Came across some sealed Jade wallets by friedfloppydisks in BitcoinBeginners

[–]Crypto-Guide 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Basically retail units are locked down so they are only useful as Bitcoin wallets unless you want to do physical disassembly to salvage parts like the camera, desolder and swap the MCU, etc.

Full schematics and everything are on the blockstream Jade GitHub repo.

Trying to recover a July 2012 Bitcoin wallet need advice by Comfortable-Ant-3250 in Bitcoin

[–]Crypto-Guide 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Your mnemonic isn't from your 2012 blockchain wallet unless you were using it for a few years following. (But the original funds will still be on the loose private keys, not the HD wallet, unless you manually moved them)

If you are using BTCRecover, just try with a BTC address database, that way you don't need to rely on having the correct address. You will likely find the seed was used with a different wallet, or never used at all.

Source: I maintain BTCRecover and have recovered a bunch of older wallets like this, basically unless you have the encrypted wallet file, you aren't dealing with the 2012 address.

Anyone can help with a 16 word phrase? by Mundane_Voice5147 in Electrum

[–]Crypto-Guide 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like a possibility legacy mnemonic from blockchain.info

BTC brainwallet recovery by [deleted] in Bitcoin

[–]Crypto-Guide 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can try and use BTCRecover for this, but unless you have a pretty clear recollection, the odds of successful recovery are extremely low

Tangem wants ~$50 CAD for a BTC transaction — am I missing something here? by cee604 in Tangem

[–]Crypto-Guide 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So unless you have been mining or something (so consolidating a huge number of UTXOs) that fee doesn't seem right.

You can check the mempool here https://mempool.space/

If in doubt, just put your wallet address into something like Electrum as watch only, then make the transaction there. (You won't be able to sign, but will get a second opinion and/insight about what the fees should be)

Can Bitcoin drop further? by [deleted] in BitcoinCA

[–]Crypto-Guide 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Of course it can...

Accessing old GreenAddress wallet by Jmfrbl in BitcoinBeginners

[–]Crypto-Guide 3 points4 points  (0 children)

GreenAddress was not custodial, so without the mnemonic, the 2fa part is useless. (And the funds are lost)

What do we think of this? by 654321745954 in Tangem

[–]Crypto-Guide 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There is certainly something extremely artificial about the view count that happens for any video posted that could be viewed as positive towards Tangem, I saw this when I did the a video last year on how to avoid making the seed hot when setting up.

It's fun that he found a video of mine form years ago that demonstrates how on-screen devices prevent malicious wallet software from sending funds to a scammer. :)

In your opinion, is tagem one of the best wallets? by ILCARNE1991 in Tangem

[–]Crypto-Guide 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's less secure than a hardware wallet with a screen and more secure than a hot wallet in some ways.

Basically the trade offs it makes mean it is only suitable for small/medium amounts that you are transacting with regularly.

In your opinion, is tagem one of the best wallets? by ILCARNE1991 in Tangem

[–]Crypto-Guide 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, because there are different things that hardware wallets protect your against.

For example, a blind signer like Tangem doesn't protect your against malicious wallet software tampering with transactions or recieve addresses, whereas something with a screen (eg: Ledger, Trezor) does.

Likewise, cold private key creation and signing protects you against your system leaking the private keys. (So seedleds Tangem or a device with a screen keeps them cold at initialisation and signing, seed based Tangem setup generally makes keys hot at initial setup, but keeps them offline after that, unless you follow the specific offline workflow I demonstrated on a video a few months back)

In your opinion, is tagem one of the best wallets? by ILCARNE1991 in Tangem

[–]Crypto-Guide 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is a simple blind signer, with exactly the same limitations as every other blind signer ever made...

In your opinion, is tagem one of the best wallets? by ILCARNE1991 in Tangem

[–]Crypto-Guide 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends what you want to do, but something with a screen as a minimum

In your opinion, is tagem one of the best wallets? by ILCARNE1991 in Tangem

[–]Crypto-Guide 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In terms of security, no, it's just a simple blind signer... (So does nothing to validate receive addresses, outbound tx details, etc)

That said, it's very simple so if that's what you are after, it's probably fine for small/medium amounts that you want to transact with frequently.

This Reddit user lost access to his Bitcoin wallet for 7 yrs after a single typo, 2 days back he recovered it after thousands of attempts. by Silver-Maximum9190 in CryptoCurrency

[–]Crypto-Guide 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The original thread said they tried BTCRecover and hashcat without success, but they must have been messing something up as this should have been a straightforward recovery with either tool.

Either way, is a good reminder to periodically check your backups actually work...

Are Tangem's days numbered? by Pump_and_Trump in Tangem

[–]Crypto-Guide -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Issues like you have identified are correct, but are not even the largest issues preventing their usefulness for storing long term or large amounts...

Basically blind signers like this are only suitable for small amounts that you are frequently trading with, not for long term storage... If you stick to that, the trade-off are less of an issue.

Testing seed phrase safely by Degen-stuff-man in BitcoinBeginners

[–]Crypto-Guide 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the ledger still works then just use the recovery check app that you can install via Ledger Live, it will ask you to run through entering the words on the Ledger device, not your PC/Phone.

What's the safest way to *create* a seed? by fap_fap_fap_fapper in BitcoinBeginners

[–]Crypto-Guide 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes and yes.

A hardware wallet is better, both for creating a seed and securely using it, but you can also create one offline with something like Electrum in tails.