The second sort of category of things you
need to consider when you're holding your Own cryptocurrencies by yourself is how will
you retrieve and use it do you need a hardware Wallet do does that Hardware wallet require its
own battery power or does it require a separate Device is that something that you want to have be
part of a retrieval and use mechanism or do you Want it to be something that can very easily be
passed on and I brought some visual aids for that Got a device here that's by elliepal called the
Titan mini right it's it they say it's mini but You know it's not tiny exactly it does have its
own battery though and it can be operated without The use of a secondary device or a computer same
with the foundation devices passport too Bitcoin Only but if that describes a member of your
audience it's absolutely Best in Class nothing Comes close and uh has its own battery has its
own operating system has its own encrypted backup System that would allow you to make backups make
backups of your backups and store those in various Places which we'll talk about in a minute and
then of course they're The Usual Suspects between Ledger and trezor um they're they're trusted
by millions they are battle tested and there's So much documentation on how they work [Music]
your cryptocurrency is at risk if you leave it On an exchange or with any kind of centralized
third party there are ways to protect your Cryptocurrency but you have to take responsibility
there are a lot of questions how do I do that Where do I start well today we are joined by
Seth mind your Biz he is a tech trainer former Microsoft Google Samsung Dell besides Satoshi
Nakamoto himself this is the guy to talk to to Learn everything we need to know about how best to
protect your valuable cryptocurrency Seth how are You doing today I'm doing great thank you so much
I I am going to ask you to walk back that comment About me being second only to Satoshi I think
that uh Craig Wright would take exception to that Just throwing that out there Seth Seth Seth for
the folks at home can you please give our audience Your background I've known you for a while but
for the folks at home tell us about your Tech Background absolutely so as you mentioned before
uh last major Tech Fortune 50 company that I Worked for was Microsoft and my job role there
was a senior National trainer um I ushered in The era of Windows 10 if you remember when that
was all being rolled out and so in some small Way I feel responsible for all of the Telemetry
and and frankly spying that these companies do On people because I I worked with these sales
people who made it seem like a convincing thing To adopt in our lives so since that time I've
really gone head first into the free and open Source software movement the digital personal
identifying information encryption movement I Love what the Electronic Frontier Foundation and
groups like it are doing in the space and so I Fancy myself not only a privacy Advocate but now
a cryptocurrency educator and like you mentioned A still just a tech trainer but that I've really
focused on those technologies that help empower The individual and a lot of them well they're
free and open source but they're also Priceless so
Yeah that's that's where I'm at now I love it so
let's jump right into it I mean first of all Seth Why is self-custody so important self-custody is
everything in a world where the cloud makes it Convenient to just leave all of your photos
with them convenient to leave all of your Contact information with them and convenient to
sometimes even write your personal Communications Like you know when you're in Gmail having an
email Auto drafted for you and auto completing Your sentences if we don't watch ourselves and we
don't start to take a little more accountability For owning all these things we may find that that
even our very brain power and our own identities Are being taken over by some kind of an AI or
algorithm somewhere so it is in part it's being A sovereign individual it's being a person
that can grow and and has the opportunity to Make mistakes along the way too during that that
growth period and that requires that you not be Canceled over making dumb mistakes or saying dumb
things or maybe spending on something that you Didn't want somebody else to know that you spent
something on because you view it as a mistake And uh and yeah if we don't know how to properly
take care of our own uh Speech and our own spend Then we can't have that future that's taken away
from us so too much convenience is a bad thing So I want to know how to solve custody there's
so many different you know things I don't know Where to begin Seth help me understand how
best I can do this All right so I'm using A free tool at diagrams.net this is free and open
source and there is a desktop application if you Wanted to just write notes like this and save
it to whatever cloud storage or locally if you Felt like it this is a written out guideline and
the very first step Aaron is threat modeling and Most people ask what's thread modeling well
very simply it's paying attention to every Possible attack surface that you have in terms
of your self-custody for cryptos right to ensure Your speech and your spending specifically um not
necessarily in that order but but you're spending With crypto and you've got to pay attention
to the minute threats that are social you May live in a place where for whatever reason
people around you just view owning your own Cryptocurrency and holding your own cryptocurrency
as a problem and so they may be willing to create Additional issues for you in holding your own
cryptocurrencies it may be political you may Live in a territory of the world where there's a
shifting landscape in the regulatory environment And you're not really certain what that's going
to look like from from one day to the next here In the United States I think I mentioned this
to Austin the last time I was on your Channel From one day to the next we were able to recommend
tornado cash without any concern at all and the Following day it was totally illegal we would have
been committing a an act of treason against our Government based on the U.S treasury's mandate
not to use this tool and so that can change we Need to factor that in when we're figuring out how
to custody our crypto assets and then Financial Threats would be such as a bank or other lending
institution any other financial services that you
Interact with on a regular basis who might make
your life difficult as you transition from letting Somebody else custody your crypto to holding it
yourself in addition that threat model needs to Include succession planning Aaron I don't know
