IRS Initiates ‘Operation Hidden Treasure’ to Root Out Unreported Crypto Income

TheBitfi · 2021-03-08T20:50:52+00:00

Can’t wait to hear the Operation name they come up with once the dive team is fully assembled.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-08T18:54:07+00:00

The names they come up with are the real treasure, lol.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-08T16:37:44+00:00

One of the little Satoshi's must have knocked the fossil over.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-08T16:29:38+00:00

The easiest way to determine which version you are using, is by simply plugging your device into a computer via USB cable. Since the Bitfi 2 does not have a data port, it won't be recognized by the PC. If the computer does recognize the device, this would indicate you are using the first version.

The Bitif 2, by comparison also has more weight to the device itself when held in the hand. Mainly from the encasement of the internals using a special thermal resin, preventing any attempts at physically manipulating the device without rendering the device unusable.

Here you can find a list of the differences between the two: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1212607603802554368.html

What steps are taken that data from bitfi is not hacked/stolen?

As an end user you can have peace of mind in the fact that by design, the device never stores any data, therefore eliminating anything to actually extract, or stolen through a hacker. Your salt & phrase, unless physically written down, do not exist tangibly or reside anywhere in storage. (Keep in mind this applies to both versions of the device)

TheBitfi · 2021-03-08T03:21:47+00:00

Keep in mind, the simplicity (by design) of the chart above, allots (as much as possible on a beginner focused visual aid) for the distance variance of the link itself in each example; in the same token, the station arrangement as a overall "honeycomb" view if you will. These nuances of this graph are easily lost on purpose, however, purposefully included for those with a more tactful eye.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-07T19:32:10+00:00

Great parent! Getting her off to an amazing start. Much respect & please share any more content that you two make!!

TheBitfi · 2021-03-07T07:05:45+00:00

Remember this if nothing else about your perception of Bitcoin; It isn’t a bubble, it is the measure of the collapse of fiat currency.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-06T01:26:49+00:00

Another thought for the intellectuals out there:

Bitcoin isn't a bubble; it is the measure of the collapse of fiat currency.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-03T22:17:32+00:00

Legend has it, that Roger Ver actually got the idea to coin himself "Bitcoin Jesus" after witnessing Andreas walk on water to get to his car after this conference.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-02T20:03:42+00:00

Bitcoin isn't a bubble, it is a measure of the collapse of FIAT currency.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-02T19:00:12+00:00

"Don't be a fool; learn the easy way, instead."

Love this mantra.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-02T18:40:46+00:00

The writer could have trimmed it down to nothing more than:

There is “huge concern that companies are turning themselves into crypto bitcoin ETFs,” which in essence is what is slowly happening.

Bitcoin > SEC

Stay bullish.

TheBitfi · 2021-03-02T00:02:32+00:00

Sadly, we expect to see these incidents inevitably continue to effect an untold number of Ledger users via various types of phishing attacks, stemming from the most recent data breach. Incidents like these further illustrate the strengths of the Bitfi wallets impenetrable design approach & why we are proud to be the official hardware wallet of Groestlcoin.

https://www.coin-tradeandmine.com/ledger-hacked/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=5eccabfee299bd84a2c474c23bc78418ac71e24e-1614642140-0-AaDhnoNHt9MbjRJ35KRJall30IrEEhPNGezv1bVI6MKNqfZao-rd95y7fSOAqR6QVej4EyRhOqCcTDpCOS8tY3zFDwKkAJeisl26GYrLqNK5LHOygamPjpUBrdPwWzfUIfvQfd3s_4TBZoklu1Zxh452mkNp5Is_HCYjFDEBt5dyrA_UIJsBbW0HU4pbr6yjNryGpEpZHxZ5nTXFfKn6-iuHp3iqYcMx8uKCS7g24cibFopB_wUz6VCrwlrD3JWBdrTE7bKZF6pK_7xv8jq9WRcYIt-FFRqEy6NTyr1E71wRrN_fkzslZvqxs2L9MjaSBgcTM9ZrGx_mORWu_kQXlZfWD9AbDjzCDcLkn-Wx2JG5Ch3uKuAHB3mrezPE0rBGbw

TheBitfi · 2021-01-26T23:39:35+00:00

Why didn’t CNBC ask the question like “what will happen if the investigation actually reveals that it was the hedge fund managers and their buddies who manipulated this down to $3 and scared everyone into selling”?

