A website that will restore your lost bitcoin private key, upon verified evidence that you are the authentic owner of that key.

Marked-For-Category (please tell me of a more appropriate category or move it there yourself
-- pashute, May 20 2015

How do you stop the site running away with your dosh?
-- pocmloc, May 20 2015


Dang it pomloc, don't give away his business model!
-- bungston, May 20 2015


How about -

The website allows you to store a series of questions and answers that it uses to generate an encryption key, client side. Things like birthday, public key, dog's name etc.

You enter your private key and it's encrypted using this key, still client side.

The website then uploads your questions, and encrypted key to its server (never seeing the answers or the private key).

To retrieve, it would present you with the list of questions and the encrypted key.

On the client side it would reconstruct the original private key using the answers given, along with the encrypted key it stored.

This way the site never has an unencrypted copy of the private key on its server.

I've no idea if this would actually work... and for me, encrypting the key using winzip then emailing myself might be easier.
-- TIB, May 20 2015


Explicitly storing keys in a dedicated site is just inherently weak. It's too tempting a target.

If outside hackers don't break it, then inside laziness or blind points (we all have them) will leave things exposed. Or, insiders get social-engineered to give away keys.

Just stuff your keys into the bottom of a JPG file, & upload those files to any server, along with your other family photos that no hacker would ever care about.

Security through obscurity.
-- sophocles, May 22 2015


Why not just store your Bitcoin keys in your LastPass vault with the rest of your passwords? Strong client-side encryption, cloud storage, multiple options for multi-factor authentication. Seems perfect.
-- notexactly, May 31 2015


There's a book Microsoft put out in the 90's about computer jokes. It had a guy wearing a big badge with the word REAGAN, and the caption read: "Always wear your passwords out in the open"
-- pashute, Jun 01 2015



random, halfbakery