>I have to secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership of my wealth?
Not really. Can be a file copied across dozens of public places that is well-encrypted (say AES256+Blowfish) using a key securely derived (say PBKDF2 with many iterations) from a random password you don't use anywhere else.
That said, if you do that, have a system that will drill you for that password weekly, or you will just forget it. And make sure this system can't be compromised to record your password as you type it.
This is what his colleague recommended. A cold wallet that is only worked with offline. It is on an encrypted file system and can be backed up. (passphrase protected)
I remember that Silk Road associated guy that was caught recently with 50000 BTC. I was wondering why he didn’t just encrypt his wallet?
There is no way crypto coin will work for society at large with such requirements.
This doesn't help at all, it's still a single point of failure without recourse. You might be subjected to rubber hose cryptography or any of the systems you use might be hacked and your password extracted.
Not really. Can be a file copied across dozens of public places that is well-encrypted (say AES256+Blowfish) using a key securely derived (say PBKDF2 with many iterations) from a random password you don't use anywhere else.
That said, if you do that, have a system that will drill you for that password weekly, or you will just forget it. And make sure this system can't be compromised to record your password as you type it.