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The Honest Money Show is your guide to understanding what money really is, and where Bitcoin fits in. Hosted by Anja Dragovic, Australia's female-led, Bitcoin-only podcast, it cuts through the noise to explore how money shapes our lives, why the current system leaves so many people behind, and what a clearer, fairer future could look like.
Expect honest, accessible conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the space, the kind that take you from "I don't really get this" to genuinely curious. No hype, no pressure, just money, made clear.
Whether you're brand new to these questions or already deep in them, you're welcome here.
Since the Coldcard hack,
I've always had a low grade anxiety about my self-custody.
Did I do a right? Did I miss a step?
And I always go back and check it and make sure
like I do a health check every three months
, um, on my self-custody, but still like
my low level anxiety is now medium level anxiety.
Their inheritors find their backup, their seed backup,
And they are like like, Oh, I know this can get Bitcoin.
Only need to get access to this Bitcoin.
And then they contact some random person online
because they don't know what to do.
And they say, okay, help, help me out.
Here's the seed words. And then the attacker goes
, oh, goody, goody, goody. Um. thank you
for the free Bitcoin!
So, there's been a lot of relief
because particularly cos of in light of the Coldcard incident
which we've touched a few times.
there's been a lot of people thinking - 'What can I do?
Nothing is safe. I'm, I'm scared!'
Welcome back to another
episode of Honest Money. Joining me today
is Mike. Mike is the product manager from
GuardBlock. Welcome to the show, Mike.
Howdy, Anja. How are you going? Really
good, thanks. I'm really happy to have you
on because I've had a number of inquiries
from the locals here in Northern Rivers
where I live. They are wanting to know a
little bit more about this product, which
is newly launched to the Australian
market. But I also wanted to talk about
self-custody a little bit. And the reason
is because obviously we've had the recent
Coldcard hack, which was a devastating
blow to the confidence of many people in
our community. And then we've also had a
number of data breaches. There was some
issue with BTC Pay Server. There was
another issue with the Blockstream Liquid
Network. So there's quite a few things
happening. Let's maybe start with what
have we learned in light of those events
about self-custody? Yeah. So it's
definitely, as you say, it's been a bit of
a rough month or two in the Bitcoin space.
And what we've learned is these AI tools
that are out there are very sophisticated
and they're improving every day. And so
we're learning a lot of lessons about all
businesses, all products, all open source
repositories and everything. They're a lot
more vulnerable because they are just out
there. It's a very juicy target for
attackers that are getting their hands on
these sophisticated tools to dig into them
and have a go and see what they can do. So
what we're learning as an industry and as
the Bitcoin network is that we need to do
more. We need to do better in regards to
checking and testing and attacking our own
tools, especially with the help of these
AI tools. So using them ourselves to make
sure that all of our products and services
are up to scratch. And so, yeah, we're in
a bit of an interesting phase worldwide. I
think we're going to start to see it in
Bitcoin and then we're going to start to
see more breaches and attacks happen in
the rest of the world, the rest of
industries that are out there. But Bitcoin
is kind of first off the chopping block
because it is this globally accessible
network that anyone can jump on. Anyone
can look at these open source repositories
and have a go and have a crack with these
AI tools and try and attack them. So the
lesson learned is we need to just be doing
better using these tools ourselves and
finding these holes and plugging them
before an attacker exploits them. Do you
think it is an attack on self-custody? Do
you think it's going to change the way
people approach it? I mean, it's already
hard to begin with, but I feel like is
this another layer of just making it even
harder for newcomers? There are a lot of,
I've been having a lot of interesting
conversations around this. There's a lot
of, you know, tinfoil hat theories that
maybe this is a coordinated attack on self
-custody and they want to scare people
away from taking self-custody of their
Bitcoin so that the industry, the sort of
dinosaurs of the older industries can
maintain a status quo in the new world.
You know, don't do it yourself. Trust the
institutions, trust the businesses, trust
the banks to store your Bitcoin, to store
your wealth for you. So there is a theory
that it is some sort of coordinated attack
to scare people away from the new paradigm
of taking that full self-custody and that
full sovereignty of your money and your
wealth. I'm always a big, big fan of
conspiracy theories and sort of out there
theories. I don't necessarily think it's
the case. I think it is just the fact that
Bitcoin's a juicy target. These tools are
out there. They're very easy for people to
jump on and start using them to attack
these open source tools and other projects
that are out there. And the reward is
great. So the incentives are all there for
attackers to do what attackers do. I don't
think it's a coordinated attack at the end
of the day. And in regards to scaring
people away from self-custody, absolutely,
we do see that. We do see a lot of people
doubting themselves and doubting the tools
around maintaining their self-custody and
sovereignty themselves without some extra
help. And that's why, you know, you need
to do your research and you need to find
where is the happy medium for you. There
is still the absolute, you know, way that
you can fully do it yourself and you can
do it safely. There just have been these
unfortunate vulnerabilities, which the
bare minimum of self-custody,
unfortunately, you might've been wrapped
up in some of these attacks. So it does
show that if you are going to take that
step of doing it yourself, fully self
-custody, fully sovereign, you do really
need to do your research and make sure you
are going not just, you know, the bare
minimum. You need to be doing a few steps
forward, not the absolute maximum, you
know, hyper-autism sense, but more than
the bare minimum, because then you are
protected from a single point of failure,
a single vulnerability, a single issue in
a single project or a single device or a
single something that you're using. You
need to add at least another layer or two
onto your ladder. Yeah. Yeah. So would you
agree that the bare minimum today or prior
to the Coldcard hack may have been just,
you know, you buy a hardware wallet of
your choice. You don't even do necessarily
a lot of research into what kind of
wallets you're using. Some people are
using, you know, wallets that support
multiple coins. Some are Bitcoin only.
Some are open source. Some are closed
source. Some are air-gapped. Some are not.
And people prior to the cold card hack
maybe didn't appreciate some of the things
that I guess the stronger Bitcoin
maximalists have been advocating for a
long time now, and that is to generate
your own seed phrase, like never use the
wallet generator, like do it yourself. And
now I feel like perhaps maybe what some of
the things that have happened, it's raised
the standard of self-custody. We're
looking to add passphrases. We're looking
towards multi-signature solutions. And
it's also helped people essentially look
at other solutions like collaborative
security models and even maybe in some
sense custodial products, at least for a
percentage of their stash because it's
more about diversification than anything
else. Do you feel that's directionally
right? Absolutely. Absolutely. It has
highlighted almost a failure of Bitcoiners
themselves in that when if you're a
Bitcoiner and you do the research, you
spend a thousand hours looking at the
stuff, listening to podcasts, doing all
these sorts of things, and you understand
the risks and the trade-offs. But then
when your trusted friend and family come
to you asking for Bitcoin advice because
you're the Bitcoiner in their life and you
just don't have the time, you don't have
the energy to sit them down. And maybe
they also don't have the time and energy
to equally meet you where you want to meet
them or you should meet them. And so a lot
of people had that minimum assumption of
as long as I get them to get the right
device, they're fine. And just follow the
basic setup for that one device, they're
fine. And up until the Coldcard hack,
that did appear to be the case. Right up
until the Coldcard hack, there was no
real precedent for this sort of thing on
such a scale happening before. All the
failures were due to mistakes by the user
themselves. There were data breaches,
there was this, that, and the other thing.
