Why Keystone is the best hardware wallet for NFTs
If you’ve read about anything related to blockchain in the last few years, it’s highly likely that you’ve encountered the word NFT and possibly their associated costs if you’ve had the curiosity to dig deeper. NFTs, short for non-fungible tokens, are units of data stored on blockchains under a specific token standard. It all started on the Ethereum blockchains and since then, have had their smart contract code not only standardized, but a whole infrastructure of programs and teams of developers creating content and market for them.
As of February 2022, based on the statistics on coinmarketcap, the average daily total NFT market cap of all NFT projects was approximately 24 million US dollars with a total all-time daily sales volume of 27 million dollars. With so much monetary value involved, security is paramount. Scammers are increasingly on the prowl and innovating new ways to profit from inexperienced buyers of NFT. Crypto hardware wallets provide the protection and security needed to safeguard a user’s cryptocurrencies, but why hasn’t there been one that also caters to those with NFTs? The wait has been long overdue and after receiving a mountain of requests from users over the past few months, Keystone has decided to answer the call.
Displaying your NFT on a Keystone
There are those who use NFTs to express themselves on the web, a kind of a digital identity within a community, then why can’t your hardware wallet do so too? A hardware wallet safeguards your seed phrase and should help you safely interact with the blockchain with various security features. That seed phrase is also the key to your precious NFTs so it would only be natural that hardware wallets evolve to include NFTs as the digital assets they safeguard and not just cryptocurrencies.
The Keystone team has added new features to their Keystone devices so users can take advantage of the 4” touch screen by customizing their login screen with their NFTs. Examples are available on twitter and youtube demonstrating how this looks like. For those who would like a step-by-step guide, check the Keystone support page for more details.
Blind Signing and NFTs
Surely a simple customizability option doesn’t make a hardware wallet the best for those who have precious NFTs and for those who know better, it takes more than what is visually detectable to be considered as the best in the crypto industry. The Keystone hardware wallet is packed with features that will help secure your NFTs away from hacks, scams, and also human error, namely error made by you, the user. Blind signing is a signing issue where users blindly trust the smart contract and/or a watch-only wallet when they sign a transaction on a blockchain. This has resulted in the loss of digital assets in both cryptocurrencies and NFTs alike and has been plaguing the industry for far too long. Computers with Software wallets can be tampered with, smart contracts can be hacked, but your hardware wallet shouldn’t be failing you too.
What are the security differences between hardware wallets when interacting with NFTs and how are certain hardware wallets better suited for those who own NFTs? Let’s take a deeper dive and make a comparison between a mainstream hardware wallet and Keystone. In this example, we will be transferring an NFT from the BAYC collection, the famous “Board Ape Yacht Club”. As you can see in the example provided with a mainstream hardware wallet, the address where you are sending the NFT from is visibly shown on the 4th page of the transaction but nowhere does it show the address that this NFT will be sent to. Malicious hackers can compromise your metamask wallet to feed a different destination address and you’ll be unknowingly signing your precious NFT away since you never had the chance to confirm the destination address prior to accepting and signing this transaction!
You have our condolences if this has triggered any traumatic experiences from prior hacks and loss of digital assets due to your blind signing but you know that famous saying: “the truth will set you free”, in this case, hopefully a better hardware wallet for your needs! On that note, let’s take a look at how a Keystone hardware wallet would handle the exact same transaction of an NFT.
As you can see from the screenshots above, both security and user experience are like night and day compared to the previous hardware wallet. With a Keystone hardware wallet, you can clearly see both the sender and receiver’s addresses. You’ll also be able to quickly confirm the authenticity of the address with the uploaded ABI data file in a microSD card. In this case, “Board Ape Yacht club” in blue font will appear right next to the address. Every crucial part of the transaction is laid out in an easy-to-read format so users can confirm whether there is anything malicious involved in this transaction. Don’t needlessly sign away your NFTs to scammers or hackers. Use the best hardware wallet for NFTs. (For more information on how Keystone solves Blind Signing for DeFi projects, please visit our blog below.)
Blind Signing — A Security Black Hole for the Ethereum Community
Final Notes
The Keystone team has been listening and we hear your needs. As of now, the Keystone hardware device only supports NFTs on Ethereum. However, support for NFTs on other chains like Polygon is in the works. Although not set in stone, additional features currently in consideration is an NFT gallery mode on the Keystone device. The team will continue to reach out to NFT projects and teams regarding the Smart Contract metadata registry so users and developers can all benefit from the additional security it can provide, minimizing losses from scams and hacks alike.
Those who are interested in collaborating with us in regards to marketing opportunities for NFTs, feel free to DM us on twitter. We are actively looking to partner with a NFT marketplace like Open Sea or LooksRare regarding the aforementioned smart contract metadata registry to further address the blind signing issue in the NFT space.
About Keystone
Keystone is a 100% air-gapped QR code hardware wallet. The wallet is designed to maximize attack cost, minimize trust, prevent potential human error, avoid single-point-of-failures and boost interoperability. It was officially integrated with MetaMask in December 2021.
