Discover the latest news, development and security tips to safeguard your assets with Keystone.

<h2><strong>Multi-Signature Wallets: An Overview</strong></h2>
<p>Multi-signature wallets, or multisig wallets, represent a more sophisticated form of wallet that incorporates multiple sets of seed phrases into a single wallet. Unlike traditional wallets that require only one set of seed phrases, multisig wallets demand two or more.</p>
<p>These wallets also come with different spending requirements, necessitating multiple signatures to authorize a transaction. This can range from requiring 1 out of 2 signatures to 2 out of 3 or more, depending on the setup of the wallet.</p>
<h2><strong>The Advantages of Multi-Signature Wallets</strong></h2>
<p>Multi-signature wallets offer a significant advantage in terms of security. In order to execute a transaction, access to the correct set of signing keys is necessary, making theft much more challenging.</p>
<p>For example, in a 2 out of 3 multi-sig setup, two signing keys are required from a selection of keys stored in different locations. This adds an additional layer of protection against unauthorized access.</p>
<p>Imagine having one key at home, another at a bank, and a third with a lawyer or relative. With a 2 out of 3 multi-sig setup, you would need two of these keys to spend your money. It&#39;s worth noting that access to your watch-only wallet is essential for signing with your keys; otherwise, your signatures will be impossible to execute.</p>
<h2><strong>Who Should Consider Using Multi-Signature Wallets?</strong></h2>
<p>While there is no real silver bullet for achieving perfect security with your coins, <strong>self-custody</strong> is often considered a crucial starting point. Individuals with substantial holdings or those seeking heightened security should consider implementing multi-signature schemes to safeguard their coins effectively.</p>
<p>Factors such as one&#39;s security threat model and geographic location play a significant role in determining the suitability of multi-signature wallets. For instance, individuals residing in remote areas may opt for multi-signature wallets to mitigate security risks, even with lower bitcoin holdings.</p>
<p>Large institutions use multi-signature wallets often, small businesses might use a single signature wallet at times, there are many different reasons why someone might want to hold their coin with a multi-signature wallet.</p>
<h2><strong>Downsides of Multi-Signature Wallets</strong></h2>
<p>Despite their security benefits, multi-signature wallets come with their own set of challenges. Transaction costs tend to be higher due to the larger signatures involved, resulting in increased overall transaction costs. </p>
<p>Additionally, storing and managing multiple seed phrases and the extended public key (xpub) can be cumbersome, and the loss of any key or xpub could lead to permanent loss of access to funds.</p>
<p>It is very time consuming also to use this method, takes time to go to physical places if you have scattered it across a city, or a country, or multiple continents. Chance of losing access to one of your key is higher in this scenario if you are not careful enough.</p>
<h2><strong>Keystone‘s Multi-Signature</strong></h2>
<h3><strong>Implementing Multisig in Keystone</strong></h3>
<p>Keystone&#39;s approach to implementing multisig functionality prioritizes both security and user convenience. Ensuring the integrity of multisig transactions requires precise synchronization of critical details among co-signers, such as the Manufacturer FingerPrint (MFP), extended public key (xpub), and derivation path.</p>
<p>To simplify this synchronization process, Keystone offers two seamless methods of importing xpub: via SD card or QR code. This ensures that all co-signers are aligned and ready to participate in multisig transactions without any hassle.</p>
<h3><strong>How Keystone&#39;s Multisig Differs</strong></h3>
<p>Keystone stands out in the realm of hardware wallets by offering robust and user-friendly multisig capabilities. The cornerstone of multisig security lies in <strong>verifying co-signer public keys and transaction details</strong>. Human error poses the most significant vulnerability in multisig setups, but Keystone&#39;s 4-inch screen provides an intuitive interface for easily verifying transaction details, reducing the risk of asset loss due to human error.</p>
<p>Additionally, Keystone offers flexibility in choosing derivation paths, accommodating Native Segwit, Nested Segwit, and Legacy address types within multisig wallets.</p>
<p>Security is further enhanced by requiring the entry of the device unlock password as the final step in creating a multisig wallet. This additional authentication layer adds a safeguard against unauthorized access and ensures the integrity of multisig setups.</p>
<h3><strong>User-Friendly Interface and Interoperability</strong></h3>
<p>Keystone&#39;s large touchscreen simplifies the process of verifying co-signer information and confirming transaction details. The spacious display facilitates easy navigation and instills user confidence during multisig operations, reducing the likelihood of errors.</p>
<p>In addition to enabling users to import up to four multisig wallets on each wallet, Keystone also supports hidden wallets through passphrases, providing users with enhanced flexibility and support.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Keystone&#39;s commitment to interoperability sets it apart. Extensive research ensures compatibility with other hardware wallet brands like BitBox and ColdCard. Even in the event of Keystone&#39;s discontinuation, users can seamlessly recover their multisig wallets using alternative hardware wallets, safeguarding their assets and maintaining control over their funds.</p>
<p>By combining robust security measures with user-friendly design and interoperability, Keystone offers a comprehensive solution for users seeking to enhance the security of their holdings through multisig wallets.</p>
<p>For more information about Keystone&#39;s Bitcoin-only firmware, visit <strong><u><a href="https://keyst.one/btc-only">https://keyst.one/btc-only</a></u></strong>.</p>
<p>Follow us <a href="https://twitter.com/KeystoneForBTC"><a href="link"><strong><u>@KeystoneForBTC</u></strong></a></a> on Twitter for the latest product and #Bitcoin updates.</p>