But there was nothing that kind of scared
people away from just instructing people
to follow that basic one of go and get
your one device, trusted device, set it
up, move your funds there, good enough,
good enough. And while internally you
might be doing the extra stuff, you might
be setting your passphrase, setting up a
multi-sig, doing some extra steps there,
but you may not have passed that
information on to a third party who was
asking for advice. So you just say, go and
get your one device and you'll be fine.
Unfortunately, it's those people that got
smashed with the Coldcard thing. And so
that's why the new, the learning is, if
you are going to take responsibility and
help someone else elevate their Bitcoin
security, you do need to do your due
diligence and say, sorry, just getting a
single device and setting up with the
basics is not good enough anymore. It does
need to have some extra steps. And so as a
Bitcoin, you need to be thinking, well, is
this person that I'm helping, do they have
the time, energy, wherewithal, technical
ability to actually sit down and
understand those extra steps? If yes, then
go for it. Help them, help them become
fully self-custodial, fully self
-sovereign, but they need to do the work.
Alternatively, if you don't have that time
and they don't have the time, then that's
where a custodial situation or a
collaborative security situation might be
more preferable for that person. So you've
got to sort of judge it based on who's
asking for help.
Yeah. And for any
newcomers that are coming in and listening
to these terminology, like how would you
describe custodial versus non-custodial?
So the real basic way to frame it is if
you control the keys to the wallet in
question. So a custodial, an example of a
custodian or a custodial arrangement would
be you have your Bitcoin held on an
exchange. You've just bought it from hard
block or coin jar, whatever, whatever
exchange you use. You have an account
login, but you don't have a key. You don't
have the actual private key associated
with the Bitcoin wallet. So that Bitcoin
wallet is custodial because a custodian,
in this case, the exchange is looking
after that Bitcoin wallet for you. They
are holding the keys for that Bitcoin. So
a hardcore Bitcoin will say, that's not
your Bitcoin. It's an IOU. You have an
account with them and under normal
business, you know, jurisprudence and
contracts, that Bitcoin is technically
legally yours, but physically, physically
in the digital, digital sense of the word,
uh. Bitcoin is held by or owned by that
custodian. So self-custody is when you
move the Bitcoin or you hold the Bitcoin
in your own Bitcoin wallet where you
control the private key, the private key
that actually denotes the spendability of
those coins. So there's a lot of, there's
a little bit of nuance here and there, but
we'll keep it, we'll keep it basic. Yeah.
And there's obviously like new products
coming into the market that are kind of
somewhere in the middle. And I guess we're
going to talk about that a little bit
today. But do you also want to define for
the users, because it's going to set the
context for the remainder of the
conversation or what the difference is
between single SIG and multi SIG? Sure. So
single SIG basically means that you've got
a Bitcoin wallet where in order to spend
that Bitcoin, you sign a transaction and
you only need to sign that transaction
with a single key. So your Bitcoin wallet
was established and it's only looking for
a signature from a single key. And that
single key could be held on a device. It
could be a monomic, monomic, monomic,
always struggle to pronounce that word.
That's the only thing that's needed to
spend the Bitcoin held in that single SIG
wallet. Now, a multi SIG wallet obviously
just extends that. So the wallet is
looking for multiple signatures before it
will broadcast that transaction and it
will be accepted on the Bitcoin network
and it will actually move funds. So a
typical setup might be a two of three. So
two of three means you need two keys out
of a possible three keys in the wallet to
actually send Bitcoin. So you might have
three hardware devices. Each hardware
device has been used to generate a key. So
you've got three private keys. Then you
use that to register a multi SIG wallet.
So you're creating your multi SIG wallet.
And then if you ever wanted to sign a
transaction and move Bitcoin, you need to
get out two of those keys to sign that
transaction because it's a minimum two
signatures out of a three potential keys
in a multi SIG wallet in order to move
funds. And then you can then customize it
from there. You can have 10 keys. You can
have five keys. You can have a one of
five. You can have two of five. You can
have a 10 of 10. You know, it's up to you.
But obviously you always need to remember
that more complexity means more things
could go wrong. It's more things to keep
track of. It's more backups to keep track
of. So you need to, you can't just go,
well, I'm going to go for 50 keys and I
need 40 keys to sign it. Like that's,
that's ridiculous really. Um, at least for
individuals, businesses, it's a bit
different governments. It's a bit
different, but from an individual level,
you want to keep that simplicity factor so
that you're not overcomplicating your
setup. And end of the day, a lot more
Bitcoin has probably been lost due to just
simple mistakes rather than actual, uh,
vulnerabilities and hacks and, uh, and,
and, and that sort of thing. So simplicity
is key. You need to find the right balance
for your situation. Yeah. I think that's a
really important point to make because
backing up your key is like as important,
if not more important than generating or
definitely more important than generating
in the first place, because if you don't
have that backup or you don't remember
where you stored it, it's obviously your
Bitcoin is, is gone. So I think the other
important thing to mention about multi
-signature versus single signature is that
multi-signature removes that single point
of failure. So in a single SIG scenario,
you back up your single signature key. If
something happens to that, it gets, I
don't know, lost in a fire, a flood. Uh,
you forgot where you put it. It's somehow
damaged. Basically, um, your Bitcoin is
gone. Whereas in a multi-signature, for
example, a two out of three, what happens
is you can have your keys in different
locations and you just need two, two out
of the key, three keys, any combination of
two to unlock your, um, Bitcoin. So I
think, yeah, I think a lot of people are
starting to really look at multi-sig as a
favorable solution, but it does obviously
come with a huge technical, um, learning
curve. So let's get into Guardblock.
this solution is. Sure. So Guardblock,
it's a new product. It's built by the team
behind hard block, uh, which is
Australia's longest running Bitcoin only
exchange, uh, operating since 2014. We
built Guardblock because we wanted to
solve a problem for ourselves, which was,
well, how do we make sure if we're, if
we're running an exchange and we're also
holding Bitcoin ourselves for our
personal, personal, uh, sovereign wealth
accumulation, how do we make sure it is
protected from the absolute worst case
scenarios that can happen out there?
Hopefully never happened, but there's
always that potential. And a lot of
Bitcoin is, are always carrying this
mental burden of what if, what if, what
if, uh, for their particular setup. And
everyone's a little bit different.
Everyone's got different risk profiles and
it changes as you start to accumulate
more, as you start to have children and
dependence and you think about inheritance
or you're running a business and you have
a Bitcoin treasury, all these sorts of
things will increase that mental burden.
