In this Canadian Bitcoin Conference podcast episode, host Sunny Ray talks with Loick from Bitvault about the future of Bitcoin self custody. Prompted by the recent Coldcard incident, where thousands of wallets were swept, the conversation explores why single signature wallets are fine for spending but risky for long term storage. Loick explains Bitvault's vault model, a two of three multisig with a built in time delay using CheckSequenceVerify and miniscript, no covenants involved. Every withdrawal triggers an alert, can be cancelled, and a trusted contact can be quietly notified. A recovery path, requiring only the user's two devices, opens after a year per UTXO if Bitvault disappears or is compelled to stop cosigning. The discussion covers government compulsion limits, seed phrase backup pitfalls, hardware wallet diversification, the open source versus closed source trust debate, and rising institutional and Swiss SME interest in Bitcoin amid a bear market. Loick argues the real battle now is self custody, not Bitcoin adoption itself.
Bitvault's Loick explains how time delayed multisig vaults could fix self custody after the Coldcard sweep disaster.
Is single sig self custody dead?
I don't think it's dead. A single signature wallet is for spending your bitcoin day to day. If you want to hold bitcoin long term you need a vault instead, which in my opinion is the way forward. It demands multi signature and time delays to protect against the two main problems: things breaking, like losing a seed phrase or a device dying, and people being compelled to hand over their coins.
What does 'vault' mean in Bitvault's design?
A vault is for keeping bitcoin long term. Money goes in easily but comes out slowly by design. You define every condition, like time delays, before creating the vault, and once created you can't change them. Multi signature protects against single points of failure, and a time delay protects you if someone forces you to hand over your devices.
How does the time delay and notification system work?
The normal path uses your device plus our co-signature, with a delay you set, anywhere from 2 hours to 15 days by default. The moment a payment starts you get an alert with the amount and destination, and you can cancel during that window. You can also have a trusted person quietly notified so someone else can check in before funds move.
If Bitvault disappears, how do users get their coins back?
You have to wait at least a year, which is 52,560 blocks, for the recovery path to open. Then you just need your own signature devices, nothing from us. It's written directly in the Bitcoin script itself, so you can read it on the blockchain, and there's nothing we can do to close that door.
Can governments compel you to freeze or block a withdrawal?
They can order us to stop cosigning temporarily, yes, I won't claim otherwise. But what they can't order us to do is hand over coins we're unable to move, because we have no lever that moves money on its own. It's a two of three, so our single co-signature alone doesn't move the funds.
Isn't trusting Bitvault's co-signature the same trust problem in a new outfit?
It's an interesting topic. Open source alone doesn't mean it's all good, and closed source means you're trusting the company. What we did is design it so that if we're not there anymore, or can't co-sign, you just wait a year and move your funds yourself. So ultimately you don't need to trust us.
What breaks at scale, or what's the next major hurdle for self custody?
Realizing multi signature alone isn't the way forward, since coordinated attacks can happen fast, as we saw this summer. Good practice matters too: keep your two hardware devices and backups in different locations, use different wallet vendors rather than one provider, and actually test your backup with a small amount before trusting it with more.
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