Drip — essential security

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In my detailed introduction to participating in the Drip Crypto investing:

Drip — a detailed setup howto for noobs

I talked about some essential securing mainly concentrating around using a Hardware Wallet that is kept off the internet. This article goes in to more detail about that and discusses some other essential habits to adopt to make yourself a safe Dripper.

My first article in this series can be found at:

DRIP — The five stages of grief

Hardware wallet

Use Hardware wallets to secure your cryptocurrency private keys. Using a Ledger, Trezor or Lattice is a small price to pay for peace of mind.

The price to pay is:

The device — AU$109 (€70, US$79) for the simple Nano-S.
Or AU$250 (€160, US$180) for a Ledger pack of a Ledger Nano X for trading and a Ledger Nano S for backup (The S is an older and less capable Nano; however it can hold all the same private keys and with some work can trade most of the same crypto coins). Why backup? So you can get working again quickly; if you are in the middle of some crucial trades, the last thing you want to have to do is rebuild the wallet. Or worse, buy a new one first.
A Trezor Gold is EU€59 (AU$93) and the Trezor Model T is EU€189 (AU$296). They don’t advertise a ‘backup pack’ but Ledger give you the S for half price so let’s say a Trezor T and half price Gold- EU€220 (AU$345)
A Lattice1 is US$397 (AU$549). I don’t know much about this and this price seems a bit steep in comparison.
The time to set it up the main wallet (eg. Nano X) — 30 minutes to an 1 hour
The time to setup the backup wallet if any (eg. Nano S) — 10 minutes as it is simply just entering the pass phrase in
The time to plan the backup of the pin and seed phrase — 15 to 30 minutes plus the time to execute this. See more on this below.
The wallets need to be unlocked with the pin — 10 to 20 seconds. But it will timeout if the wallet isn’t used for a while. I have 12 wallets and I check for airdrops and rewards for each. If I have received some then I need to record these in my spreadsheet. When this happens a wallet timeout is likely to occur and I will need to unlock it again.
Then for every transaction I need to review the 5 screens — 10 seconds.
If you add or delete wallets then you should plug in the backup and synchronize — 5 to 10 minutes

In return for this investment, you get peace of mind akin to having at least 2 sets of file system backups with one being offsite!

Backup of Pin and Seed Phrase

You should NOT store the seed phrase on your computer or anywhere that is internet connected. If a malicious person found this (via a hack or malware) then they could reconstruct your wallet (on some other device) and take control of your assets. Most likely they would transfer them to a new wallet address so they have absolute control over them.

It is ok to save your PIN to a password manager since crooks need physical access to your device as well. I haven’t done this but you weight the pros and cons.

The device instructions clearly state to write the seed phrase down. Do so and store the card safely, perhaps keep a copy with a trusted family member or friend.

There are various physical devices made of hard metals that are fire, water and corrosion proof that you can recreate the phrase in and store it in some secret place that you will never forget about. Devices such as the Cryptosteel Capsule, Cryptotag Zeus and Billfodl as seen at https://shop.ledger.com/#category-accessories.

As well as not wanting your seed phrase to get in to the hands of people with malicious intent, you DON’T WANT TO LOOSE YOUR SEED PHRASE. Or in a couple years when cryptocurrency assets have skyrocketed in value, you want to be able to sell them for a quick million. I have heard so many stories of people who got their hands on lots of bitcoin in the early days and forgot about it since it seemed like monopoly money. There is no third party — bank or support service you can call. These wallets are called custodial — you have sole custody over them.

I can see businesses springing up that act as Crypto Wallet vaults.

Use a dedicated browser for Crypto

I discussed using just a dedicated browser for Crypto in my Drip — a detailed setup howto for noobs article. And don’t use that browser for any other web surfing. Browsers are getting better but you also need to protect you from you. There are known vulnerabilities across browser tabs or windows.

You might accidentally navigate to a malicious site and BOOM, you’re compromised. Its one thing to do this with your browser that is also running your blog posts, but another when your crypto assets are open to compromise.

This seems like a heightened level of security (paranoia!) but you want to reduce all possible attack vectors. Chrome has 116 vulnerabilities, 42% of which score 9 or higher.

Scammers

Scams are everywhere with Crypto trading. As long as you follow a few simple rules you will stay safe.

The number one thing to do to keep safe is NEVER EVER EVER tell anyone your secret phrase for MetaMask or your Hardware wallet. Nor your passwords. Let me repeat — NEVER EVER EVER tell anyone much at all!

You will lose everything if you tell anyone your secrets —Confucius on Crypto trading in China circa 551 BCE 🙂

The next piece of advice — NEVER respond to direct messages (in Telegram or Discord or related phone calls — I use both apps for different groups).

Telegram group for Drip Tech Support — note the list of members.

There are times when you need help, such as from the Drip Tech Support group in Telegram – t.me/DRIPtechdifficulty — don’t let anyone tell you a different group. You can easily determine scam accounts for supposed groups. Groups have lots of members as can be seen in the screenshot.

It is not so easy to determine if an individual is a scammer. Generally they should be part of the main Drip group, maybe Drip Support and possibly a team specific group.

Drip user that belongs to a specific teams Telegram group

Not everyone is in other groups, but if anyone is talking to you they should be in the know and have deeper ties to other people within the Drip community.

Now if you ask for help in Drip Support expect at least 1 user to DM you directly (hence the D in DM!). They may even try to phone you. IGNORE THESE. HANG UP.

I sometimes perform investigations (click on their handle) and tell them they are a scammer. Just for fun. Here is one when I was a Drip noob myself.

As a general rule do not respond to DMs unless communication was established in a group first (but not the Drip or Drip Tech Support groups as even scammers can join these). Always err on the side of caution. You can always ask the admins about a certain user or more importantly only accept messages (within a group first) from an admin.

You can see who the admins are in Drip support with the /adminlist Telegram command.

As you can see @Conestutters is an admin. The above drip scammer was @Conestutters0. Always be on the lookout.

That’s it. Buddy details are below if you’d like to join (and you need a buddy). I will help guide you and give you back 2.25% of your initial deposit.

Dripping is serious but it also fun. There are many unpaved roads in the cryptocurrency landscape. Tread carefully but also explore and enjoy yourself. Then pass on that knowledge to someone else — get them to join you as their drip buddy.

If you have any questions then just ask in the comments or make me your buddy and we can chat in our Discord. Or get on to the Drip Telegram group (but beware!). t.me/DRIPtoken_Chat