What’s new for Keystone
Have you been searching for the ultimate hardware wallet for your crypto security needs? Introducing Keystone: the new hardware wallet product for reliability, security, and usability. If you are not aware of the recent changes with the Cobo Vault team and the old Cobo Vault product line, please see our previous article here on reasons why our CEO left Cobo to start Keystone for more information.
Why the name Keystone?
A keystone is a stone that is placed in the middle of an arch-shaped architecture and is crucial to the whole structure’s integrity. It is the most sophisticated and polished piece amongst the other stones that constructs the arch. The company chooses to adopt this name since the team believes a reliable hardware wallet with impeccable security is a necessity in a world with decentralized services. Just like how a keystone in an arch connects two sides of an archway, our team seeks to provide the best hardware wallet for interoperable access to various blockchains.
Your next generation hardware wallet is here!
The Keystone team now provides two main product lines: hardware wallets and recovery phrase cassettes, an offline metal backup solution, to protect and recover your recovery phrases in the potential event of a lost wallet or wallet failure.
Keystone has built upon the legacy left behind by the Cobo Vault series. For those who are not familiar with Cobo Vault products, here are a few highlights:
- Utilizing QR codes for data transmission to provide 100% air-gap security while making all data moving to and from your hardware wallet transparent and verifiable.
- Being the first hardware wallet with open-source firmware for its Secure Element.
- Improving hardware wallet UX significantly by using a 4-inch touch screen to avoid human error which is the most common reason for crypto loss.
- Being compatible with many famous software wallets for Bitcoin (BlueWallet, Specter, Sparrow, Electrum, Wasabi, Nunchuk, BTCPay Server etc.), ETH (MetaMask), Polkadot/Kusama (Polkadot.js) and XRP (XRP Toolkit).
- Being one of the best multi-sig solutions for bitcoin.
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Current Cobo Vault owners should be aware of the differences between the old Cobo Vault hardware wallets and the newer Keystone ones:
- The microSD card slot will be moved to the outer enclosure instead of being hidden behind the battery compartment. This allows users to transfer signed/unsigned transactions using the microSD cards without fumbling with the battery, allowing simple insertion and removal, increasing user-friendliness and convenience.
- The newer Keystone hardware wallet will accept any microSD cards with a max storage size of 512 GB. The older Cobo Vault model can only accommodate cards with a max storage size of 32 GB. Users who don’t have a microSD card with 32GB or less memory would be forced to purchase one in order to upgrade their Cobo Vault wallet to the newest firmware, resulting in an unnecessary purchase and potential delay in transactions. The wider compatibility for larger storage microSD cards was specifically applied after careful attention to user’s feedback. Hardware wallets should also be designed being time-proof in mind. The 32 GB (or less) microSD cards might become obsolete 10 years later and difficult to find new on the market.
- The new battery is improved by adding an anti-current surge capability so it’s more robust under complex power supply situations.
- Camera recognition speed for QR codes has been improved.
Multiple software changes have also been made to the Keystone wallet:
- Removal of the non-standard cryptographic algorithm for Web Authentication and applying RSA + ECDSA in its stead.
- The QR code protocol will be fully upgraded to BCR-UR 2.0. Cobo Vault’s current companion 3rd party wallets like Specter will upgrade accordingly prior to Keystone wallet’s shipment date.
- A few coins (CFX, DCR, EOS, FIRO, IOST, ETC, OMNI-USDT) are delisted but will be supported using their official wallets at a later date (TBA).
- More 3rd party software wallet integrations will be available soon!
All three variants of the Keystone Tablets are currently available for purchase. Both the Keystone Pro and Keystone Essential hardware wallets are currently being manufactured and will be ready for shipping on June 30th by the latest.
Cobo will deprioritize Cobo Vault to “minimum maintenance” as explained in our previous article. However, a 50% discount is available for Cobo Vault owners who wish to purchase the new Keystone Pro/Essential model when they forward their proof of purchase via email to support@keyst.one.
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