Learn
Understand the hardware before you buy it.
Plain answers on self-custody, home mining and seed backup.
Self-custody
Keep your keys.
What is a hardware wallet?
A small device that holds the keys to your bitcoin and signs transactions without revealing those keys to your everyday computer or phone.
What does a hardware wallet actually do?
It creates or holds the private keys used to authorise transactions, gives you a separate screen to inspect transaction details, and signs without handing the private key to the computer or phone that started the transaction.
What is a recovery phrase?
When you set up a wallet, it may show a recovery phrase — commonly 12, 20 or 24 words depending on the device and backup standard. Keep it offline. If the device is lost or damaged, the recovery material can restore access.
What does “air-gapped” mean?
A workflow that moves transaction information without a direct data cable or conventional network connection, often using QR codes or removable media.
SeedSigner explained
An open-source, stateless signing device: the seed is held in memory only while powered on and is gone when power is removed.
Mining
Mine it yourself.
What is Bitcoin mining?
Miners run specialised chips that perform trillions of searches every second to find the next bitcoin block. Mining is how the protocol keeps time, confirms transactions and adds new blocks.
How often is a block found?
Roughly every 10 minutes on average — about 144 block intervals a day. A home miner keeps searching through every one of them.
What are my solo-mining odds?
Small, and they vary with the network. Your probability depends on your miner’s effective hashrate and the current network difficulty; no home miner has a predictable block-finding schedule.
What is a Bitaxe?
An open-source home miner built around a Bitmain BM1370 ASIC and an ESP32, managed from the AxeOS web interface. You can point it at a pool or mine solo.
Backup
Back it up for good.
Why do paper backups fail?
Most people store recovery material on paper or digital devices that were never designed to survive fire, water or time.
Do I need a metal seed backup?
A hardware wallet and a seed backup solve different problems. The device is used for signing; the backup preserves recovery information if the device is lost or damaged.
How does Koshh encode BIP39 words?
Each BIP39 word has an index number from 1–2048. Koshh stores that number as a pattern of punched boxes, so the word itself never has to be written on the metal.