Have you ever been travelling, had to make a big payment and realised you left your hardware wallet back home? Perhaps you are a key holder in a business’s Bitcoin treasury, or an emergency came up, and a big payment has to be made, some cold storage Bitcoin has to move, but the keys are elsewhere. 

Key Teleport, a feature developed by the hardware wallet manufacturer Coinkite, may be the most secure way to handle key material at a distance. The feature is only available to the Coldcard Q, the premium, feature-rich Bitcoin hardware wallet developed by the company. 

Before Key Teleport, the most paranoid, secure way to move a private key over the internet was not to send it over WhatsApp or Signal. These apps, while end-to-end encrypted on the surface, are running on top of very complex hardware and operating systems, in many cases with very intrusive firmware embedded deeply by manufacturers. Smartphones today, as with most of mainstream technology, are simply not designed to secure highly valuable secrets that can transfer irreversible money like Bitcoin. 

Had you asked me how I might go about sending a private key with life-changing money on it, across the wire, I would have told you this: You need to boot Tails OS, a slim, highly paranoid Linux distribution, into hardware you know to be secure, ideally a burner laptop. You then need to generate a fresh set of PGP keys to encrypt the secret with the power of asymmetric cryptography. The recipient needs to do the same, Tails-OS and PGP. Then, a classic encrypted message is made to the recipient’s public key, and the encrypted secret is sent over Tor, probably wrapped by another VPN just in case. Having done this once, I can tell you, it’s a mission. 

This Tails-OS plus PGP combo is the kind of setup that Edward Snowden used to get in contact with journalist Greenwald originally, to leak the 2014 NSA surveillance secrets. If the 90’s cypherpunks had some kind of secret society, through which they coordinated the creation of technologies like Bitcoin or Wikileaks, this is the kind of setup they might have used. 

The Key Teleport by Coldcard Q makes tasks of this sort far easier. You can now easily send encrypted messages across the internet without having to worry about your hardware or what other software might be installed on it that could spy. It also solves key management dilemmas; a partially signed Bitcoin multisig transaction can be transmitted as an encrypted note to the recipient Coldcard Q, for example. Or a whole wallet set up, with its metadata, key material and custom settings, backed up, encrypted and sent across the world to its unique recipient. I got a couple of these devices recently for a test run of the feature, and not even Opus 4.8 High could figure out how to crack the encrypted blurb. 

The Hardware

The Coldcard Q — which now comes in a wide range of colored cases — has a very specific set of tools necessary to enable this kind of airgapped communication. First of all, it inherits the dual secure element model developed in the Mk4 series of Coinkite devices. Where two closed source chips made by different manufacturers are used in combination with an open source MCU chip to generate keys, encrypt, decrypt and store sensitive data. A combination of the components would need to be compromised by an attacker with physical access to get the wallet. These chips are, of course, used by the Key Teleport feature, handling the encryption and decryption of whatever message the user is dealing with.

The screen is a 3.2-inch LCD screen with enough resolution to show the BBQr code. BBQr is a QR code standard developed by Coinkite that has no dependencies or third-party libraries, is backwards compatible with standard QR code readers, and can contain larger messages than traditional QR codes. 

The Coldcard Q is also able to read QR codes. It has a dedicated QR code scanner with a red strobe indicator light that guides the user as to what the scanner is pointed, and a small flash light that can be activated with a button to help in low light environments. This optimised hardware set solves common problems with QR code payments, where variation in screen resolutions, camera quality and lighting can make scanning a payment QR code difficult.  

The Cryptography

TWO OR THREE IMAGES SIDE BY SIDE, QR CODE, PIN SHARING, SCANNING.  

A multi-layer cryptographic protocol is used to encrypt the data to be transmitted by Key Teleport. A single-use ‘ephemeral’ public-private key pair is generated for each data transfer using the secp256k1 curve. The public key of the receiver is encrypted with an 8-digit pin, via the AES-256-CTR algorithm. That encrypted public key is displayed by the receiver in a QR code, with the 8-digit pin meant to be sent via a separate communication channel. 

As an example, the recipient would do a video call with the sender, show them the QR code, and use Zoom. Then send the 8-digit PIN code using Signal. This operational security practice means that dedicated attackers would have to compromise two separate communication channels to get the recipient’s public key. 

