Please reconsider your plans on cryptocurrency and related subjects

pokemaniac

I recently saw this tweet and was shocked by the announcement that 1Password was getting into cryptocurrency:

https://twitter.com/1Password/status/1496487659702829061

This news is deeply troubling to me, as this is 1Password lending legitimacy to what is ultimately a scam, which is making me reconsider whether or not 1Password is a company I want to be giving money to. I hope that this decision was made in ignorance and will be promptly reversed, otherwise I may have no choice but to start investigating alternatives.

This video is long, but is one of the best summaries I've seen yet of why the entire ecosystem is deeply problematic and not something to be engaged with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g

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Naravia

Yeah, same here - horrible announcement.

I’m going to wait a while to see if they walk it back, but failing that I believe it may be time to start investigating alternatives.

XIII

I thought using Electron was bad (wasting resources on my PC/Mac), but if this crypto move includes any kind of crypto that requires "Proof of Work" and thus is wasting scarce/valuable natural resources, this support for crypto might have been the worst decision in the history of the company.

If true, please reconsider indeed!

Siph

Crypto is unethical because of the environmental cost but also because it tries to make unregulated financial speculation seep into every end user’s life. This is a bad move and I hope 1Password reconsider − if not I will look for another password manager that doesn’t support cryptocurrency.

tsauer

In addition to the already mentioned ethical reasons this also leaves a bad impression since it comes after the release of 1PW8 that still doesn't quite match previous versions while also still being buggy. If you focus your resources on crypto projects instead of making sure the core product is as good as it can be, then it's definitely not the right product for me and I will consider alternatives.

DefiCzech

What all of you are talking about? Do you even read the blog post? 1Password only made easier to save your crypto wallet private key, public key and the wallet password. You can save this informations to every other password managers. So basicly, every password manager is supporting cryptocurrency world.

XIII

Do you even read the blog post?

Sure did:

This is the first of many partnerships that we’ve been working on in the cryptocurrency space.

Naravia

@DefiCzech that's the whole point, you can already store crypto secrets if you have them so there's no reason to add specific support unless you want to encourage people to use crypto

mcj

I agree with @pokemaniac here. I have been a paying customer for a very long time, but I will cancel real fast if 1PW looks like it’s catering to crypto nonsense. Just another entry type is fine, but I’m out as soon as I see a prompt to show my stupid apes in my family logo or whatever.

UJason

I'm never recommending 1Password to anyone from now on.

Tertius3

I agree with what was said: cryptocurrencies are scams. The technology behind is neutral, but the actual current use is scamming, money laundering, building pyramid schemes, speculating, and last but not least wasting huge amounts of energy, thus promoting the global warming. I don't see even one legitimate everyday use of cryptocurrencies. There are some in theory, but actually, they don't exist.
You're supporting scams.

It's a shame 1Password is supporting this and a reason not use 1Password. Very disappointing.

[Deleted User]

At a practical level the changes to 1Password are very small - you are just adding a few optional custom fields. However, this is a disaster for the trust in and reputation of 1Password.

Trust and reputation are essential in password managers. It's not enough to have a trustworthy technical solution, the organization behind the product needs to behave in a trustworthy manner.

It could be argued that anything that makes the cryptocurrency world a safer place for the average person can only be a good thing. But how many people will be encouraged to "invest" in cryptocurrencies because they seem to have been given the green light of approval by 1Password? If even one additional family loses their life savings as a result then that would be a disaster.

I have always encouraged people to adopt password managers and recommend 1Password as the most secure online password manager. However, this blog post has severely damaged my confidence that 1Password will always act in a trustworthy manner. Please reconsider your decision to embark on partnerships in the cryptocurrency space.

Ben

Hi all,

I appreciate your concern here. Our goal has always been to be where our customers are. 1Password was founded on the belief that our users’ data is theirs, and that it’s not our place to decide what our customers should store in 1Password. We've long had requests to help folks better store the information that they would like to store in 1Password. Based on those requests and feedback we're adding new ways to get secrets into 1Password, including the new "Save in 1Password" button that this announcement is backed by.

