Wallet is a bit of a misnomer in that the coins are not held in the wallet, they exist on the blockchain itself. A wallet is more like a front end that facilitates interacting with the blockchain in a human-digestable format. You can set up an address on whatever wallet, transfer a balance into that address, then immediately light that device on fire. That balance is still there on the chain. As long as you still know your private key, you can go anywhere else with an internet connection, using any compatible wallet, plug your private key in, and your balance will be available to do with as you wish.
If you put it in terms of this website, the blockchain is the database with all of our account information and posts, the wallet is your web browser, the address is your username and the private key the password that allows you to post under that username. What really matters is your password.
As far as wallet hacks... it's all just standard internet OPSEC failures. People go to get their daily fix of tentacle porn and unknowingly pick up a keylogger that phones home with anything formatted like a crypto private key. Or they keep everything on some shitty exchange and they never even had the keys in the first place, then the exchange itself gets hacked. The one immutable law of the land in crypto is that whoever has the private key is the rightful owner of those coins. If you expose your private keys to bad actors you have zero recourse if they clean you out.
As to the lockout thing... I'm assuming you mean Parity multisig wallet thing from a month or so ago. I've never used the wallet in question and only have a very rough understanding of what went down, but it basically amounted to an exploit of a rookie mistake by the Parity devs.
If you put it in terms of this website, the blockchain is the database with all of our account information and posts, the wallet is your web browser, the address is your username and the private key the password that allows you to post under that username. What really matters is your password.
As far as wallet hacks... it's all just standard internet OPSEC failures. People go to get their daily fix of tentacle porn and unknowingly pick up a keylogger that phones home with anything formatted like a crypto private key. Or they keep everything on some shitty exchange and they never even had the keys in the first place, then the exchange itself gets hacked. The one immutable law of the land in crypto is that whoever has the private key is the rightful owner of those coins. If you expose your private keys to bad actors you have zero recourse if they clean you out.
As to the lockout thing... I'm assuming you mean Parity multisig wallet thing from a month or so ago. I've never used the wallet in question and only have a very rough understanding of what went down, but it basically amounted to an exploit of a rookie mistake by the Parity devs.
Last edited by:
KoopaTroopa: Dec 14, 17 12:49