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almostkorean | 3 years ago

This is a huge UX issue for anyone that wants to self-custody. In the same spirit as the OP, people are working on solutions for this. Vitalik posted about it last year: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html. I don't know the technical details, but Coinbase is launching a wallet system where the private key is "split" between the user and Coinbase.

After explaining improvements to this specific issue, it still feels like way too much friction for the average person to deal with. I think there will be more improvements as time goes on but maybe that's just the cost of doing self-custody. In the end, I guess it's up to the individual to decide whether it's worth it or not.

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senttoschool|3 years ago

But you're still putting your trust into a centralized organization (Coinbase). So we're back to square one.

almostkorean|3 years ago

I was talking about Coinbase MPC wallet, where they have part of your private key. I think that's pretty far from back to square one, is it not? You still own your private keys but are trusting a centralized organization to keep the other, so it would require both parties to be hacked for the wallet to be at risk.