And so having things like backups and
safety nets, uh, to catch you, if
something does go wrong, uh, the, you
know, these worst case scenarios happen,
it does help to reduce that mental burden
because that's ultimately what Bitcoin
should be. Bitcoin is all about, I can
store my wealth in this thing. The
government can't touch it. Attackers can't
touch it. It's not getting inflated away
and I can get on with my life. But if
you're then having to constantly have this
upkeep of storage and devices and backups
and all this sort of thing, it just, it
has this mental burden that's sitting
there and in, and, you know, devalues your
life experience, which is not what Bitcoin
is about. So Guardblock was about trying
to solve this problem for ourselves, for
our business. And we've now, and we're
really happy with it and we're, we're
satisfied and we've like, okay, this has
reduced our mental burden tangibly for us
and our business. So how can we make this
available to other people, to Australians
and, and, and people overseas as well, uh,
to, to have the same benefits, to have
safety nets, to have reduced mental burden
for the Bitcoin custody. And so that's why
we built Guardblock and it's, uh, yeah,
we're really happy with the product where,
uh, and it's good to see the, you know,
people, people taking it on and, and, uh,
getting some value out of it. It's, it's
really good to see. And, uh, yeah, I mean,
I can, I can start to explain how it works
or go through any nuance or whatever you'd
like, whatever direction. Yeah. Let's
definitely talk about how it works, but I
do just want to add the whole mental
burden is such an important factor because
since the Coldcard hack, like I've always
had a low grade anxiety about my self
custody. Did I do a right? Did I miss a
step? And I always go back and check it
and make sure like I do a health check
every three months, um, on my self
custody, but it's still like my low level
anxiety is now medium level anxiety. So
it's just, it's, it's so important to, to,
yeah, think about how to reduce that
emotion around Bitcoin because one Bitcoin
is already volatile and there's some
emotion to carry there. And, you know, for
the first time in my life, when I got into
Bitcoin, I was like, finally felt
optimistic about my financial future. Like
I could just breathe out and not worry so
much that I'm like trying to outpace
inflation. Um, and you know, that, that's
Bitcoin, but the self custody side is, is
the part that just, yeah, still gives me a
lot of anxiety. So let's talk about the
solution. How does it work? Yeah. So it's
basically the way we describe it is we
call it collaborative security. So there
are plenty of products out there that are
collaborative custody products. And we
talked about custody earlier. We call
ourselves collaborative security because
we're not about taking custody of your
funds. We are, we are non-custodial in
that sense. And so it's an important
distinction to make, but ultimately what
you're getting with Guardblock is you
sign up for an account, you get your
account inside your account. You can then
create what we call vaults. Each vault is
itself a multi-signature Bitcoin wallet.
So you can create multiple wallets,
multiple vaults for different use cases.
So some people might keep it simple and
just have one, one personal vault for
their personal Bitcoin stack, but you can
create multiple vaults or multiple multi
-sign wallets for an SMSF account, a
business account, a family trust, maybe
one for each child, uh, whatever you want
to do. It's very flexible with exactly
what you want to do. But at its core,
you're creating a vault and each vault is
a two of two multi-sig wallet, but you are
removing the complexity of having to set
up your own multi-sig wallet yourself.
Because if a lot of people get this idea,
okay, I'm going to go straight for, for
multi-vendor multi-sig and I'm going to go
the whole hog. And then they realize that
it's, it's quite complicated. It's quite
tricky. There's room for mistakes. There's
lots of backups to manage all this sort of
thing. And while that is still maintained
as the gold standard self-sovereign
pathway, it's not the right fit for
everyone out there. Like there's
definitely hardcore Bitcoiners go for your
life, go and do your research and go and
set that up yourself. But if you're
someone who's doesn't have the time,
doesn't have the technical ability, then
you want to look for an option, which
still gives you the same security benefits
with a couple of trade-offs, which we can
go into as well. But you are getting those
security benefits without having to spend
10,000 hours researching and, and, and
then constantly having that mental burden
just to upkeep it and make sure it's up to
scratch. So when you set up your vault
with us, you just bring a single key and a
single device. So you've got your single
hardware wallet has to be a compatible
wallet, which we can get into again as
well a bit later. Uh, and you use that to
set up your Guardblock vault. You
register that with us. We give you what's
known as a vault descriptor. Uh, the
normal parlance is a wallet descriptor. So
every multi-sig wallet has a wallet
descriptor. It's basically a block of
text, block of code, which tells the
wallet what signatures are required to
move Bitcoin. And uniquely for us, uh, is
it includes the time lock information. So
we use time locks in order to maintain
the, uh, the functionality of the wallet
and the different recovery pathways that
we have available. And it's through those
time locks that we can say that it's a non
-custodial service because by default, any
keys that we have cannot move your funds.
So you still retain full sovereignty of
your funds. Only you can initiate and sign
transactions and, and, and actually move
Bitcoin on the platform. We can't do it,
uh, once you've set up a vault with us and
move some Bitcoin into that vault. Uh, but
there are some recovery cases where that
does change based on time locks. Uh, so we
can dig into that in a moment, but end of
the day, what you're getting when you set
up a Guardblock vault with us is you're
getting a multi-sig wallet, but you're
only having to bring a single key. You can
then use that single key to move funds
when you need to, but you get a lot more
security benefits versus just setting up a
wallet with a single key on your own
separately. And the main way we do that is
through spending controls and co-signing.
So when you initiate a transaction with
us, uh, with a Guardblock vault, uh, it
requires a co-signing key. So straight
away, you can see the security benefit
that you get across, uh, versus a regular
single-sig vault. If you have a, uh, if
you make a transaction, we need to co-sign
it for you. So what that means is if
someone somehow got access to your private
key, they found your device, they found
your pin, or they found your seed phrase
backup, and they were able to restore your
private key elsewhere. They still would
not be able to move your funds because
they would also need the Guardblock co
-signing key to co-sign a transaction and
send Bitcoin out onto the network. So they
would, so an attacker that did find all of
your information would still need to know
about Guardblock. They would need to know
your Guardblock login. They would need to
know your two-factor authentication so
they can get into your Guardblock login.
So it's a lot of extra hurdles for an
attacker to get over before they can touch
your funds. So straight away, you get that
really robust upgrade to your security
above a single-sig wallet. Yeah, that
makes sense. It kind of reminds me of the
days where, like, the banking industry had
to tighten up their security because,
like, family used to steal from each
other, like, steal money. And then now
they have to, like, put in all these,
like, extra questions to verify. But
anyway, let's actually talk about time
locks because that is a really cool
concept that's only available to Bitcoin,
as far as I know. Like, for the first time
in the entire history of humanity, we have
money that can be locked away into the
future and not even you can access it. So
let's talk about how those work. Time
locks are cool. So for a lot of people, it
might be a new term, a new concept. But it
has been in Bitcoin since about 2017,
really got a lot of usage 2019. It's
actually used to underpin the Lightning
Network as well with how channels are set
up. They use time lock protocol stuff to
operate that. So people are taking the
time lock concept and they're using it for
lots of really interesting things. And
with time locks, there's two kinds.
There's absolute time locks and there's
relative time locks. With hard block, we
use relative time locks. Absolute time
locks are interesting. So people are doing
some interesting things with them. A cool
example is people are thinking about
mining subsidies. And we're talking, you
know, hundreds of years in the future
where the mining subsidy might be quite
small. And so how do you incentivize
miners to keep mining Bitcoin and keep the
security out, keep the network going if
transaction fees don't pull their weight?
And so what people can do today is they
can actually set up these time locks to
have these like caches, these like
treasure troves in the Bitcoin network,
you know, 50 years into the future, 100
years into the future. And so when someone
mines that block in the future, they get
the Bitcoin that's locked up in that time
lock. And so it incentivizes miners to
keep mining. So there's some really
interesting concepts happening around time
locks. And we mentioned the lightning
network as well. But with Guardblocks, so
we use relative time locks. So relative
time locks let us do interesting things.