if anyone's told you lately but um at the end I'm Going to give you a spoiler for life at the end
everybody dies and yeah what there's yeah there's No avoiding it that's a spoiler right it's like
it's like if you ever watched that Titanic about Sinks in the end we all like all of our boats
sink in the end and so knowing what to do with our Cryptocurrencies at the end if we're not careful
we can take it with us or we can functionally do What's called a coin burn and there are millions
of Bitcoin already that have been lost because Of this people not making sure that anyone else
could use their crypto after they died and having Those coins no longer be retrievable are there
people that I want to make sure have access if So who's on that short list and how do I share
that with them so asking the question is the Very first step you will find Solutions there
are there are many I'm not going to mention any Of those by name right now but multisig is just
one that I'll mention early on partial custody Would be such as a multi-sig it may be for the
purpose of wealth preservation uh vis-a-vis and Ira or a living trust or something else where
there needs to be a third party executor based On the way that those instrument governments are
set up today for other asset classes you would Need to ensure that to be compliant that you have
partial custody of your cryptos with that person Or with that executor and I know it doesn't fit
perfectly the ethos of the cyberpunk only the you Know Sovereign self-custody but there are some
people for whom that's the only option there's Some people who have special circumstances or
special needs in their family literally somebody Who may not be uh who may be aging out of their
ability to custody their own their own cryptos And so knowing how how that looks that's where
compromise May been and you need to pay very close Attention in that first step of threat modeling
to any potential threats in that partial custody Scheme that you choose so just know estate
planning is messy in the best of circumstances It's messy but with crypto it's actually even
more difficult so so tackle those hard questions As early as you can and have that you know be
formulating that plan while you do that those Are all things that the audience at home needs
to think about when doing this themselves they're Not going to get into specifics for those right
here but when you're doing this yourself these Are all things you need to think about 100 and
if you need to include the advice of a certified Financial planner or a certified financial advisor
somebody who has those credentials by all means in The end they're probably worth their fee go find
somebody who has expertise with cryptocurrencies And then work with them because they will
save your family a lot of Heartache in the end Um Aaron I know that you've been in the space
long enough that you and I both we have edge Cases and in our friends and family where there
has been tragic loss of life and associated with
It tragic loss of their cryptocurrencies with
no ability to take care of those who are left Behind so this is an important question to tackle
early on the second sort of category of things you Need to consider when you're holding your own
cryptocurrencies by yourself is how will you Retrieve and use it do you need a hardware wallet
do does that Hardware wallet require its own Battery power or does it require a separate device
is that something that you want to have be part of The retrieval and use mechanism or do you want it
to be something that can very easily be passed on And I brought some visual aids for that got advice
here that's uh that's by elliepal called the Titan Mini right it's it they say it's mini but you
know it's not tiny exactly it does have its own Battery though and it can be operated without
the use of a secondary device or a computer Same with the foundation devices passport to
bitcoin only but if that describes a member Of your audience it's absolutely Best in Class
nothing comes close and uh has its own battery Has its own operating system has its own encrypted
backup system that would allow you to make backups Make backups of your backups and store those in
various places which we'll talk about in a minute And then of course they're The Usual Suspects
between Leisure Ledger Ledger and trezor Um they're they're trusted by millions they are
battle tested and there's so much documentation on How they work that uh that it's easy to know how
those will work for you but could a third party If they needed to and they were authorized by you
could they pick up that device could they use it Plan for that and then of course being able to use
multiple signatures to secure your funds between Maybe yourself and a uh an executor of your estate
or yourself and a trusted loved one loved one or A family member a friend that's something you
have to figure out in terms of retrieval and use Could you do this alone could you do this or could
somebody else do it if you were incapacitated or Unavailable and how many people would it take
so those are questions again that I don't have A hard answer to anybody in your audience but that
they'll have to ask themselves and figure out for Their situation I like it dude very helpful I
think when people come in they just they hear Ledger or treasure but they don't really think
about some of this other stuff yeah it it I've I Mean part of what I do right now is I've helped in
uh working with the compliance the finance and the Executive as well as operations teams of a uh of a
a talent management agency that needed to custody Its own crypto and had to work with all those
four departments to gain mind share in coming Up with a proper threat model and the proper
procedure for accepting cryptocurrencies paying Out cryptocurrencies accounting for them this
can look very different between institutions and Individuals but the questions are the same so yeah
appreciate that the last part is the one that most People jump into and like you said they're like oh
cool well I see a referral Link in the description Which it's a good idea to have these tools right
but they are just tools until you have a plan And they normally jump to this one and that is
your plan is really just a preemptive response
To threats and if you haven't thought through
those threats you're not really working through A plan you're just grabbing another tool you
need to figure out how to use it with that plan So yeah maybe get a hardware wallet maybe
get an offline seed phrase backup it can be A metal plate or it can be one of these resin
dipped paper you know devices or it can be uh Still in folio or block yeah the stonefolio
