Shift Cryptosecurity launched a multi-currency BitBox02 wallet and one with Bitcoin-only firmware. It allows users to generate and store the private keys independently.
The official sale of the BitBox02 cold wallet and the Bitcoin-only BitBox02, which was announced on September 25th, allows users to generate and store private keys offline. With this release, the Shift Cryptosecurity team joins cold wallet developers that have launched Bitcoin-only hardware wallets.
The Shift Cryptosecurity team said that they had contributed to the Bitcoin Core project, so they delivered a Bitcoin-only edition of the BitBox02 wallet to the community that had requested it. As for its part, at the beginning of September 2019, SatoshiLabs noted that the beta version of its new firmware was also designed for maximalist bitcoiners, that is to say, those bitcoiners that support the idea that Bitcoin should be the only cryptocurrency.
The premise of these users and wallet developers is that a wallet that supports only Bitcoin reduces the attack surface, as opposed to a wallet with multiple assets. In addition to the Bitcoin-only firmware, the BitBox02 wallet also includes an update mechanism.
This move has been influenced by the announcement at the end of February of preliminary support for hardware wallets in the Bitcoin Core client. Currently, there are several wallets that are compatible with this Python library and command line tool. Besides the Digital BitBox (predecessor of the BitBox02 wallet and the BitBox02 Bitcoin-only edition) and the Trezor One and Trezor Model T, in the GitHub repository of the Bitcoin Core HWI the Ledger Nano X and the Ledger Nano S, as well as KeepKey and Coldcard, are listed among the Bitcoin wallets that implement it.
Another of the functions that are included in the new BitBox02 wallets is the integration with FIDO, so they can be used as two-factor authentication devices on websites that are compatible with this physical authenticator.
For its part, the multi-asset version of BitBox02 supports, in addition to Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC), ether (ETH) and some ERC20 tokens, despite the fact that the function is in beta phase. In this way, users can start testing ETH, USDT, BAT, LINK, MKR, ZRX and DAI transactions.
The developers warned that it is best to store small amounts of funds in these crypto assets for testing purposes, since the functionality may still be unstable.
Likewise, this cold wallet includes a screen for verifying and confirming transactions before signing them, as well as touch sliders and an SD slot for security copies.
It is worth remembering that Bitcoin has shown the ability to recover from all-time lows, which has led many to consider that it should be the only cryptocurrency. In order to ensure security of users’ Bitcoin transactions, the Bitcoin-only BitBox02 wallet keeps the attack surface as small as possible and has an update mechanism.
As it is also integrated with FIDO, it allows using it as a two-factor authenticating device on compatible websites. The screen for verifying and confirming transactions is one of the other features that guarantee the security of holdings.
By Willmen Blanco
