The Complete Self-Sovereign Bitcoin Security Stack
synopsis
Ian walks through his complete personal Bitcoin security setup after two hardware wallet companies (Trezor and Ledger) made decisions that led him to no longer recommend them. This is an updated "Securing the Bag" episode covering full nodes, desktop wallets, mobile wallets, hardware wallets, and lightning wallets — essentially a comprehensive guide to self-sovereign Bitcoin infrastructure.
quotes
"for ten dollars a month you're shipping my private keys off of my hardware wallet... even I get that and I mean I'm gonna say that I'm a very intelligent woman, not everyone's gonna get it but I got it" — Mandana
"if you only come away from our podcast episode with just [Sparrow + full node], you're in a really good spot" — Ian
"these are not rappers, tuck that shit in your shirt" — Mandana on Ledger's jewelry marketing
"I just found out about Bitcoin and I'm here to fix everything" — Ian quoting a common phrase about newcomers
"Lightning was born out of that debate" — Ian on the block size wars producing innovation
topics
Trezor adding Wasabi (with censorship terms of service) — dropped from recommendationsLedger's "Recover" feature shipping private keys off-device — dropped from recommendationsFull node setup (Bitcoin Core + external SSD)Desktop wallets: Sparrow (preferred), Specter, Blue Wallet, Green WalletMobile wallets: Blue Wallet (preferred), Green, Samourai, NunchukHardware wallets: ColdCard (preferred), Foundation, Jade, SeedSignerLightning wallets: Alby (for Nostr zaps), Zeus, PhoenixWatch-only wallets and xpub conceptUnchained Capital for multi-sig custodyBorder wallets built into SparrowNunchuk's collaborative custody and inheritance planningJack Dorsey's upcoming hardware wallet