Gerbz breaks down the one thing we all want to avoid: getting hacked. Here's how to take self-custody properly to avoid losing all your cryptocurrency.
Today I'm talking with Chris Brooks from CryptoAssetRecovery.com who helps people recover lost crypto and crack their wallets. We discuss all the ways people get hacked and screw up self custody so you can learn from their mistakes.
Links & Topics
- Chris recommends starting with Coinbase
- As you inevitably go down the rabbit hole, you'll end up with multiple coins and multiple wallets which means multiple seed phrases. The 80/20 for self custody security is to get a $30 safe that sits under your desk and holds all your seeds.
- Reasons you can't use a custodian: DeFi, unlisted shitcoins, airdrops
- When people move houses, that's a time that they often lose their seeds
- When setting up your wallet, write down your words in order, send a small amount of BTC to the first address, then reset the wallet to factory settings and recover from your seed phrase to see that your BTC is still there.
- If someone else has a copy of your seed phrase, they can load it in a wallet and have full control of your crypto.
- A super secure seed, punched into metal with passphrases separating wallets and redundancies is the gold standard. (Discussed in Episode #5)
- If you're self custodying altcoins on a new wallet you've never used, run a test with your wallet to ensure you can withdraw!
- 20-30% of crypto punks are lost? Founders interviewed on the MoFi podcast
- Mailvelope ~ PGP plugin for encrypting email
- CryptoAssetRecovery's Fees - 20% of recovered crypto up to 10 BTC and a sliding scale down for anything greater than 10 BTC