It is after midnight, and I just arrived home from the supermarket with our Christmas food shopping. As is normally the case at this time of year, the shops are madhouses, packed with the insane and sexually frustrated. At least, this is what I imagine them to be by the looks on their faces, and the way they barge through, or stand perplexed in the isles, like they have survived the first wave of the zombie apocalypse by luck, but their luck won't hold out until the next season.

The best time to shop at the supermarket, is late at night.

But, this post is about the worst time.

Not to shop, but more in general. For a relevant example, a small group of crypto enthusiasts were chatting about Trezor and Ledger, and one asked what the point of having a backup unit is. Do others have the same question? It might not be that obvious, other than the convenience having one handy to restore to, but for me at least, I think it is vital.

The reason is that in my own experience, Murphy's Law gets involved and says that things will go wrong at the worst possible time - technology fails when I need it the most. Or, when it is least convenient to do so. When it comes to storing crypto, it is good to be security conscious, but things also move fast, so if something happens, the difference of all or nothing, could be the space of minutes or hours. Having to wait several days for a delivery to arrive after a device failure, while helplessly watching it all happen, would suck balls.

The cost of getting an extra or three is far less than the impact of not having a backup when needed, and having that peace of mind in knowing it is there just in case, is highly valuable. And, I am pretty sure that with Trezor at least, you can restore to different models of the device. So, for instance, if you have bought a top of the line Trezor, you can restore to a cheaper model if needs be.

The first hardware wallet I got was a Ledger, and while I was excited, it was crap. It was a base model from I think 2017, and only had enough memory on it to hold two or three token apps at a time. So, to change over it meant uninstalling one to add another. All on a tiny screen, with fiddly buttons and click throughs. I got the Trezor much later, but have been really happy with it and back in I think 2021, I bought a pack of another three as backups. I have the cheapest Trezor One, but might upgrade - though I am not sure about the touchscreen versions. I don't care about looks, since no one but me is hopefully ever going to use it.

Peace of mind.

What value do you put on yours?

If I remember correctly, there was some development on a way to manage Hive accounts through Trezor or Ledger, and I think it wouldn't be a bad idea if it existed. For instance, I would like to be able to have my account require a physical key for certain tasks, like changing keys or powering down. It could also be extended like a credit card limit, where transactions over a certain amount in a certain period of time would require the extra authentication. This would also help with transfer of Hive assets securely, if something were to happen to me. That way, a trusted person could hold my Trezor restore, and manage my crypto holdings and Hive account, for my wife and daughter.

Does anyone know if this exists? If not, should it?

Perhaps most people don't worry too much about security, but for me, it is always in the back of my mind, because I know that I forget a lot of things, so any extra layers, although inconvenient sometimes, would give me peace of mind most of the time. That would be valuable.

We all have good times and bad times and inevitably, we will also have worst times. If we can mitigate the risks a little and at least limit the damage by the worst moments, perhaps we will be better set to recover faster, and there is a lot of value in having a short recovery time too.

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Are you prepared, or hoping the worst doesn't happen?

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]