So when you register your multi-sig wallet
with us, your vault, we give you some time
locks which denote the recovery pathways
available to you at that time. Right. So
the first one is secured by a time lock
that is, I think it's 57,000 blocks into
the future. It's 57,000 and something,
which is basically 13 months. So time
locks are a way to quantify time denoted
by the Bitcoin blockchain into your
transactions, your smart contracts, if you
want to call them that, and your wallet
setups. So that first time lock that's 13
months into the future, when that time
lock expires, it changes the way the
wallet works. And specifically with a
guard lock vault for our most basic vault,
it's called a shield vault. You have this
first recovery time lock, which is
actually to protect you from us. And we
figured that that's really important is we
want people to maintain their sovereignty
no matter what happens to us. So if we got
hacked, we went out of business, we
disappeared, we all got hit by a bus,
government took us over and told us to
seize people's funds. That first time lock
protects you, protects the guard lock
users from anything happening to us.
Because what happens when that first time
lock expires, 13 months, it changes the
multi-sig setup to no longer require that
co-signing key that I mentioned before. So
under default operations, normal
operations, nothing's gone wrong with
anything. You can initiate your
transaction, sign it with your key, then
our co-signing service will co-sign that
transaction, Bitcoin moves on. But if we
disappeared and we could no longer co-sign
because we've been hacked, taken offline,
gone out of business, whatever's happened,
we can no longer co-sign. So suddenly
you're like, well, how do I move my
Bitcoin? It's now stuck because I can't
get a co-sign in. You wait for that first
time lock, then what it does is it changes
the multi-sig setup. It pulls out the
requirement for that co-signing. So
suddenly you can just take your single
key, your single device, and you can move
your funds without us. So again, hopefully
it never happens, but in the scenario
where something happens to us, your funds
are still recoverable. And we call that
the unilateral exit pathway or the self
-recovery pathway for a simpler term. But
it means that your funds are not locked
away. And then I'll go through one more
recovery pathway because I'm conscious of
time. Beyond that, we have another time
lock. This one activates at 62,000 blocks
15 months into the future. So after 15
months, it changes that multi-sig quorum
again, and it actually activates a third
key. And that third key is the Guardblock
recovery key. So by default, under normal
operation and under that first time lock
section of time, this recovery key can't
do anything. It just sits there. It's
dormant. And if that second time lock
expires 15 months into the future,
suddenly that recovery key does become
active. And so that's your safety net. So
if something happens to you, your key,
your backup, you lose everything, you have
a house fight, you have the worst case
scenario, your device breaks, and you lose
your backup. You know, we're talking worst
case crazy scenarios. You've got this
safety net. We simply just wait for that
time lock to expire 15 months. And then
you go through a recovery process with us.
We call it the Guardblock recovery. You
go through that process. We verify you. We
do a bunch of stuff. And then we are able
to move funds to a new location that you
specified. So we can move it on your
behalf. So that's the only time where we
technically have a level of custody over
your funds. But it's obviously very
strongly ring-fenced. And it's baked into
the wallet descriptor, into the multi-sig
wallet setup. And it's controlled by the
Bitcoin protocol itself, those time locks
and the Bitcoin blockchain itself. So you
know that it's not just based on a
promise. It's not based on our, you know,
individual code is literally there on the
Bitcoin network. It's baked into the
transaction. When you first move the
Bitcoin into the vault, it's there. So
that key by default can't do anything. But
if you lose everything, worst case
scenario, after a bit of time, it does
become active and you can then move funds.
And I'll just mention one last thing. With
the time locks, you can refresh them. So
obviously on normal operations, you don't
want those time locks to expire. You don't
want the co-signing to be ripped away
after 13 months. And you don't want the
Guardblock recovery key to become active
after 15 months if everything is normal.
If you've still got full access to your
devices and your backups and there's no
issues and we're still operating and we
haven't been subject to some sort of
takeover or government order or something
like that. So you simply do a refresh. So
it's kind of like a UTXO consolidation if
you've ever done one of those before. But
you're basically just doing a transaction
to yourself. So you have your Guardblock
vault. You have your Bitcoin sitting
there. Once a year, we typically say do
this every 12 months. You just do a
transaction to yourself. You're literally
just picking up the Bitcoin in your vault
and you're moving it to a new address in
the same vault. And that refreshes that
time lock for another 13 months.
And I can, as a customer, I can do this at any
point within the 13 months. Basically, I'm
just like kicking the can down the road.
Exactly. Yeah. So we would send you some
notifications saying, hey, it's time to do
your rollover. It's typically a once a
year thing. So we would say, you know,
it's part of your financial year audit
type stuff where you're doing your taxes.
That's where you'd log into Guardblock.
You check your balance. You check your
spending controls are set up the way you'd
like. And then you do your rollover. And
so you just do that transaction to
yourself. And that kicks the can down the
road for another 12 months. And so then,
you know, you can forget about it, get on
with your life and come back to it at, you
know, next year's tax time. But you can do
it sooner. So you could do it every six
months if you want. If you want to make
sure that you've got a really long runway
for completing your rollover, you can do
it whenever you'd like.
So it sounds to me that this product like still
requires you to have a high level of self
responsibility when it comes to your own
backup, because obviously, you know, there
are scenarios where you definitely want to
be able to have access to your Bitcoin if
something happens. Is that the right way
to put it? Like it doesn't like it kind of
it's it builds on top of your self custody
doesn't remove the necessity for you to
still have responsibility around your self
custody. Yeah. So you think of it like
you're augmenting your setup to add in a
safety net, but you're still having to
have your your basics covered. So it saves
you from having to go all out with
maintaining setting up and maintaining a
very robust multi-sig setup on your own.
So it saves you from that sort of mental
burden. But in terms of just maintaining
your single device, single backup, yes,
you still want to maintain that
specifically just for the scenario where
we disappear. So if we went out of
business, we got hacked, government
takeover, you know, something crazy
happens to us, which hopefully never
happens. But in that scenario, that's
where you still want to maintain your
basic level of I've still got my device
and I've still got my backup ready to go.
But you're not having to manage multiple
devices, multiple backups. And again, it's
just for that scenario where we
specifically disappear in and beyond that,
your basics are because we've added in
these safety nets, you can be I don't I
don't want to be giving bad advice because
I could say like, oh, you can actually be
quite a lot more reckless because you've
added in this safety net. You don't need
to be as precious with your device and as
precious with your backups as you
otherwise would be. That's not the
impression I want to give. Technically,
yes, you can be a bit more fast and loose
with things because an attacker, if they
did stumble across your device and your
pin code and your backup, they still can't
move your funds. So in that regard, you
can be a bit looser. You don't have to be
as precious with, you know, if you've got
a you don't have to make sure it's, you
know, kept in the most secure laser grid
possible setup if it's off site, because
if that Bitcoin is custody and guard
block, even if if an attacker found that
backup, they still would not be able to
move your funds. So you could be a bit
looser. So rather than put it in a in a
vault, in a bank safety deposit box and
under lock and key and all this sort of
thing, you can actually just go to your
still trusted friend or family member and
say, hey, can you please store this for me
and keep it safe? So that's your off site
backup sorted. But if they want to betray
you, if they decide to betray you, like
you said before, the banking system had
issues with family members stealing other
family members funds. If you just had a
single single device, single six setup
without Guardblock and you made your
backup and you gave it to a family member,
they could decide to betray you. They
could bust out that backup and they could
restore your private key and they could
move your funds because that's what it is.