Sender scans the QR code, enters the pin code and in the back end, the sender device derives a shared session key via ECDH, using the receiver’s public key and its own ephemeral keypair. The user was asked to select what data they want to transfer, from three options: “Quick Text Message”, “Master Seed Words” and “Full COLDCARD Backup”. Once the user chooses, the data is encrypted by the recipient’s public key, and that encrypted blurb is encrypted once more with a new PIN code. Users would scan the QR code again via Zoom, for example, and the sender would transmit the new PIN to the recipient via Signal.

There is a deep set of careful cryptographic details involved in how this Key Teleport is integrated that is well documented in the Coinkite GitHub repository, but as far as the user experience is concerned, the process is now complete. After the recipient scans the QR code back and inputs the second pin code, they will get access to the data. Both Coldcard Q devices would have been entirely airgapped, not connected to computers via USB cables, as QR codes and scanners were used to transmit data, powered by three AAA batteries. 

Last but not least, users can also share the encrypted data via NFC, which creates a special link at keyteleport.com for users to easily scan the QR code and get the encrypted data, replacing the hypothetical Zoom call.

Opus 4.8’s Conclusion

In my test of the Key Teleport feature, I tasked Opus 4.8 High, one of the most powerful AI coding models from Anthropic, to try and decrypt the message. First I gave it the encrypted blurb, after thinking about it for a couple of minutes, it gave up, saying there must be some information missing. 

I then gave it one of the pins, which helped, but ultimately was not sufficient for it to crack the cryptography. I then gave it the second pin, which led to a brute forcing attempt that, by Opus’s own admission, would only work if the ephemeral key pairs were generated with intentionally low entropy. Ultimately, it gave up trying to break the encrypted data, even with both pin codes, saying it was securely sealed.

I asked the model to write one paragraph about its conclusions. Here’s what it wrote: 

“I’m Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic), running in Cursor.

We took a scrambled QR code from COLDCARD’s Key Teleport feature — the kind meant to move a secret like a seed phrase between two wallets — and tried hard to break it open without the missing piece. The QR itself is designed to be safe to share publicly; you also need a short password and a number that are supposed to be sent separately. Even with that password and number in hand, we still couldn’t read the secret, because the real lock is a one-time random key that only exists on the receiving device and was never published anywhere.

We threw dictionary guesses, math tricks, and large-scale computer searches at it; a few things looked promising at first but turned out to be false alarms, which is actually a good sign that the checks work. Bottom line: Key Teleport did what it’s supposed to do — the QR plus the side-channel codes are not enough to steal the secret without the receiver’s private key. For a real transfer, you’d scan the code on the receiving COLDCARD and type in the password there; that’s the intended, secure path.”

Final Thoughts 

The Coldcard Q’s Key Teleport feature opens the door to an otherwise very difficult to achieve level of secure communication over the internet. The scrutiny dedicated to the hardware and firmware process likely outmatches that of even high-security mobile phone operating systems like Graphene OS. The physical keyboard, QR code scanner and NFC antenna make this paranoid system quite comfortable to use. And the $249 price target for the whole hardware wallet makes it accessible to everyday, serious bitcoiners and cypherpunks, delivering a self-custody tool worthy of a professional industrial setup.

Disclaimer: Coinkite provided Bitcoin Magazine with a couple of free Coldcard Q devices to use for the purpose of testing their product for review.

This post One Year Later: How Coldcard Q’s Key Teleport Delivers Secure Remote Key Management for Bitcoin Treasuries first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Coinkite the Bitcoin-only hardware wallet manufacturer, recently released the MK5, a significant quality of life and user experience upgrade to the MK4 Coldcard, building on the strong security foundations set by its predecessor. The MK5 comes in many colors and styles. Today, I will review the Orange and Glow in the dark versions, as well as their form factor and user experience upgrades, to answer the question: are the upgrades to the device worth the money? 

Building on the well-known and trend-setting MK4 security platform, which brought two secure element chips from different manufacturers and an MCU to the same device. The MK5 focuses instead on quality of life, improving the NFC connectivity, reworking the buttons and plastic chassis of the hardware wallet, as well as adding a much larger screen, among other new features. This is the first hardware upgrade to the Coinkite MK line since the launch of the MK4 in 2022, integrating into it some of the technologies debuted by the Coldcard Q in 2023.

What is new with the MK5 Coldcard?

The big upgrades to the UX are immediately visible; the screen, for one, is much larger, perhaps 30% bigger. Their announcement blog describes it as a “1.54-inch display protected by Gorilla Glass,” which does look and feel much sturdier than older models.

