r/Bitcoin: multisig versus single-sig with passphrase after the Coldcard issue

reddit-multisig-passphrase-debate

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1vhv4j0/following_the_coldcard_issue_still_debating/

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   post: 1vhv4j0
   author: lightbulb-7
   created_utc: 1786092427
   title: Following the Coldcard issue: still debating between multi sig & single sig + passphrase
   body:
   I have my life savings under a single sig.
   
   Thank God the HWW I used to generate the seed was not a Coldcard, but it could have been. I dodged the bullet out of pure luck.
   
   Now that I'm concerned about (a) how security will get increasingly difficult as AI progresses, and (b) how much of a risk it is to rely on a single provider to generate the secret to your savings, I'm preparing to upgrade my setup.
   
   As much as I read (basically on Nostr, which is the only thing I use) that *multi vendor, multi sig, with seeds generated through dice-rolling* is the way to go, I have some questions / concerns about that.
   
   Posting them here to get clarification:
   
   * Regarding storage / secret-keeping: Isn't multisig, for the average Joe, like 3x more complicated than single sig + passphrase? AFAIK you need to hide the 3 seed phrases + the wallet configuration file + two signing devices on different locations. Thinking about a security setup for say, 30 years, this comes with a huge risk (and cost). Especially if I should unexpectedly die sooner, 100% my wife would not be able to put all the pieces together
   * Regarding dice-rolling: Who gives you certainty that, rolling a dice, you actually increase the entropy with respect to the seed that is generated by a FOOS of a trusted wallet that has been successfully doing that for years (say Trezor, Sparrow, BlueWallet, Jade, etc)? I mean, not only the manufacturing of the dice can never be 100% pure and homogeneous, but also the movements that one do with the hand, the height at which one throws the dice, etc, are always constant. Don't tell me that's pure random. The dice advice, without being a technical person, doesn't sound that great to me
   * Regarding privacy: doesn't a multi sig transaction always disclose the xpub or something like that? (Sorry I might have this detail wrong). Should that be the case, isn't having multi sig a HUGE privacy concern (especially for those who use multi sig to store their life savings)? I'm not sure if this alone would be a no-go for me, should it be true
   * Regarding the passphrase: what I always read, is that the passphrase is akin to the 25th word, and that it can be any combination of numbers, letters, signs, even spaces. What is new to me, is that the recent recommendations I keep reading is that passphrases should actually be a 4 to 6 random combination of words from the BIP-39 list. I get that (because of the entropy), but isn't the point of a passphrase to be something that *doesn't look like a passphrase* (in case someone sees/finds it), or that is so embedded in our minds, that there is no need to store it physically?
      * I'm having a hard time with this one, because for what I've read in some forums, it's not necessarily about the number of bits of the said passphrase, but rather about its randomness (which is a proxy to difficulty to brute-force). So apparently some combination of e.g. \[music band name + telephone number\], just to give an example, might have a high number of bips (so one would think that it is almost impossible to guess), but the *structure* of the passphrase has almost no randomness at all (so it could take just minutes to guess). I guess I'm asking what type of passphrase do you guys recommend, weighing simplicity of storage + entropy
   * Edit, additional question: regarding hardware wallets, for any possibility of the both above (multi sig or single sig with passphrase), which HWW would you recommend, and most importantly why?
   
   Thanks in advance for any insights
   
   comment: p289rtx
   parent: t3_1vhv4j0
   author: Narrow_Entrance_3169
   created_utc: 1786092954
   edited: false
   body:
   you can overthink this into paralysis pretty quick
   
     
   dice rolls are fine. the bias on a cheap casino die is so small it doesn't matter for this use case, and your hand movements aren't nearly as predictable as you think. the point is removing trust from one piece of hardware or one software rng. it's not about perfect entropy it's about not having a single point of failure
   
     
   for the passphrase question you're mixing up two different things. a passphrase made of 4-6 bip39 words is strong because it's high entropy and you can write it down. the "doesn't look like a passphrase" idea made more sense when people were hiding a single word behind a painting or whatever but for actual security you want the bits. a music band name plus phone number is human-memorable but the structure is weak, and if someone gets your seed the passphrase is all that's standing between them and your coins. make it strong
   
     
   multisig is more work and your wife point is real. most people with a family situation should keep it simple enough that one non-technical person can recover it. single sig with strong passphrase and a metal backup in two locations beats a multisig setup nobody can reconstruct

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