Everyone deserves a safe place to store the information that's important to them. For some, this includes crypto wallets. Our "Save in 1Password" button is a feature that many different companies are using, including Phantom. This makes it easier for people to save these details in a fast and secure way. Ultimately, we want to provide the simplest, most secure method of storing any credential – be it a login, credit card, or – in this case – a crypto wallet key.

We'll continue to monitor how we can best achieve this goal. Thank you for your input on the subject.

Ben

Wells

There's not a whole lot that I can say that hasn't already been said upthread in several well spoken, very thought out posts. I've used 1PW for years, I onboarded my business onto 1PW, I've foisted it on friends and family and I always recommend it to our clients. I'm fine with adding some additional fieldsets for ease of use, but in general branching out into the crypto space is extremely troubling to me. I absolutely will never use products with crypto/crypto integrations professionally (the whole field is riddled with way too much scammy garbage to be worth considering, it's much less stressful to write off the entire field rather than wonder "is this the thing that's going to cause my customers to get scammed/hacked/etc?"). If it weren't for the insane amount of goodwill 1PW has generated with me over the years, I'd be on the hunt for a new password manager already.

Please don't go any further with cryptocurrencies or NFTs or whatever!

[Deleted User]

@Ben Thanks for engaging on this topic and I appreciate 1Password's desire to support everyone's security needs. However, people can already store their private keys in 1Password and there is a big difference between supporting storage of cryptocurrency private keys and promoting this through your blog posts.

While some form of cryptocurrency will undoubtedly form part of our future, most of the current cryptocurrencies will fail or be subject to massive restructuring. So encouraging ownership of cryptocurrencies is like encouraging gambling. However, unlike gambling which is heavily regulated in most countries, cryptocurrency markets are a complete free for all.

1Password already supports saving login credentials and payment details for gambling websites. Does 1Password plan cooperations with gambling related organizations to target this segment of the population? Does 1Password plan to blog on its own website about the benefits of saving gambling related data in 1Password?

Siph

You shouldn’t dictate what users can and can’t store in their own vaults, that’s a thing, but you don’t need to be facilitating things either. It wouldn’t prevent people to store their crypto-wallet credentials safely, the fact that you’re doing so by partnering with a crypto company and that you’ve stated that you have more of these kinds of partnerships coming up is sending the signal that you approve and are willing to associate with this field rife with scams that destroy lives by inciting people to participate in unregulated financial speculation and gross energy over-consumption that destroys the planet and destabilize electrical prices and supplies in many countries that haven’t regulated against crypto mining farms.

I understand that the financial incentive you have for these partnerships with companies pushing crypto as an ideology probably outweighs the threat of your individual and business customers to stop paying for your service, but it would be nice if you would consider the ethical aspect of things.

Repeating it to hammer it in: you can both not prevent people to store their crypto-related credentials and chose to not associate with crypto businesses.

ramblingpolak

Siph says it quite eloquently above, so I’m just going to show my support for their message to the 1Password team.

Not happy about these partnerships or potential partnerships. Long time customer and have referred multiple people and corporate adoption of 1Password in the past but this work is losing my trust in the company and product.

Ben

All,

I appreciate this input and I am sharing it with our partnerships and marketing folks. Thank you.

Ben

Tertius3

The really bad thing is that trust is an essential aspect of a password manager, and a password manager that does not simply add a wallet data fields but in fact actively engages in partnerships related to cryptocurrencies, loses my trust. Someone who supports cryptocurrencies this way is like supporting scams, gambling, destroying our climate, thus losing my trust. I cannot turn a blind eye on this. If a password manager supports a thing that cannot be trusted, the password manager as a whole cannot be trusted.

XIII

This discussion might give some extra insights?

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Stop_accepting_cryptocurrency_donations#Voting

XIII

This answer from @dteare on Reddit is a bit reassuring:

I think it’s safe to say we’ll continue to do things in places that align with our values. The Phantom integration is a good example as it is built on the Solana blockchain which is based on a proof of stake instead of proof of work model. There are things that don’t align as well, so you won’t see us becoming a wallet, or minting coins, nor will we be minting NFTs.