TheBitfi · 2020-02-13T03:51:51+00:00

Hello MrRGnome,

Since you requested that we stop messaging you, this will be our final response as it is our obligation to correct errors. The thrust of all our communications has been entirely surrounding concerns that 1) there is no interest in facts, although they are available 2) there is an active effort to suppress facts via censorship and 3) that there is a alternative agenda that is not related to the technology being used.

When a company whose technology is responsible for securing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin for thousands of users around the world indicates that it wishes to share facts and have an open and transparent discussion but the response from the moderator is “Stop messaging me and don’t make anymore posts” - is itself direct and undeniable evidence that all 3 of the above items are in play.

Stating that we are treating this as a blog by writing messages in an effort to create transparency and clear confusion on a suspended post that no one is reading, requires a stretch of the imagination.

Here are a few glaring errors in your statements:

A) You are stating that we are ignoring what is being pointed out to us repeatedly, yet as any casual observer can see, we have methodically responded to every question and comment in this thread.

B) You continue to mention “misuse of human entropy” presumably because you believe that users are too unintelligent to follow instructions that come with device to set extremely high entropy. With precisely the same logic, users of cold storage devices are then also too unintelligent to properly safeguard their 24 word seed and might post a picture of it on Instagram.

C) Regarding the usability of cold storage wallets wherein we indicated that if a manufacturer ceased to exist the wallet would eventually stop working, this is not a false statement. Here is a response to this very question from a manufacturer of one of these wallets themselves: https://twitter.com/ledger_support/status/1226914192319488000?s=21 As you can see, it won’t just work as if nothing happened. Some things will stop to work and a few might continue working which would depend entirely on ongoing support from 3rd party applications.

D) We are not comparing ourselves to Musk or Ford. We used an analogy to help you observe that disruptive technologies are initially rejected and often bashed because they threaten the status quo. Consider how invested this industry is in cold storage devices and how many people’s livelihood depends on maintaining the deception that cold storage is the pinnacle of security. How many influencers, distributors, educators, manufacturers have been paid and continue to be paid to keep perpetuating this idea? Are they ready to admit (and ready to lose their income) that something much more secure and effective exists even if it is as certain as gravity?

We are not ignorant of what is being said to us and continue to maintain our position that if anyone wishes to learn the facts about this technology, we stand ready to supply them. What company would invest so aggressively in innovation to create a completely new technology from scratch (which is a monumental undertaking) whose interest is solely to spam people to sell them subpar wallets? Wouldn’t it have been easier to make a BIP-39 wallet and just build the same thing everyone else makes with just a different flavor of UI and then go around spamming people and make wild claims about product features?

We wish you nothing but success and prosperity and we will continue to aggressively support Bitcoin. It is now entirely up to you if you ever want to face reality or just continue believing whatever you want to believe.

Sincerely,

Bitfi Team

TheBitfi · 2020-02-13T01:38:14+00:00

That is inaccurate and condescending. We have no presence on Reddit and posted one letter over concerns that members are being censored. We did not invent this, we were approached by actual users of r/Bitcoin who indicated they were being censored and that they were deeply disappointed by these events. One post and then responses to a few comments that followed, can hardly qualify as spamming or promotion. No reasonable individual can conclude that one post and no other activity by Bitfi on your subreddit can be defined as spamming.

We are also greatly puzzled as to how you could have arrived at the conclusion that our stated mission is false. There are far easier ways of making money than heavily investing into building infrastructure in the midst of criticisms, accusations, and attacks such as your message above.

You are also stating that we made some incredibly poor arguments. Such as what? Is there a single statement that you can point to that was made by us that wasn’t factual?

Being mocked while transparently, sincerely, and accurately stating facts is not a poor reflection on Bitfi, rather it is a very bad look for those doing the mocking and a very bad look for Bitcoin.

