🔥 I ranked 21 Bitcoin signers.
5 years in the shadows: testing hardware wallets, watching Bitcoin Twitter, following every hack, every bug, every vendor drama.
This is where I landed, & some of you won't like it.
My criteria:
🔓 Open code you can verify
📵 Air-gap: QR or microSD over USB, Bluetooth or NFC
🧱 Security model: secure element, stateless or smartcard
📜 Track record, and how the vendor reacts when things break
🔁 Standard backups (BIP39, PSBT, descriptors): no lock-in
🟥 S TIER
Open code, minimal trust in a vendor, and for most of them you can build or flash it yourself. The less you have to trust, the higher it goes.
🟧 A TIER
Serious, Bitcoin-focused tools. You trust the vendor more than in S, and you get polish in return. Yes, Coldcard stays in A after July's entropy bug. The transparent fix and migration guide count too.
🟨 B TIER
Good tools, each with a trade-off: a server in the security model, a newer approach still proving itself, a phone in the loop, or multi-coin roots.
🟩 C TIER
Multi-coin first, Bitcoin second.
⬜ D TIER
Closed code, or recovery models where a company holds part of the keys to your castle.
Now the twist: no signer is the best in the absolute. The right one depends on YOUR threat model. A ranking expires. A method doesn't.
That's the whole idea behind chapter 23 of Bitcoin Hodler: Choosing Your Signer. 📖
Where would you move one device? 👇
ALT https://kavsec.agency