where you write in it with glow-in-the-dark Ink or something what or yeah there are so many
different solutions there but again based on your Threat model you'll know what's right for you so
don't get hung up on the exact like how figure out Like what you're defending against and why and
then the how becomes a lot more obvious for you Um and then what I will say is these last two
points Aaron these are very near and dear to Me because a lot of people they don't know it
yet but they they get to that final test maybe Somebody in their life is passing away maybe they
themselves don't know that they're about to to Face the ultimate test of their security model and
it fails because they don't have a backup in the Data security of the infosec communities there's
this joke that one equals zero and two equals one That has to do with backups if you only had one
uh one device that contained everything without a Backup then that means that if this is broken you
don't have anything at all if you had two right Two wallets that mirrored the same seed phrase
or that had the same information on it then all Of a sudden if you're if one gets destroyed or is
missing or compromised you still have actually one So backing up your backups is essential that's why
I like for the bitcoiners in the audience that's Why I'm I'm so happy that the foundation device is
uh crew send me this for evaluation and I love the Way that it works because it actually has a full
backup that is encrypted so you could put this Say in a safety deposit box without concern um
which brings me to the last point encryption Is not a crime at least not yet um not here in
the United States it depends on no no you're if You're a ham radio operator right if you're you're
a shortwave radio operator actually encryption is A crime don't do that like there there are some
limitations to encryption just like how there's Some limitations to to free speech you can't
walk into a theater and say certain things Really loud right you will get arrested um if you
if you try that out can't walk into an airport Or onto an airplane and just and just Shout
Whatever words you want some words will get you Forcefully ejected but with that with encryption
you can take the backups of your seed phrase you Can take the backups of your wallet information
and you can just know that if this fell into Somebody else's hands you could hand it straight
over to whoever you you view your adversary to Be maybe it's your mother-in-law but uh hand it
to your mother-in-law and she says oh finally I Have your crypto wallets okay good luck with that
it's encrypted so it gives you a lot more options For how you create those backups of your of your
backups and all of a sudden what was just a very Simple security plan you now got backups of your
your crypto the way that you know Voldemort has
Horcruxes you're just you know you got to lock
down you're good and I think that's probably the The most important thing that I hope anybody from
your audience takes away Aaron is that encryption Working from that direction up helps to protect a
lot of your other plans and helps you to protect A lot of the uh the speech that you have while
you're making those plans and a little anecdote is My my accountant used to hate me I would encrypt
my tax papers right when I'm emailing with my my Accountant I mean back in 2009 2010 um because
he would say like okay well this is so annoying Why do you why do you encrypt the attachment of
you know these filing documents and then why do You text me the password separately well
because it's two factors of Authentication Um but I'll tell you this I've never had anyone
fraudulently intervene uh with my taxes I've Never had anyone commit wire fraud on real estate
that I purchased and I've never had any kind of a Major knock on wood major problem with any
other Financial or cryptocurrency data of Mine because I use encryption religiously and
I back up my backups and it's not a crime yet Yeah knock on wood if you do ever see anything
like that like I would ask your audience just very Much consider that what you lose if you vote for
any kind of a political measure that allows for Universal back doors on encryption because things
that you think should be sacrosanct right uh Love Letters from your significant other that you want
to put into a time capsule photos of your children Innocently bathing as as children that are
intended just for you and and their other parent Right uh thing things that would have not even
been considered controversial in an analog world Now being considered suspect and only because a
third party was able to gain unauthorized access To it I I don't want to live in that world and I
don't want to live in the world like that I didn't Even think about it like that dude you're right
though that's crazy you know people want to use Centralized exchanges to do trading people might
want to use products like Celsius to get yield What do you say to those people is it not worth
it or how should somebody go about interacting Well I think that when it comes to high promised
yield it's always very tempting but 30 of zero Is still zero and unfortunately my heart goes out
to members of your audience that had their funds Locked up on Celsius but they found out the hard
way that the highest available yield from any of The pairs that they that they offered there or
any of the assets that they offered staking and Interest on have resulted in zero gains so yeah
it's I think we should be very suspect of anything Like this we should be very wary of any kind of
a centralized yield product and any centralized Platform that claims that there's great Alpha
right you know great gains available we've seen It too many times especially in this last cycle
we've been burned three times how many more times Do we need to be burned before we stop touching
the hot stove of centralized yield that that's a Question I guess only you can answer true you take
on the risk it's up to you do your own research Understand the risks I encourage everybody to go
subscribe to Seth follow them on Twitter as well
I'll leave links to that in the description
final thoughts for the altcoin daily audience Just that encryption is not a crime yet use it
download free and open source tools like signal And ask your loved ones to start using it make
encryption and make privacy tools normal they're Not a crime right now and if you just use them
to communicate with your loved ones then you Know the the stigma is gone it's not just for
drug dealers and bad people frankly it never Was but you can help generalize it cool thanks
so much for coming on today Seth my pleasure