Oddbean

Some notes on purchasing vs. building a SeedSigner... These are just some periodic reminders about purchasing a SeedSigner kit / assembled SeedSigner that I like to make sure people are aware of: Part of the value proposition of our project, and DIY in general, is supply chain risk mitigation; you are placing some degree of trust in the person(s) from whom you are purchasing components if they know what the components will be ultimately used for. If you do choose this route, carefully consider the reputation of the person you choose to purchase from -- they should have a personal reputation that stands on its own within your local bitcoin community. We intentionally do not have any kind of "Buy Now" button on https://seedsigner.com. I am aware of people building and selling SeedSigners on 5 or 6 continents at this point, and we also do not attempt to maintain any kind of centralized "approved sellers" list. Also very important for those who take this route is that the seller should not be sending a microSD card that is pre-loaded with any kind of software -- individuals should be comfortable downloading (or building), verifying, and loading their own software if they are going to be using a SeedSigner. This is a reasonably simple process that has been thoroughly documented in our Github repository. If you choose to purchase a SeedSigner, consider purchasing the signer as a kit (or planning to disassemble the signer to examine the components), and comparing the components you receive with images of known-good parts online. This can give you some peace of mind and is a useful process to spot any inconsistencies. One last suggestion -- consider choosing a seller who has publicly committed to donating a portion of their revenue back to the SeedSigner project to support our contributors. We do not attempt to audit these donations in any way, but it seems like a fair request given the value our contributors have created. If you would like to build your own SeedSigner, Pi Zero W can be easily found among the retailers listed on https://pilocator.com, and if you choose to do so, can be very simply modified to permanently disable the device's wireless communication capability. The Zero 1.3 can be more challenging to source, but can be found among smaller RPi distributors, as well on AliExpress. The needed Waveshare display hat and Pi camera can be found at a variety of different retailers, check out https://seedsigner.com/hardware for Amazon & AliExpress links for those components. In addition to reducing your supply chain risk, ordering the parts yourself will help you avoid being placed on yet another list of bitcoiners. I continue to appreciate all of our contributors, users, donors, and others who have supported the project in various ways -- thank you everyone! 🧡