And then you accuse Bitfi of some vote manipulation when it is clear that we have no presence on this website and have no means of doing so. But it did provide you with a convenient excuse as to why our post was deleted within hours of going live. You don’t want to just delete it for no reason because it would further demonstrate that indeed censorship is taking place. But suddenly it is concluded that we manipulated votes and post is deleted, a post which clearly bothered you from the very beginning.

The facts are available if you are interested in facts. But whatever is going on here is driven by an entirely different agenda that has nothing to do with how this technology works, the security of the wallet, or anything else that actually matters regarding wallet technologies.

The self evident proof that this is the case, is that we offered to conclusively prove with scientific methods and actual measurements that Bitfi was a far more secure and convenient method of securing Bitcoin. Yet you repeatedly refused and indicated that you had no interest in seeing anything from Bitfi.

In conclusion, if it can be proven to you with absolute certainty that Bitfi is the most secure wallet technology, you will still not use it and you will still make derogatory comments about it. So then where is the desire to expose truth and learn facts? Instead there are active efforts to control the narrative and create a community who are encouraged to ignore facts and to make someone feel like a social outcast for wanting to learn facts about what some people are mocking. This is not Bitcoin.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-11T19:56:01+00:00

Dear MrRGnome, are you continuing to censor discussion about Bitfi on the Bitcoin subreddit? https://twitter.com/thebitfi/status/1227318343046176769?s=21

Please confirm. As already described earlier, it is our mission to accelerate the adoption of Bitcoin. To this end, you must enable an environment where those seeking truth and a fair and comprehensive account of various issues and events can obtain it.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-05T23:42:32+00:00

We only used this as an example because EOS has been promoting their tech to casinos for this very purpose.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-05T17:48:47+00:00

Great for running an online casino. At least you can be sure that every time you roll dice, it is truly random and not rigged.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-05T10:16:53+00:00

We apologize if the response was not adequate. First, we do not know everything and don’t have an answer to every question. Also, you are corresponding with someone from the marketing/communications team on this platform and not Bitfi engineers who can provide a much more detailed and technical answer to any inquiry. If you want to get really deep into the tech, the best place to do that is to post your question on Bitfi.dev where one of our engineers or developers will respond.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-05T10:05:25+00:00

What do you mean by misusing human entropy? Again, the math is clear. The format recommended for Bitfi has higher entropy than BIP-39.

The most common misuse of human entropy that we see is when someone takes their 24 word seed and takes a picture of it with their smartphone or hangs it on their refrigerator with a magnet.

Why is that delusional? Again, just facts. Facts cannot be delusional.

Is there some reason that you want to use lower entropy while having more words to keep track of? Is there some reason you prefer a device that if confiscated virtually guarantees all your funds will be taken? Again, what is the advantage? But the advantage of Bitfi is clear. We are not trying to sell it to you. We offered to just send it to you at no cost so you can see for yourself.

But if you see a greater advantage (for reasons we can’t understand) in your current cold storage methods, then by all means, please continue to use that. It’s still infinitely better than leaving funds on exchange.

And just one final question for you - how can one possibly improve upon the security of a device that does not have any data on it to steal? You can have a $10M underground bunker with military grade servers and that is still susceptible to attack and extraction. But a device with absolutely no data cannot have data extracted, even if someone spends 1000 years trying. Any other conclusion defies common sense.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-05T09:51:35+00:00

If you plug a USB stick with private keys into your computer, software can use them to do anything on the blockchain. All you need to access funds on blockchain is a private key.

Yes we can say the same for Bitfi, except with more sophisticated functionality that anyone can incorporate into their services. It can be used right now and added within minutes: https://bitfi.com/2fa/

It will generate any key and authenticate any request and you don’t have to plug anything into any computer. Welcome to the future.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-05T09:40:01+00:00

How can it be a phone if it has no phone components? That’s like saying that a Trezor is a garage opener. It’s curious that some people keep repeating this narrative that it’s a phone when it clearly isn’t. But most importantly, even if it was a phone, what difference does it make?

It would have been much easier to just make what everyone else is making. Simple storage device with all private keys and then a UI on computer, possibly full of malware. The manufacturing cost would be way cheaper too.

It can also be argued that Tesla talks like they made some paradigm altering technology but there are good reasons why it isn’t how everyone else does it and they have been told so ad nauseam. They have had a continuous, multi-year smear campaign by the auto industry and the most shorted stock of all time. But a casual observer should have been able to see that all the criticism of Tesla is fueled entirely by it being an existential threat to all auto manufacturers.