The next obvious upgrade is the buttons. Unlike the MK4 buttons, which are indented, requiring your fingers to go into the socket to get a click, the MK5 buttons are almost at par with the chassis of the device, making them much easier to press. The press feels good, it clicks, giving the user a solid tactile feedback. Much more comfortable than the warm, slightly uncomfortable, unresponsive feel of a touch screen, as seen in other hardware wallets. 

You also quickly notice the chassis has been redesigned. The screen section no longer pops out above the keyboard; instead, it’s all one rectangle with comfortable curved edges. It looks more modern, more elegant, while keeping that cypherpunk transparency that shows off the underlying hardware, a signature design principle of Coinkite products. 

The MK5 also comes with a button and screen protector half case that slides and clicks in and out. It can be entirely removed and fits perfectly from the back of the device, exposing the USB power input at the bottom of the device without issue. 

NFC Push Transactions

Last but not least, Coinkite doubles down on NFC support with the MK5. An acronym for near field communication, the NFC antenna is an increasingly popular tech stack in the Bitcoin industry. From NFC tap to pay lightning Bolt cards with cool designs and laser eyes, or Coinkite’s own Tapsigners, to Cashu’s tap to send features developed by Calle. 

NFC is a powerful alternative to other wireless connection technologies like Bluetooth or Wifi, which some hardware wallet providers have adopted, but come with some arguable downsides, mainly their range. Unlike the alternatives, NFC is short-range by design; we are talking centimeters in range, whereas Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are talked about in tens of meters. So the paranoid level threat that someone with a long-range antenna pointed at your house might catch a transaction in transit or be able to connect to your device remotely, vanishes. 

There’s also no multi-step device connection protocol with NFC; phones either have the feature on and off, the app starts scanning, and transmission can occur. No pin codes, no sifting through lists of Bluetooth-powered devices. Much simpler UX in theory. It is also far superior in terms of user experience to the SD card transmission of pre-signed transactions back and forth from laptops or phones. While NFC may technically cross the ‘airgapped’ line in the MK4 and MK5, NFC still has the best qualities of all wireless connectivity options, and is set to off in the default settings. Similar to the option to connect the MK5 to a computer via USB for data transmission, the NFC antenna can also be severed at a hardware level by scratching off a specific wire within the hardware. 

Coinkite’s NFC push Tx software is open source and much smaller in terms of lines of code than Bluetooth or Wifi. The full NFC push Tx code is open source. The client web app side of the protocol has no license defined and is presumably meant to be integrated by any web application. While the hardware side of the code is public, but is limited by the non-commercial use license.

The Colors of the MK5

Playing into the Bitcoiner’s hunger for collectibles, the MK5 comes in a wide range of cases, such as gold flaked transparent gray, gorgeous orange and even glow in the dark! I got to play with the Orange and blue glow-in-the-dark version, though I kind of wish I’d gotten my hands on the gold flaked one.

Nevertheless, the designs are beautiful, transparent enough to see the hardware, but colorful enough to be stylish. Here’s what they look like in practice. 

Supply Chain Security

The packaging was also very interesting; the box containing the hardware came with a purchase order of the items, which were inside tamper-proof security bags. These bags had pretty strong plastic, not something you can easily rip, requiring a knife to slice through them. The bags were also marked with a unique number, seen in the pictures below. Inside the bag, another plastic strip contained the same number. And when the devices were first powered on, they displayed the same number on the screen. This is a flash memory code that gets set up per device at the factory. Making interception and manipulation of the firmware of hardware that much more difficult. The next level would be to notify the user of the bag number via email or behind a login on the site, so they can have a side channel to verify the number as well.

If you see anything off with the packaging, you are encouraged to take pictures and reach out to Coinkite support. 

The battery and exposed hardware device in the picture below is the COLDPOWER Adapter by Coinkite, which I happened to have laying around and figured I’d test out as well. It is meant to give the device power entirely airgapped, no cables connected to any computer whatsoever, as even a malicious Wifi repeated plugged into a power outlet could transmit signals across the power wires (lol). 

Things to improve?

Integration of NFC Push Tx with mobile wallets was a bit inconsistent. I tried Cove, Bull Bitcoin and Nunchuck. Of the three, Nunchuck had the best integration, with Cove not far behind. Bull Bitcoin seems to have disabled the feature or hidden it quite well. Cove is a young project likely to improve leaps and bounds in the coming months, while Nunchuck a very advanced and powerful wallet, took me a few minutes to figure out but ultiumetly turned out to be the best interface of the three.

Even with a stronger NFC antenna, I had to remove my phone’s ridiculously thick case in order to get a reliable data transmission, but that’s not the end of the world. 

Conclusion: Is the MK5 worth the money to upgrade? 