It's a plain text backup. There's no extra
extra bells and whistles on there. They
don't need your device pin. They can just
go and set up a new wallet and plug in
your seed words and move funds. So in that
scenario where you don't have someone you
can trust, then you might need to go a bit
extra how to secure that backup. But if
those funds are held with Guardblock,
even if that family member tries to betray
you, they would still need access to your
Guardblock account, your Guardblock 2FA.
They'd need us to co-sign that
transaction. So it saves you from the
scenario where someone decides to betray
your trust by keeping a backup with them.
Yeah. So it's something in between, like
you don't have to go all the way down to
securing your backup or your key in a
laser activated Bitcoin vault facility,
but you also wouldn't put it on like your
fridge with a fridge magnet displayed for
anyone to see, right? Like, so yeah, I
guess there's a medium, but yeah. What are
the trade-offs of this product? So the
trade-offs are, the main one would be
privacy with us. So you are trusting us
with knowledge about your, so we need your
XPUB. So part of the vault setup process,
when you create that multi-sig wallet with
us, you are exporting your XPUB from your
device to Guardblock so that we can
create the wallet for you. Now, this is
different. This is not exporting your
private key. Your private key never leaves
your device. We never ask for your private
key. We'll never, we'll never ask for your
private key. We'll never ask for your
backups or seed words or anything like
that. And, you know, public service
announcement, no one should ever ask you
for your, for your private key or your
seed words or anything like that. If you
ever receive that from anyone, whether it
be Guardblock or your exchange or a
wallet manufacturer, that's a scammer. So
just a PSA, never, ever, ever share your
private key ever. Um, so yeah, but the
trade-off is privacy. So you're sharing
your XPUB with us, uh, and we are able to
see your transactions because we are co
-signing your transactions. So that
doesn't mean that, you know, we're logging
in and being like, Ooh, let's, let's see
what they've done today. Um, but we do
have the ability because we need to be
able to sign your transactions for the co
-signing, uh, we can see what transactions
you're doing. So it's a, it's a privacy
thing. Um, the other trade-off would be
in, in very extreme scenarios, um, where
what's an example here. Yeah. So in the,
in the scenario where you are relying on a
Guardblock recovery, so you've lost your
device, you've lost your backup, you've
lost everything. And you are relying on
that second time lock, the 15 month time
lock where the Guardblock recovery key
becomes active. In that scenario, you are
trusting us to do then do the right thing.
You are trusting us to not move your funds
immediately and be like, Ooh, they let
their, they let their time lock expire.
It's time to, it's time to swipe up their
Bitcoin. Uh, you are trusting us to be
like, okay, no, their time lock has
expired. We're going to keep attempting to
contact them, contact, contact, wait, or
wait for you to contact us, whatever the
scenario is and wait for your instructions
to then move the funds to a new location.
So there is that moment there. If that
second time lock expires, that we are
going to do what we say we will do, which
is help you restore access to your funds.
And that extends to, um, inheritance
protocols as well, because that's the most
likely scenario of why a second time lock
would expire is in an inheritance scenario
where you've passed away. So you were
unable to do your rollover transaction.
Um, you're trusting us to then basically
still do that recovery process I
mentioned, but for your executor and for
your heirs. So those are the two sort of
major trade-offs. Your privacy and then
the trust in us for that ultimate recovery
scenario, the disaster scenario, which
again, hopefully never happens, but that's
the safety net. And we're obviously highly
incentivized as a business to maintain
that. Like if we, the moment that we fail
in that, um, that obligation for a single
customer, our business is done. It's over.
So we're very highly incentivized to do
what we say we're going to do, be that
safety net and help you recover your funds
in that absolute worst case scenario.
Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about
the inheritance because I assume that a
lot of people who are parents would
actually find this kind of product very
appealing. Um, there's really not the
strongest solutions out there when it
comes to like, how do you plan inheritance
if you do have self custody? Like I have
some girlfriends, for example, that may be
single moms and they have young children,
you know, they absolutely believe in multi
-sig. They believe in single-sig with a
passphrase and doing it all yourself. But,
um, when it comes to like, you know, what
if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, how is my
10 year old son going to actually get
access to that Bitcoin? So how does the
inheritance piece work? Yeah. So before we
talk about card block, we'll talk about,
you know, the problem of inheritance with
Bitcoin in the first place. So you're
exactly right. You can, for most people,
they will be the Bitcoiner in the family.
They will be the one that has understood
Bitcoin and is deemed it worthy of, of
investing in and having some Bitcoin, uh,
for long-term value accumulation and that
generational wealth. You want to be able
to pass it on, um, and, and make sure that
your, your inheritors can enjoy, uh, that
Bitcoin in the future. And, but you're
then straight away, you're presented with
security issues because, and, and also
trust issues as well. Uh, because you are
having to, you've done all the work, you
understand how your device works, how your
setup works, you understand where your
backups are, what your pin codes are, but
your family doesn't. Uh, your heirs may
not. And so you're immediately presented
with a, with a conundrum. Um, what
information do I put to, so that my heirs
can work out how to get access to my
Bitcoin. If I disappear, if I get hit by a
bus, if I pass away, whatever happens. And
that obviously then creates its own
security holes, because if you do a nicely
documented step-by-step guide of here's
how to get my Bitcoin. If I die and you
print it out and you put it on a piece of
paper, well now that's another security
vulnerability. Because if an attacker
finds that, a thief finds that, or someone
you don't trust finds that, then they can
potentially take your funds, uh, and, and
your kids will be left with nothing. Your
heirs will be left with nothing. So again,
it's one of these things where there is
definitely a way to do it yourself, but it
does require time, effort, energy,
expertise, and a lot of research to make
sure that you are doing it safely and
correctly, and you're not opening up
security holes. So that's where there are
products like Guardblock that are sort of
coming online specifically to deal with
this problem. And so the way that we
tackle it is again, using those time
locks, but also using the basics of
customer support and advice and, and just
working with you and talking to you and
consulting with you and answering your
questions, whether it be yourself or your
heir or your inheritors or executor,
whoever that is, that's part of the
service as well. So with Guardblock, we
cover the technical side. We've already
covered that already with your, uh, your,
your spending pathways into recovery
pathways. Um, that covers the technical
side. So through that, your Bitcoin is not
lost in the, in the scenario where you
die, uh, and your, um, your heirs, your
executor has no idea about your Bitcoin
stuff. They, they, they just know they've
got Bitcoin, but they have no idea where
your devices are. They don't know what
your pin codes are. They don't know where
your backups are. They might have the
device, but just simply not know the pin.
And at that point they're stuffed. Um, if
they have the backup, um, then maybe, uh,
they, they would be fine, but then they
would still need to understand what to do
with the backup, how to use it safely. And
the worst case scenario is something that,
that, um, I think about quite a lot is how
many inheritance situations will there be
out there where an inherit, someone passes
away, they, they've got a bunch of
Bitcoin, their inheritors find their
backup, their seed backup. And they're
like, Oh, I know this can get Bitcoin. I
need to get access to this Bitcoin. And
then they contact some random person
online because they don't know what to do.