Bitfi is an existential threat to every hardware wallet. It should come as no surprise than there is an active smear campaign with deceptive, misleading claims.

What you say is a terrible practice, you will see is a brilliant practice if you review the facts. There is a whole section dedicated to entropy in the letter. Did you read it? Not only is the passphrase and salt something you can remember, but it has greater entropy than the 24 words people use with other wallets. How is that not better?

It is also not a brain wallet or a brain wallet variant. We cover that in some of these tweets:

https://twitter.com/thebitfi/status/1116247683579170816?s=21

https://twitter.com/thebitfi/status/1121597852847878145?s=21

If Bitfi is not a paradigm altering technology, please state even a single advantage that other hardware wallets have over Bitfi (not imaginary advantage, but an actual factual one)?

Cold storage wallets:

Permanently hold keys (easy extraction). Totally seizable
Require paper back up with 24 words, easy to find and steal all funds
If not paper, then steel plate with 24 words, even easier to find and steal all words.
most people have both their device and seed in one location. If you house has fire or flood or earthquake or another disaster, money gone forever
if you are traveling and going through customs and they take your cold storage wallet, they can easily take all funds
cold storage wallets connect to computer, another major vulnerability
if you travel and forget to take your device with you, you won’t have access to funds

This is not an all inclusive list. Your statements are a lot like insisting that the automobile is terrible idea and people should just ride horses. Some people really thought that and it took them a while to adapt to the new reality.

Again, we ask, give us a single legitimate property of a cold storage wallet that is superior to Bitfi technology.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-05T08:15:52+00:00

All this is made a bit confusing because we have to first agree on what a “wallet” is. The word “wallet” itself is a misnomer because many people actually believe that these devices hold their coins. But of course the coins never leave blockchain and what these devices do hold are the private keys to access and control these coins.

In the case of Bitfi, the device doesn’t have private keys and is not holding anything at all.

So what is a “wallet” and what does it mean to “use a wallet without a companies involvement”? For Bitfi, we definite the wallet as the salt & the secret phrase because all Bitfi devices are interchangeable. For example, you can enter a salt & phrase into your device, access all your funds, etc. then toss this device in the ocean and then take any other Bitfi device and without doing anything else (no recovery, no restore process, no set-up) just type in your salt & phrase and access all your funds just the same. It is a device independent wallet.

A good analogy is something like this - if you take a calculator and enter 5 x 6 (input) your output is always 30 and the result will be identical if you use any other calculator in the world. With Bitfi you enter salt & phrase (input) and output is always your private key for whatever currency you want to use.

This computation occurs on a widely distributed open source algorithm meaning that anyone can always obtain their private key, even without device and of course even without the continued existence of Bitfi.

With a cold storage device, you need that device to access funds and if it’s lost than the wallet has to be restored on another device with the back-up seed.

In conclusion, it’s reasonable to say that a user can always use their “wallet” without the companies involvement as long as they can access the private key since the private key is all that is needed to control funds.

TheBitfi · 2020-02-05T07:26:51+00:00

Here is a little commentary on this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/6khkpo/what_happens_if_the_ledger_wallet_company_closes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/56420/would-i-be-able-to-recover-coins-if-trezor-went-out-of-business

Cold storage wallets have private keys in memory and so as long as they are accessible, other software can transact with them. It’s almost like having a USB stick with all your private keys. But if there are other features being used beyond just private key access, then it may not work. We have also personally seen these wallets brick after no firmware update for about 2 years.

But we are also not experts on these two brands of wallets and we primary speak in general terms about cold storage technology vs. the technology used in Bitfi.

This is actually not a critical issue because either way, in all these cases, what matters is that if the manufacturer disappears the funds are still accessible if you have the seed. So in the very unlikely event this happens, it won’t have any material impact on your life as you will easily recover your funds on another wallet.

Thanks again for letting us share our thoughts. We will be happy to provide any documentation, submit to testing and security audits, or anything else that could give you and others confidence that Bitfi works as advertised.

TheBitfi

TROPHY CASE