The wallet will save the user’s private keys through an IC card. It will work as an electronic card.
Sony’s Research and Development Department plans to create a cold purse of cryptoactives. The device, still unnamed, uses IC Cards to communicate with the network of Bitcoin and others cryptocurrencies network.
Sony Computer Science Labs (SCSL) broke the news in a statement issued on last October 23rd. The company explained its main objective. It will create a “cold wallet without contact”, which will work without using a USB connection. That will be the main advantage and differentiate the final product from the rest of the devices in the industry. This would allow users to sign transactions with an NFC mobile device.
The idea is to safeguard user’s assets more safely, and market it sooner than it is expected. “It is also possible to securely generate and store a private key with a highly reliable tamper proof module inside the IC card”, the press release details.
How will it work
An IC, also known as an integrated circuit, has the size of one pocket, has integrated circuits and allows the execution of certain programmed logic. For this reason, Sony will use its experience with this type of instruments to develop a portable wallet.
The wallet will not only manage the private keys used for cryptocurrency transactions, it will also allow private keys to be used for other purposes, such as the use of personal information through distributed accounting technology. “It is an infrastructure technology with multiple possible applications”, the statement said.
Smartphones that implement cryptocurrency wallet software will be able to read the smart card, which will contain private keys. In this way, secure transactions for users can be made.
Sony has joined several multinationals to experience new uses of blockchain technology. In fact, in April of this year, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) revealed that Sony filed a patent application to manage digital rights on specific content through a blockchain.
The patent explains that the data of the authorized owner and the content will be recorded through this “blockchain of rights”. The process consists on adding blocks to the chain as full or partial use rights are acquired over certain stored content.
References of previous blocks would also be added, for greater precision. “It is an infrastructure technology with multiple possible applications”, the company added.
Digital rights management (DRM) technology verifies each user’s access to the content of the blockchain to ensure that they have the rights to the data in question.
The interest in blockchain technology continues increasing. In March of this year, SBI Holdings, the Japanese financial services group, bought 40 percent of the Taiwanese company of hardware purses in CoolBitX cryptocurrencies.
In July, Ledger, the main supplier of hardware purses that work to guarantee security, said that it had sold more than a million purses during 2017. The profit obtained by Ledger is approximately $ 29 million.
Finally, Sony confirmed that it expects to commercialize its cryptocurrency wallet in order to promote the massive adoption of blockchain technology.
By María Rodríguez