And they say, okay, help, help me out.
Here's the seed words. And then the
attacker goes, Oh, goody, goody, goody,
goody. Um, thank you for the, for the, for
the free Bitcoin. So that's why you need
to be very, you do need to leave very
clear instructions for your, for your
heirs on what to do and how to safely
restore that Bitcoin, get access to it.
And then further what to actually do with
it. How do they then custody it themselves
to make sure that it doesn't get lost or
lost in a hack or vulnerable to some cold
card exploits or whatever, or if they need
to sell it, how do they sell it safely? So
we cover all of that with Guardblock.
We've got the technical side covered, but
then the process is actually quite simple.
If you passed away, your executor, um,
gets something called probate. So probate,
it's a, it's a standard sort of process
when people pass away in Australia. Um,
they would come to us, so your executor
would come to us with probate. We would
ask for a death certificate. We would
verify the death certificate and we'd
verify the probate. We'd verify the
executor as well, obviously. Uh, once
we've done all of that, then we can move
to the next stage, which is, okay, the
funds are here. We can restore them. We
can help you do it. Um, what are we going
to do with these funds? And we actually
get on calls just like this, uh, or we can
meet them in person and actually hold
their hand and make sure they understand
what they're getting, how to store it
safely, how to sell it safely. If they do
need to liquidate some to pay for your
grandiose funeral or whatever it is, um,
we do all of that with them and we'll do
that with your executor and we'll do that
with your heirs as well. So that's all
part of the service. Um, yeah, so that's,
I mean, that's a sort of overview. We'll
speak briefly about wills as well, because
that's another very important part of this
that a lot of Bitcoiners have probably got
in the back of their minds somewhere, but
they're like, oh, I'm not, I'm not going
to die tomorrow. So I don't need to worry
about a will. It'll be fine. Um, you do
need to worry about a will, um, because
otherwise the state will get their grubby
hands up in your business and they will,
they will take, take, take. Like, so set
up your will and specifically set up your
will with respect to Bitcoin. So, but you
need to do this carefully because what a
lot of people don't understand is that
your will can become public information in
the result of your death. So you don't
want to be putting things like your seed
phrase, your location of devices, your pin
codes, anything like that in your will.
Absolutely not. Um, what lives alongside
your will is a letter of wishes. Now a
letter of wishes does not necessarily
become public information, but it still is
sensitive in that it might be viewed by
lawyers or judges or, or their clerks or
accountants or, or various other people
involved in your death. So again, you can
be a bit more detailed with, with what's
going on with respect to Bitcoin and other
things in your letter of wishes, but still
a little bit controlled. And so we help
you with this. We give you a bit of
coaching. We give you some, uh, some
documents to read through so that you can
establish these yourselves. But your
letter of wishes is basically what your
executor would come to us with and say,
okay, this is what the person who's passed
away wants to happen with my Bitcoin. And
it could be as simple as, uh, go and talk
to Guardblock and they will help you get
my Bitcoin back. It could be as simple as
that. Um, but it's ultimately up to you.
And if you've got a very complicated
setup, you want very intricate plans, then
you might want to go and get some extra
help. Talk to a, you know, a legal expert
that can help you in a state planner. Um,
that's probably very important. If you
have a significant amount of wealth and
you've got very intricate family and
inheritors involved in the process. But if
it's a lot more simple, then you can keep
it simple. Just do your own research with
that one. Uh, end of the day, they'll come
to us with the letter of wishes. We will
help them carry out that letter of wishes.
Yeah. Um, but going back to the hardware
wallets, what hardware devices are
compatible with guard blog at the moment?
So with our Guardblock multi-sig wallets,
we use a protocol. Well, it's a, it's a,
uh, script called Taproot multi-sig, uh,
sorry, Taproot mini script. Taproot mini
script is what we use to set up our, our
vaults. And Taproot mini script is a, it's
a scripting language, uh, that lets you do
a little bit more fancy things with, uh,
Bitcoin wallets versus just a standard,
standard sort of, uh, protocol wallet. And
so we are a little bit constrained with
the hardware wallets we support must
support Taproot mini script. And so we
hope to support every hardware wallet.
Like we, we generally want to support
every hardware wallet on our platform. Uh,
we are simply constrained by whether that
hardware wallet has enabled Taproot mini
script on their device. And so right now,
uh, I can actually do a bit of show and
tell. Um, I've, I've got my kit here with
all my different wallets for testing. So,
um, obviously we've got the, uh, you know,
the, the, the fan favorites, the cold
cards. So the Coldcard queue, Coldcard
Mark four and the Coldcard Mark five. Um,
they, they were very, they, they were
early with supporting Taproot mini script
and, you know, up until three months ago,
um, very good choice, very highly
recommended by, by staunch Bitcoiners. Um,
we no longer, we still support them, but
we don't, we don't recommend them. Um, if
you still got one kicking about, you can
still jump on and test with one. If you
want to try out the product, you can do
that absolutely free. Uh, and you can use
your Coldcard. So if sitting there
collecting dust, um, you can do that. You
can test out Guardblock and see how it
goes in a completely risk-free way. So
yeah, Coldcards, but we'll, uh, we'll
move on from them. Um, the other devices
are the, the BitBox. So I've got my, my
BitBox here, nice little, nice little
device here. Um, so the BitBox O2 and the
BitBox O2 Nova, uh, we support those
devices as well. Um, they're very good.
Um, they're, they're quite interesting in
the way they navigate. Like they don't
have any buttons. They've got a, they've
got a screen and then they've got these
like touch sensitive panels on the top. So
you sort of navigate by, by touching and
prodding like that. It takes a little bit
getting used to. I was, I was a bit like
caveman when I first, first used one of
these. I was like, Ooh, it took me a
while. Um, but you get familiar with it
and it's a very good device there. And
interestingly, I just saw they, they just
announced, um, lightning, uh, lightning
support using, using their, using the
BitBox as well. So you can easily move
Bitcoin from your standard on-chain, uh,
BitBox O2 wallet into a, a lightning
wallet, um, directly using the BitBox app,
which is, uh, that's a pretty cool
feature. Uh, so I'm keen to try that out
myself. Um, other than that, we support
the, uh, ledger devices. So currently we
support the, uh, uh, what are called the
classic ledger signers. So these like
little USB style ones, like this is the
ledger nano S plus. Um, and to be honest,
before I joined this project, I was like a
lot of hardcore Bitcoin is quite skeptical
about ledger because obviously they
support shit coins and they have had some
data breaches in the past. Um, mostly
because it will all entirely because of
their payment processor. It wasn't
actually because of the company
themselves. It was their payment processor
that had some data breaches, but that kind
of soured their reputation amongst, uh,
the hardcore Bitcoiners. So I'd avoided
them until I, um, joined this project, but
I've actually come around quite a bit.
