808bits
808bits. 101 bytes. The quiet infrastructure of trustless systems.
0b0000001100101000₂: four bits on, twelve off
signal
Mathematics doesn’t promise. A proof verifies or it doesn’t, and no amount of reputation, paperwork, or assurance changes which. Everything here starts from that indifference.
territory
Somewhere between the keys an institution holds and the proofs it can show, there is a quiet gap. Most of what actually matters in cryptographic systems (custody, recovery, continuity) lives in that gap. This is a place for taking it apart.
posture
No team page. No roadmap. No newsletter. Discretion isn’t secrecy; it’s sequencing. Things appear here when they can stand on their own.
log
Field notes on digital-asset custody, key management, MPC protocols, and recovery you can prove.
- 007 2026-08-19 The ECDSA tax: a field guide to threshold signing Every MPC wallet pays a price set by one line of algebra. A tour of Lindell17, GG18/GG20, CGGMP, DKLs and FROST - who implements them, who audited what, which ones broke - with benchmarks from one machine.
- 006 2026-08-15 The key that never exists: a threshold signing ceremony in your browser interactive Three keyholders run a real 2-of-3 distributed key generation and FROST signing session, live on this page: every protocol message shown byte for byte, plus a sabotage lab. Zig compiled to WebAssembly, no server, no dealer.
- 005 2026-08-05 FIPS 140-3 is not a security guarantee, and auditors know it FIPS-validated modules shipped ROCA, EUCLEAK, Dual_EC_DRBG, and a YubiKey flaw caused by the FIPS self-tests themselves. What the certificate actually attests, what FIPS mode costs in performance, why it breaks Bitcoin tooling like BIP32, and where auditors actually look.
- 004 2026-08-02 You can't audit entropy after the fact: operator lessons from the Coldcard seed failure A five-year firmware bug left Coldcard seeds with 40-72 bits of entropy instead of 128, and ~$88M moved before most users heard about it. What survived, what didn't, and what key-generation evidence should have recorded.
- 003 2026-06-12 The Fireblocks recovery tools are free. Here's what they prove, and what they don't A technical look at Fireblocks' open-source key recovery tooling: what verify mode actually checks, what a successful run proves, and the recoverability questions it leaves open.
- 002 2026-06-05 DORA exit strategies for digital-asset custody: what a reviewer actually wants to see DORA requires documented, tested exit strategies for critical ICT providers. For crypto custody platforms, most firms have a paragraph where evidence should be. Here's what credible looks like.
- 001 2026-05-29 How to run a custody key-recovery drill without exposing a single private key A practical structure for rehearsing digital-asset custody recovery: scope, air-gapped setup, verify-only execution, deviation capture, and evidence that survives an audit.