I was talking about Bitcoin with a friend who works in cryptography, and she pointed out something that got me thinking. Bitcoin itself is open source and verifiable, so it is theoretically a trustless system. But when you use a wallet, app, or hardware device like Ledger, Trezor, or BitBox, you’re essentially trusting whatever software or firmware they provide.
Most people, including myself, are unable to audit the entire codebase or verify that the firmware running on the device is actually what the open source repository says it is. Therefore, although Bitcoin is trustless, the tools you use to interact with it add an additional layer of trust.
My view:
• Bitcoin’s protocol is transparent and doesn’t require you to trust anyone • Wallets and hardware provide trust in what companies, supply chains, and devices are actually doing • Fully verifying everything yourself is not practical for regular users
So my question is, how do we actually deal with this? Is relying on reputation and audit “enough”, or are there practical steps ordinary users can take to reduce this trust gap without requiring deep technical knowledge?
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