Like actually since using the devices to
do all my testing and, and, uh, and stuff,
I actually really liked them. Uh, I've,
I've come, come right around to, to the
ledger devices. I think they're, I think
they're great. Um, they do have a good
track. The devices themselves have a very
good track record. They've been in market
for a long, long time. They've got a huge
team of photographers behind them. And as
a bonus in Australia, you can go to office
works and you can pay in cash to pick up a
ledger wallet directly from an office work
store in cash, which is great because then
you're not having to, when you buy a
device online, you're not having to give
up an address and putting your payment
information, all that sort of stuff. You
just go and pay cash. It's fantastic. So,
um, that's a really good benefit. Um, we
have just launched support for the legend
nano, which is like a, it's a, it's a
slightly bigger device. It's got this ink
screen on there. Touch, touch capable. Um,
this is really good because it makes it
really easy to view and verify things like
the vault descriptor. When you're setting
up your, your, uh, wallet with us, you can
look at the whole string of text all in
one place when you're verifying it. On the
screen. Uh, so that's super handy. So
that's a cool device as well. Um, in
theory, we can support all ledger devices
because all ledger devices are meet
taproot mini script compatible, but we
haven't completed full testing for every
single device yet. Cause they've got quite
a few on the market. So right now it's
just the classics. So the ledger nano S
plus and the ledger nano X and then the
ledger nano. So the bigger one, uh, and,
but at the end of the day, we want to
support more devices. We're hoping the
Trezor adds support soon. Um, I'm hoping
that the, these guys, um, you know, local
fan favorite in your area, the seed
signer. We're hoping they add, add a
taproot mini script soon. Um, because
yeah, we, we want to support all these
devices. Yeah. I have been told by seed
devices. Yeah. I have been told by seed
himself. He's like, watch this space. So I
was like, okay, I might just like every
few months, just prod him along and be
like, Hey, um, but I was going to ask you
with ledger, do you know if they've got
the capability for you to generate your
own seed and then put into the device or
is it just a device generating seed? Uh,
right now. So on, on the device, you can
only generate it with, uh, with their, um,
with their, uh, entropy. So you're not
able to add in dice rolls or anything like
that. Um, I, they haven't announced plans
to support it. So I think if you are going
with ledger, you are relying on their
native seed generation capabilities on the
device. Um, in theory, you can, um, if you
really wanted to, you could generate a
seed elsewhere, um, through dice rolls
with a different device, different setup,
and then you can import that seed, um,
using the seed phrase backup into a ledger
device and do it that way. Um, so that's
up to you, but obviously you need to be
very careful and do your, do your due
diligence, do your research to make sure
that if you are generating a key
elsewhere, you know, check that it is
compatible, check that you are generating
your entropy correctly. If you are doing
dice rolls or something like that, uh,
really make sure you are genuinely
creating enough entropy, um, on the
device, uh, sorry for that key before you
import it and before you use it with real
Bitcoin. Um, but that being said with,
with ledger and, and, you know, with on
seed on device seed generation, the, the
Coldcard incident was obviously an issue
with the, the onboard seed generation, uh,
for that device. We, we would hope that
every single other device manufacturer has
now done their due diligence and made sure
that there's no vulnerabilities in their
native seed generation properties. So
fingers crossed, we don't see another
incident like that happen ever. Um, and
again, one of the failings with Coldcard
was that they only had one or two people
ever looking at this sort of thing.
Whereas the benefit of ledger is they've
got a massive team of cryptographers that
are constantly pouring over their device
and their setup and this sort of thing. So
we're hoping that with more eyes means
less chances of an exploit, like what
happened to Coldcard slipping through the
cracks. Um, but the benefit, this is, this
is where it comes back to a benefit of
using Guardblock. So even if, so let's
take the Coldcard example specifically,
even if you're using a Coldcard mark
three and you generate a vulnerable seed
and someone could then recreate that seed
through the exploit, uh, remotely, if that
Bitcoin was held in a Guardblock vault,
they would still not have been able to
move your funds. Even if they recreated
your private key perfectly, if it was just
a single SIG set up, set up with a cold
card and the funds were just sitting
there, um, then yes, those funds were
vulnerable. And that's how most people
lost their funds in that, in that attack.
But if the funds were held in a guard
block vault using the same key, same
private key, same setup, same device, the
attacker would not have been able to move
your funds because they would have need
that co-signing key from us in order to
actually move funds. So that's still the
case with any of these other devices. If
you get just a Ledger Nano S plus costs 80
bucks at, at Officeworks pay cash, fully
anonymous. You take it home, you use the
onboard, um, app, you know, use the app
and the device to update the firmware and
then generate your own seed. Even if 10
years down the track, it turns out, oh,
suddenly we can reverse engineer and, and,
and pull out your, your private key. In
that scenario, if the funds were held in a
Guardblock vault, those funds are safe.
They would not be able to move funds
without the co-signing.
With your early
customers that you have acquired, what's
been some of the feedback that's come
through from them? So there's been a lot
of relief, I guess, uh, because there's,
well, yeah, there has been a lot of relief
because particularly because of in light
of the Coldcard incident, which we've
touched on a few times, there's been a lot
of people that are thinking, well, what
can I do? Nothing safe. I'm, I'm, I'm
scared. I'm concerned for my Bitcoin. I
don't know what to do. Maybe they've just
dumped it on an exchange and a custodian,
which is, you know, not the best idea
because you're opening yourself up to
massive counterparty risk. And so they
come to us and they say, what should we
do? What should we do? And so we straight
away be like, yeah, perfect use case
because you're, you know, these are
typically people that are not, um,
technically capable enough to sit down and
get three devices or four devices and set
up that multi-vendor multi-sig that is
considered the gold standard now for self
-custody. Um, the reality is there's just
a group of people. There's a huge number
of people out there that are just not
technically capable. And frankly, and I
know this is going to annoy some hardcore
Bitcoiners out there. Everyday, everyday
people shouldn't have to, you know,
understand all this incredibly intricate
stuff just to secure their Bitcoin. It
just shouldn't be that way. And so that's
where collaborative security models like
ours are coming in to fill that gap for
the people who just don't want to, or
can't, or don't have time to go the whole
hog and do their own, their own stuff to
the level that's now required. We're
coming in and filling that void and we're
providing a solution where people can go,
okay, I don't have to go out and get 10
devices and do all this crazy stuff. I can
just sign up for an account like I do
with, with other, um, services that I
might use and I just have to manage my, my
basic stuff, but I've got my safety net
ready to go. And it's all there. It's all
straightforward. And we're also tying up
the, the, uh, inheritance pieces and all
that sort of thing as well. So it's a lot
of relief, a lot of relief that, that is
coming to people that are, that are coming
to us and jumping in. Yeah, I bet, I bet
it is. Um, but what use cases are you
seeing come through? Like what are the
types of customers that are taking this
product up? Is it mostly like women, men,
parents? It's, it's a, it's a mix. Um,
there's, there's a big mix of people. A
lot of people are, you know, quite a few,
uh, older, older people, older Australians
who are thinking specifically about
inheritance, uh, are coming to us. Um, a
lot of people that are having like young
families, like they just had their kids
and, you know, they might be very
competent Bitcoiners, but they're still
thinking, you know, you know, hopefully
I'm going to live for another 50 years,
but what happens if I get hit by that bus
tomorrow? Um, is my, is my child going to
get access to my Bitcoin while they can't
even speak? And so it's people going
through those life changes, uh, are
suddenly thinking, oh, I need to make sure
I gotta, I gotta cover all this stuff now.