As a proud owner of what I now realize is an ancient MK3, the move to an MK5 is a significant upgrade, and the low cost of $167 plus shipping, I’d say it is a no-brainer. That’s a whole generation of security and UX upgrades that I did not realize I needed.

For active users of the MK4, the bigger screen and better buttons are definitely an improvement in quality of life, and the better NFC antenna will likely yield dividends as well by making transaction flows smoother. Again, compared to other hardware wallets in the market, the price is very reasonable.

For passive MK4 owners who make a couple of transactions a year, however, the juice might not be worth the squeeze. They are still getting firmware updates and get all the security benefits, and likely won’t miss the improved UX that much. 

Disclaimer: Coinkite provided Bitcoin Magazine with a couple of free MK5 Coldcards to use for the purpose of testing their product for review.

This post Coinkite Launches Coldcard MK5: Major UX Upgrades to Flagship Bitcoin Hardware Wallet first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Proton, the Swiss company behind ProtonMail and ProtonVPN, has released a beta version of the newest offering in its suite of products that help to preserve online privacy — Proton Wallet.

The wallet is great for those looking to send bitcoin on-chain with relative ease, but it leaves some to be desired for more advanced users or for those who want to make smaller payments quickly and cheaply.

Pros And Cons

Proton Wallet’s standout feature is that it allows you to send bitcoin using nothing more than a recipient’s email address, which doesn’t have to be a ProtonMail address. The non-custodial bitcoin-only wallet is also free to use and has an easy-to-navigate user interface (UI).

However, it lacks in that it only allows users to make transactions on the Bitcoin base chain — not over Lightning — which can take upwards of hours to settle, and it doesn’t allow users to manage their UTXOs. Plus, it’s a software wallet and cannot be disconnected from the internet like a hardware wallet, which increases the risk of the wallet’s private keys being compromised.

Getting Started With Proton Wallet

To use the beta version of the product, you need an invitation either from the company or another user. The wallet is currently available via web browser, as an Android app and as a TestFlight version of an Apple app and takes 5 to 10 minutes to set up and begin using.

Once you’ve received an email invitation to use the wallet, you can click on the “Start using Proton Wallet” link in the invitation email to get started setting it up. (Email addresses have been blacked out below and throughout this review to preserve privacy.)

You’ll be taken to a “wallet setup” page where you’ll simply click a button to get started with Proton Wallet. You won’t be prompted to write down the 12-word seed phrase as you set up the wallet, which was a nice touch by Proton to help users to more simply get started using the wallet. You can write down the seed phrase later if you please, though.

As you set up the wallet, Proton makes it clear that your Proton Wallet is a non-custodial Bitcoin wallet, which means that managing the wallet is your responsibility and your responsibility alone.

The home screen of the wallet is straightforward and incredibly easy to navigate. It’s as pared down so as to include little more than the basics you need to send, receive and buy bitcoin.

Depositing Bitcoin In Proton Wallet

To begin using the wallet, you’ll first have to deposit some bitcoin. You can deposit bitcoin from another wallet you manage. To do so, you’ll need to copy the bitcoin address by clicking on the “Receive” button on the home screen and then clicking the “Copy Bitcoin address” button in the window that pops up on the right of the screen.

You’ll copy that address into the proper field from the wallet you’re sending it from. It’s good practice to double check that the address you’ve pasted matches the address you’ve copied.

The bitcoin won’t appear in your Proton Wallet balance immediately. It usually takes at least a few minutes for the transactions to process, as this depends on how long it takes for block confirmations to occur. Some transactions can take much longer — upwards of hours.

You can see that the funds are on their way, though, in the “Transactions” section of the home screen. You’ll continue to see an “In progress” notification until the necessary amount of block confirmations has occurred.

Buying Bitcoin With Proton Wallet

If you don’t have any bitcoin to send to your Proton Wallet, you can also use the wallet to buy some. This process is relatively straightforward.

You can click the “Buy” button on the home screen and you’ll be taken to a page that serves as an interface for crypto asset service providers Ramp and Banxa.

Complete the fields for how much bitcoin you want to purchase, choose whether you want to use Banxa or Ramp and select your payment method.

Instructions from this point vary depending on the payment method you choose.

Sending Bitcoin With Proton Wallet

You can send bitcoin as simply as clicking the “Send” button on the home screen and then inputting either a bitcoin address or an email address. Note that your recipient doesn’t need a ProtonMail address.

I used an email address to send some bitcoin.