Exploring the Power of Multi-Signature Wallets with Keystone

<p>“Why are you offering a BTC-only firmware and what’s the benefit of upgrading the hardware wallet with it?” This is a question we frequently receive and this article explains all the reasoning behind this availability.</p>
<h2>Security First!</h2>
<p>The ultimate reason for choosing a hardware wallet is the security it provides. The Keystone team perceives security as a paramount concern in this new bitcoin era. Our reasoning behind offering a BTC-only firmware is derived from this core perspective.</p>
<p>As you may be aware, bitcoin has many <a href="https://forkdrop.io/how-many-bitcoin-forks-are-there">forks</a> such as Litecoin and Dogecoin. These forks might be a threat to your precious bitcoin. In this <a href="https://thecharlatan.ch/Coin-Isolation/">article</a>, it describes a potential attack called the “Hardware Wallet Coin Isolation Bypass” (it has been fixed by affected hardware wallet vendors). It is a method of attack where the attacker hacks your companion app and when you try to sign a litecoin transaction, the hacked companion app will construct a bitcoin transaction and your hardware wallet will then sign with the Litecoin app on your hardware wallet, resulting in you losing your precious bitcoin. This is why removing altcoin support from the firmware will generally increase security for your bitcoin and is one of the primary reasons why we offer a BTC-only firmware for your Keystone hardware wallet.</p>
<h2>Additional Security Features</h2>
<p>After we released the BTC-only firmware, it was positively welcomed by the bitcoin community along with our other features such as QR code air-gapped signing. This resulted in more requests submitted by the bitcoin community. In response to these needs, we added <a href="https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0174.mediawiki">PSBT (BIP-174)</a> support to the BTC-only firmware and made your Keystone hardware wallet compatible with <a href="https://support.keyst.one/3rd-party-wallets/bitcoin-wallets">BlueWallet, Sparrow, Specter, Electrum, Casa and other bitcoin wallets</a>.</p>
<p>With these integrations, Keystone users have additional access to a variety of useful security features and benefits:</p>
<ol>
<li>All 3 types of Bitcoin addresses (legacy, nested segwit and native segwit) are supported.</li>
<li>The ability to connect your wallet to your own Bitcoin node.</li>
<li>Bitcoin multi-sig support.</li>
<li>Privacy features like coinjoin.</li>
</ol>
<p>Additional Bitcoin features for the BTC-only firmware are currently being considered such as Taproot support and other software bitcoin wallet integrations like Caravan.</p>
<h2>Final Note</h2>
<p>The code base of the BTC-only firmware is completely and uniquely different from the multi-coin firmware. Due to this reason, there are 2 things to note:</p>
<ol>
<li>The BTC-only firmware CANNOT be changed back to the multi-coin firmware once it is applied. This irreversibility is because switching back-and-forth between these 2 firmwares will cause serious unforeseen errors.</li>
<li>We currently don’t have any plans to add these Bitcoin features to the multi-coin firmware. Because adding those features is not a simple copy-and-paste of the code blocks. We strongly suggest upgrading to the BTC-only firmware if you want the best security for your bitcoin.</li>
</ol>
<p>Keystone team has always and will continue to aim to offer the most secure and user-friendly hardware wallet for the bitcoiners.</p>