It's not just me on my own anymore. Um,
I've got, I've got other people to take
care of. And so, uh, they come to us to,
to explore solutions around that. And
obviously we do have a solution for your
Bitcoin to make sure it does safely get
into their hands as well. So people going
through life, life changes, life
milestones, people that are a bit older.
Um, but beyond that, it's, it's everyone.
It's, it's, it's, uh, both guys and girls.
Uh, and, uh, and it's people, you know,
that we did get quite a few people that
were specifically triggered by the cold
card incident, uh, rightly so. Um, so a
lot of people that were triggered by that
one. Um, and that's kind of it. It's, it's
really, it really comes down to, yeah.
Yeah. Inheritance is the big one. Uh, and
then, and then, yeah. Triggered by
security scares and stuff, which are only
going to get worse, frankly, as, as AI
models keep, keep going. So, you know, you
do need to take steps, whether it be, and
there's, and this is kind of everything
like another PSA in general is, you know,
maybe it is time to do a bit of an audit
of your cybersecurity in general. Uh,
whether it be the services you use, um,
how your data is held, how your Bitcoin is
held, like it is time to do a bit of an
audit of all of that stuff and reach out
to your, your friends and family as well.
And be like, Hey, how's it, how's your
cybersecurity? How's your scam awareness?
You know, scams are becoming phenomenally
sophisticated now supported by these AI
tools. And so, yeah, you need to, you need
to make sure that yourself and your heirs
and your family are all covered. Yeah,
that's really, really good advice. And I
appreciate you sharing that. Um, but let's
talk about pricing. So what is the current
pricing structure? What are some of the
things that people need to know before
they potentially look at signing up? Yeah,
so we, we've tried a very simple approach
to pricing and, and we, we come up a lot
cheaper than, than a lot of the
competitors out there. Um, you know, a lot
of these collaborative custody ones, which
have a lot of extra touch points and a lot
of extra, um, friction to get them going.
Uh, they do charge quite a bit of a
premium. So we've tried to, to find a
happy median there. So right now the price
is 0.2% of the Bitcoin held in garblock
faults, um, per year. So, uh, that's our
normal pricing. And, you know, we are
still fairly new in the market. We are
still taking customer feedback and making
tweaks and stuff. And we'll be announcing
some, some changes and some, uh, some
different levels, um, in the future as we
sort of refine our approach and talk to
more customers. Um, but yeah, 0.2% of
Bitcoin held across all vaults, um, per
annum. And right now we do have a promo
running. So if you sign up and fund a
vault before the end of the year, so
December 31st, 2026, uh, you get 50% off
those fees for your first two years. I
want to say two years. Uh, so you're
basically paying 0.1%, uh, of Bitcoin held
for those first two years. Um, sorry, per
year for the first two years. Uh, and then
after that, it'll, it'll go up to the
standard pricing. Uh, but that's it. We,
we, we wanted to keep things really simple
and straightforward. Like we, we're, we're
exploring like tiers and all this other,
other sort of stuff. Uh, but again, part
of our general philosophy for both hard
block, the exchange and Guardblock, this,
uh, collaborative security product is we
just want to keep things really simple and
straightforward in all regards, whether it
be using the product, how to set up the
product, uh, and how to, how to price the
product, how to pay for the product. We
want it to be really simple and
straightforward. So, uh, that's the
approach we're taking. Yeah. And are there
any setup costs or any other like contract
terms that users need to be aware of? No.
So it's completely free. Um, so you can
jump on and create an account for free.
You can do an intro call with us, uh,
completely free. That's just a, like a 30
minute chat where we can demo the platform
and go through your specific scenario and
give you some tips and advice about self
-custody in general and securing your
backups and all that sort of stuff. Um, if
you actually jump onto the platform, then
we, uh, we, we currently offering a free
consultation. So you get a one hour
consultation where we actually jump on
with a video call and we actually help you
set up your device. So you'll have your
device on your end. We'll grab the same
device on our end. So if you've got a
ledger, ledger nano, then we will have,
we'll sit here with our own ledger nano.
You'll be setting it up on your end. We'll
be clicking through with a, with a vault
on our end so that if you get stuck, have
any questions, something, something
doesn't seem quite right. We're at the
exact same step as you. We can, we can
talk you through that. So that's all free
as well. So yeah, there's, there's
absolutely no cost to get started. It's
just once you've actually got some Bitcoin
in the vault, uh, eventually we'll send
you out a monthly bill based on the, uh,
the Bitcoin held in the vault. Yeah. And
the two year discount that you guys have
running until the end of the year, is that
a lock-in contract? Nope. So there's no
lock-ins. Uh, we, we have absolutely no
lock-ins, no minimum periods, no maximum
periods, no nothing. So again, back to
that simplicity angle, you can pull your
funds out anytime. So if you jump in, you
deposit some Bitcoin and you decide a day
later that, sorry, no, I'm not into this.
I want to do something else. You can just
sign another Bitcoin transaction and move
your funds. We, we won't hold your funds
into, in captivity. We have no lock-ins.
We have no exit fees or anything like
that. It's literally just the Bitcoin
network fee. If you move Bitcoin in and if
you move Bitcoin out, just the network
fee, that's it. We'll only ever charge you
if you complete a month, uh, and you've
stored Bitcoin over that month, we'll send
you a bill for 0.2% of the Bitcoin held
divided by 12. Uh, you know, there's, I
mean, it's a bit, bit more complicated
than that, but that's effectively what it
is. And, uh, but yeah, you can move your
funds at any time. There's no lock-ins and
we physically can't lock you in. So if we
wanted to, um, lock you in, we physically
can't because you, again, back to the time
lock conversation, you can simply, uh,
wait for that time lock to expire and pull
your funds out. So even if we turned evil
and, you know, changed our pricing to be
10, $10 billion per day or something, or
the government mandated us to hold
people's funds or, you know, something
crazy happened. You can sit there pretty
because you just wait for that first time
lock to expire and you move your funds
without us anyway. So we physically can't
lock you in. Yeah. Well, I appreciate
So, thanks very much for coming on Mike and
discussing the GuardBlock product with the
audience today. Is there any final, um,
words that you want to share with the
audience? Um, yeah, I mean, maybe just a
couple of things. It's just, um, yeah, if
you're, if you're curious about the
product, just send us an email. Uh, our
email is, uh, help at GuardBlock.com. Uh,
so email us there anytime. If you have any
questions, check out the website,
GuardBlock.com. Uh, have a look around,
let us know if you have any questions. We
want your feedback. Um, we're, we're,
we're still in this sort of like building
phase. We've got the basics down, but we
want people to tell us what they want to
see, what features they want to have. So
let us know, you know, maybe you're 90% of
the way there, but you would, you need
something else to, to get you over that
line. Let us know because we're still
like, we're hungry for people to tell us
exactly what they want. Um, but end of the
day, we're just here to make sure that,
uh, people have a, a, a really good robust
security setup for their Bitcoin. And, uh,
and the other thing I would just say is
back to that general PSA of, you know,
we're in this phase now of these cyber
attacks and exploits and, and scans and
stuff. They're, they're really ramping up
with these AI tools. So you need to take
the time to upgrade your setup, uh, and
not just in regards to Bitcoin, your
cybersecurity in general, what services
you're using, what devices you're using,
real basic stuff, um, for yourself and
your friends and your family as well.
Great. Thank you so much. Thanks again.
That's all right.