays. Ultimately, being your own bank is a massive responsibility, and I think too many people take that reality too lightly.

0: https://stats.glok.me/

[fragmede]

xkcd 538, that is