The relevance & benefits of Keystone’s BTC-only firmware

<p>This setup works with both Keystone’s Bitcoin-only firmwares.</p>
<p>The Bitcoin network consists of interconnected nodes and miners that secure the network against potential attacks. Miners secure the blockchain by utilizing proof-of-work to mine blocks and process transactions. Nodes store the entire transactional database of Bitcoin (the blockchain), it contains transactions from all the way from the genesis block mined by Satoshi Nakamoto to the latest block mined today. Nodes also secure the consensus of the system and enforce rules that miners must abide by in order to receive their block rewards for finding new blocks.</p>
<p>When a user transacts using a light wallet for example on a mobile phone, their wallet leaks out information about the funds and transactions on the wallet. This is because you are using someone else’s node and give them information that they can misuse in order to deanonymize you and tie your information like IP address or other information to transactions.</p>
<p>When a light wallet queries for transactions, it usually sends the extended public key of a given wallet that contains all the present and future wallet addresses to a third party server, with that a third party server can see all of your transactions and future transactions. This is a big privacy issue.</p>
<p>In order to fix this problem and provide additional privacy when transacting, the user can opt to use a bitcoin full node when querying data and broadcasting transactions. The privacy benefits of such installations is great, therefore we must not ignore them and make use of them in order to restrict others from doing surveillance over our transactions.</p>
<p>This tutorial here will explain how to set up a MyNode installation on a Raspberry Pi, how to install Tails OS on a pendrive and how to connect the Electrum installation on Tails to the Electrum Private Server on the MyNode server.</p>
<p>For running a MyNode+TailsOS installation, you will need the following items:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>1 computer with a compatible camera that TailsOS recognizes</strong></p>
<p><strong>1 license for</strong> <a href="http://mynodebtc.com/order_now"><strong>MyNode Premium Edition</strong></a> <strong>($99 Dollars, sold separately)</strong></p>
<p><strong>Latest generation</strong> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Model-2019-Quad-Bluetooth/dp/B07TC2BK1X/"><strong>Raspberry Pi</strong></a> <strong>with at least 4GB of RAM</strong></p>
<p><strong>A microSD card with minimum size of 8 GB</strong></p>
<p><strong>1 USB 3.0 pendrive with 8GB minimum space</strong></p>
<p><strong>An SSD drive with 500GB of minimum space</strong> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-NAND-Internal-SDSSDH3-1T00-G25/dp/B071KGRXRG/"><strong>(1TB is recommended)</strong></a></p>
<p><strong>1 mobile enclosure for the SSD to connect via USB 3.0 to the Raspberry Pi</strong></p>
<p><strong>1 Ethernet Cable connecting the Raspberry Pi and a Router that is connected to the Internet</strong></p>
<p><strong>1 USB 3.0 cable</strong></p>
<p><strong>1 Charging Brick that can accept a USB connector to function as a power supply source</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Step 1</h2>
<p>If you have the proper pendrive, go ahead and download TailsOS from <a href="https://tails.boum.org/">https://tails.boum.org/</a> The installation is simple, and the Tails website will walk you through the installation step by step, just read the given instructions and there will be no issues.
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/06_Ky_K_Gl_N_Yniq_99ry_1961332ccb.webp" alt="06KyKGlNYniq_99ry.webp">
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/0lsu_Z8r5_Z_Ri_IJ_Jl_H_4f4346f427.webp" alt="0lsuZ8r5ZRiIJJl-H.webp">
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/0_LO_ORT_Co_T_Lq_C_03_J_5b3edf13e8.webp" alt="0LO-ORTCoTLqC_03J.webp">
Keep Following the instructions!</p>
<h2>Step 2</h2>
<p>You will also have to download Balena Etcher to write ISO images to the pendrive, download the installer from <a href="https://www.balena.io/etcher/">https://www.balena.io/etcher/</a>
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/0l_PAD_084oe_Egake_Y_8b7ee30db9.webp" alt="0lPAD-084oeEgakeY.webp"></p>
<h2>Step 3</h2>
<p>After you successfully downloaded the ISO and have downloaded Etcher, go ahead and plug in the pendrive and write the ISO file onto it, based on which installation method you selected you will either need 1 or 2 pendrives to manage the installation.</p>
<h2>Step 4</h2>
<p>After you are done, restart the computer, and press multiple times F12 to enter the boot selection screen on your PC (key might vary on MacOS) and select the pendrive for booting.</p>
<p><strong>(Don’t enable persistence and don’t set a root administrator password.)</strong></p>
