Comte de Sats Germain on Nostr: 🤔 "entropy" 🤔🤔🤔 idea... A ratio to determine whether you have enough ...

🤔 "entropy"

🤔🤔🤔 idea... A ratio to determine whether you have enough entropy for your pain tolerance.

So here's my first draft at such a ratio. Adjust or rejig as needed.

Entropy Ratio = seed entropy / (pain threshold * btc amount)

If the ratio is >1, you're good. If <1, you're pwned and haven't found out yet.

I assume seeds can have a range of entropy between 128 and 512 (if this isn't right, you can adjust - I'm not bothering with perfection for this). Also assumed is that pain thresholds are different for everyone.

Imagine 4 pain thresholds. These are arbitrary.
"Not too painful to lose" -- 128 bits
"Painful" -- 256 bits
"Very painful" -- 384 bits
"Might die" -- 512 bits

^ according to the pain you would feel if you lost the amount secured by that seed.

##Example :## Jane has 2 btc in a 12 word seed with no passphrase, so 128 bits. If she lost it, she'd lose everything, so that's maximum pain threshold. 128/(512*2) = .125, so she needs to either send it all to a seed with over 1024 bits of entropy (is this even possible?) or split her stack among enough seeds that the loss of any one of them doesn't hurt too much.

One solution : She might split her stack in four equal parts and have each new seed be 12 words, so then each stack is 128/(.5*128)=2, so then she's good. {assuming her pain thresholds scale linearly - if 2 == "might die," then .5 == "not too painful"}

Another solution : she could split it in 2, and have each stack secured by a 24 word seed with a passphrase. (256+passphrase entropy)/(1*384), then solve for the required minimum entropy for the passphrase, and that passphrase has to have more than 128 bits of entropy. 128 bits of genuine randomness is 20 characters of random characters, meaning not a word she thinks up. That setup could also work for her, for her subjective pain threshold.

This is just a way to evaluate what you've set up. Prospectively, and with fluctuating prices, its probably hard to plan sufficient entropy for your comfort level. Also, although I set 128 bits as minimum, 128 bits IS secure - that ain't getting cracked in your lifetime, as long as it actually is random - that's the catch, true randomness. But if you feel better with more universes of math between you and bad guys, this framework might help you assess whether an upgrade is in order.

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