Keystone: Who we are

Relaunched under the Keystone brand (formerly known as Cobo Vault), the hardware wallet team is led by Lixin Liu, Keystone CEO and Aaron Chen, Keystone CTO.

Together with the Keystone team, Lixin and Aaron seek to continually provide crypto users timeless security to their previous digital assets no matter where they are in the world. This article introduces the global crypto community to Keystone’s team, their achievements, and their mission.

Since the very first premium hardware wallet was successfully funded (Cobo Vault Ultimate) on indiegogo in 2018, the team has earned the trust of both consumers and enterprises for their impenetrable security and high-end machinery of their open-source hardware wallet. Various achievements have been successfully accomplished by the team to improve hardware security for the global crypto community:

• First in the industry to produce a premium hardware wallet that meets the American military standards for robustness (MIL-STD-810G).
• Introduced QR code data transmission to the crypto community by working with the Airgapped Wallet Community for 100% air-tight security which is compatible with BlueWallet, Specter, Sparrow and Nunchuk.
• First in the industry to publicly share their Secure Element firmware and auditing reports.
• Developed 3 types of metal storage for recovery phrases (currently best sellers within their product category on Amazon )
• Successfully launched BTC-only firmware to improve security for the Bitcoin community and is considered to be part of the best multi-sig solution for bitcoin.
• Addressed the Blind Signing issues for the ETH community
• Integrated Cobo Vault hardware wallet with MetaMask
• Received the Web3 Foundation grant in 2020 for integrating Cobo Vault with Pokadot.js.

Even though recovery phrases are considered a simple matter to most crypto users and hardware wallet developers, the team did some deep optimization regarding the recovery phrases, paying extreme attention to every detail for flawless security regarding your recovery phrase. Here are just a few optimizations that were carefully implemented:

• Recovery phrase check
• Create your own recovery with dice rolls
• Auto calculation for the 24th word
• Implementing SLIP 39(Shamir Recovery Phrase)

Here are the Keystone team’s values that guide how timeless crypto hardware security wallets are built at Keystone:

Interoperability:

QR codes were carefully considered as the best method to transfer any signed or unsigned transactions regardless of the concerning blockchain when using a hardware wallet. There were multiple reasons behind this adoption to address a strong interoperable function a hardware should have.

First and foremost, it provides a more stable connection between hardware and software wallets than USB cables or bluetooth connections. Secondly, QR codes provide 100% air-gapped security so users can be fully aware of what information is passed to and from their hardware wallets. Last but not least, the Keystone hardware wallet only acts as the signer of your crypto transactions without being restricted to any particular software wallet. This protects your assets from fraud and potential hacks in every transaction you make without limiting the interoperability of your Keystone hardware wallet.

Hardware Wallet UX:

The team believes that UX should be considered as a part of the security. The company is no longer designing hardware wallets just for crypto veterans but for hundreds of millions of people around the world who are going to join this crypto revolution. Currently, human error is no-doubt the biggest reason for crypto loss and would be in the foreseeable future since cryptocurrencies have yet to become common knowledge. If the team doesn’t make improvements from tiny buttons and small screens, the majority of people could lose billions of digital assets in the coming years.

Community-focused:

The crypto community’s needs will be addressed and prioritized so their feedback and criticisms( @lukechilds, @nicksdjohnson ) will be taken into careful consideration. We are proud to have listened to our user’s voices and quickly addressed their concerns regarding our hardware wallets.

The Keystone team believes that crypto hardware wallets are for everyone. In the future, these wallets will be your ID in a world that utilizes decentralized services, safely stores your digital assets, and encrypts your sensitive data for confidentiality. Keystone wishes to make those functions available to all users regardless where you are or where you’re from. When will you join this new digital world? For more information on the Keystone team and the new Keystone wallet, please visit our new website.

Security|Hardware Wallet|Bitcoin|Ethereum|Cryptocurrency