<h2>Step 5</h2>
<p>After successful boot, restart the computer and go back to your main operating system.</p>
<h2>Step 6</h2>
<p>Now, head over to <a href="https://mynodebtc.com/">https://mynodebtc.com/</a> to download the community edition of MyNode (<strong>please note here that you will need the premium edition in order to connect with Electrum on TailsOS over Tor to MyNode</strong>)
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/076_G_Bze9_II_Ogl_Ol4_628fb7ef04.webp" alt="076GBze9II-OglOl4.webp">
Follow the steps explained on the website.</p>
<h2>Step 7</h2>
<p>After downloading the MyNode ISO file, plug in the microsd file into your computer and write the ISO image onto the microsd card.</p>
<h2>Step 8</h2>
<p>After finished writing the ISO file, assemble the raspberry pi, insert the microsd card into it and power it on by plugging it onto a charging brick with a USB 3.0 cable.</p>
<h2>Step 9</h2>
<p>Allow the MyNode installation to finish booting and creating system files, then navigate with your browser to <a href="http://mynode.local">http://mynode.local</a> or the local IP address of the raspberry pi. The password for first time login will be “bolt”</p>
<p>Make sure to change the password, in the settings, to something you will remember else you will have to fully wipe your device’s SSD to be able to restart with the whole installation process.
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/0_Vj_V_Morx_GJX_Lg_Sc_UO_e576bb09ee.webp" alt="0VjVMorxGJXLgScUO.webp">
After logging in and the initial block download was successful you should see this screen, but the difference will be that the items are still either loading or syncing.</p>
<p>Go ahead and press “ENABLE” on Electrum Server, the installation will take a long time while it stands up and syncs the network onto the device.</p>
<h2>Step 10</h2>
<p>After the MyNode installation says Electrum Private server is running, you can go ahead and input the MyNode serial into the settings to enable remote connections via Tor.
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/0_Kjug1er_A5_d_N22lh_af46ad6a46.webp" alt="0Kjug1erA5-dN22lh.webp">
What should appear here for you is something similar to “Set Product Key” and input the product key into it that you received via email.
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/0x3zfgt1_Je_And_VJ_Ak_c2d053ef1b.webp" alt="0x3zfgt1JeAndVJAk.webp"></p>
<h2>Step 11</h2>
<p>Afterwards let the device restart or anything else it requests and then start booting up the computer with TailsOS as explained in Step 4.</p>
<h2>Step 12</h2>
<p>After successful boot and when the connection indicator of TailsOS shows active connection to the Tor Network, you can start the connecting process of Electrum Wallet to the Electrum Private Server.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong><strong>!WARNING!</strong></strong> <strong>Never start Electrum Wallet just by navigating to it in the menu, follow the below guide on how to start it properly so that it does not leak information to unwanted participants on the network.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Step 13</h2>
<p>Go to Applications on TailsOS and look for a program called “Terminal”. It should look somehow like this:
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/0aktt9_IGH_5fi_JZ_Xwo_44bec93994.webp" alt="0aktt9IGH5fiJZXwo.webp">
The terminal will look somehow like this, based on your graphical settings:
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/0o_I_Fc_Xap_Bc_Xxg_Y9w_O_111dd804d4.webp" alt="0oIFcXapBcXxgY9wO.webp"></p>
<h2>Step 14</h2>
<p>Open up the Electrum Private Server information screen by clicking on Info.
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/037d_FAO_Qrv_n_B_s_JS_c58120602c.webp" alt="037dFAOQrv-nB_sJS.webp"></p>
<h2>Step 15</h2>
<p>You will then see the various connection information of your private electrum server for both local and remote connections. What you will need is the following command:
<img src="https://keyst.one/images/02c_y7g_GDYCIQ_918_cad352ab8e.webp" alt="02c_y7g_GDYCIQ918.webp">
Here you will see the Electrum Tor Command, you need to manually type it over onto TailsOS into the Terminal you just opened previously. What you exactly have to type is</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>electrum -1 -s yourmynodetorprivateconnectionaddress.onion:50002:s -p socks5:localhost:9050</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It should be in this format without the “./” infront, TailsOS does not accept that command in front of the command.</p>


Keystone's Blog

Exploring the Power of Multi-Signature Wallets with Keystone

The relevance & benefits of Keystone’s BTC-only firmware

Ultimate Bitcoin Privacy Guide using TailsOS with built in Electrum Wallet and MyNode with Electrs Enabled