Next, you’ll be taken to an “Amount” page, where you’ll input the amount of bitcoin you’d like to send, denominated either in either a fiat currency or sats.

On the “Review” page, you can leave a message for the recipient. It’s optional to do so.

On this page, you’ll also be presented with the total amount of your transaction and be given the option to increase or decrease the priority of your transfer.

You won’t be presented with the option to select UTXOs to spend, an option that a desktop Bitcoin wallet like Sparrow provides you with.

If you’re comfortable with the amount you want to send and the fee, you can click the “Confirm and send” button.

If you’d like to increase or decrease the speed of your transaction, you can select a higher or lower network fee by clicking the arrow to the right in the “Network fee” section of the page.

When you do so, a new window will pop up, allowing you to select different network fees.

“High priority” transactions process fastest are the most expensive. Transactions via Proton Wallet default to “Median priority” if you do not select the level of priority you prefer.

You’ll be able to see whether or not your transaction has cleared by looking at the “Transactions” section.

In my case, the recipient was notified that the bitcoin was on the way before the transaction received the required number of confirmations on the blockchain.

I sent this transaction with “Median priority,” and it took over an hour to complete.

Securing Your Proton Wallet

Proton Wallet lets you secure and back up your wallet in different ways.

The first level of security for the wallet is the password you use to log in to it, which you create when you set up the wallet.

Proton Wallet lets you add a second level of security by offering two-factor authentication (2FA).

To set this up, you can click on the “Secure your wallet” tab in the top right hand corner of the home screen. You’ll then be presented with the option to set up 2FA for your wallet.

If you want to add 2FA protection to your account, you can click the “Set up 2FA to secure your account” button. When you do so, you’ll be taken to a page on which you can toggle a switch to set up 2FA for the account. If you choose to do this, toggle the “Authenticator app” switch and follow the subsequent instructions.

Backing Up Your Proton Wallet

Proton Wallet allows you to back up your wallet’s seed phrase whenever you’d like. To do so, you can click on “Backup this wallet’s seed phrase” on the home screen.

You’ll then be taken to a screen that explains what a seed phrase is and why it’s important to safely back it up. Click the “View wallet seed phrase” button to view the seed phrase for your wallet.

It’s best practice to store your seed phrase offline (e.g., written on a piece of paper or imprinted on steel) so that it can’t be compromised.

Discover and Customer Service

Proton Wallet has a substantial “Discover” section in which you can learn more about everything from what Bitcoin is to Proton Wallet’s security model.

Proton also makes it relatively easy for you to get in touch with customer service staff, though, response times are currently unknown.

Conclusion

Proton Wallet is a good Bitcoin wallet for beginners, especially those looking to send bitcoin with relative ease, using nothing more than an email address.

The pros of this non-custodial wallet are that it’s free to use, easy to set up and secure. It’s also bitcoin only and open-source.

However, one notable con of the wallet is that it only allows you to transact on the bitcoin base chain, which means your transactions may incur high fees and take over an hour to fully process. For this reason, you wouldn’t want to use Proton Wallet if you’re looking to make cheap, fast micropayments — the types of transactions you can make over Lightning.

Another drawback of the wallet is that it doesn’t permit you to manage UTXOs. And it’s a software wallet, which means it’s less secure than a hardware wallet in certain regards.

With that said, if you’re new to Bitcoin and already familiar with the interfaces for Proton products, then this wallet may be a good option for you.

This post Proton Wallet Review: A Bitcoin Software Wallet That Simplifies Transactions first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Frank Corva.

This is an opinion editorial by Shawn Amick — all thoughts and recommendations are entirely the authors and not an official Bitcoin Magazine endorsement.

Cryptotag recently allowed me to test one of their latest products, Odin, which is a unique product that means to secure self-custodied keys with a set of titanium, laser-etched hexagons that each store a partial key (a “share”) that is split using Shamir Secret Sharing.

Shamir Secret Sharing

Shamir Secret Sharing allows you to split your seed into m “shares” where any n of them can be used to rebuild your original seed. But anyone holding less than n shares does not even have a partial copy of your seed. This also means that you can lose m – n recovery shares and still be able to rebuild your seed. A more detailed explanation is available here.

In order to use Odin, you’d need to select the correct amount of words per recovery share— in this case, that would be 20 words per share, as Odin only supports a 20-word capacity.

Shamir Secret Sharing generates a random word for each of the 20 words included in a share. The words generated are pulled from a predetermined list of words that have been hand-picked to optimize for security (the word list can be found here).

Each word has a corresponding number. For example, “academic” is correlated to the number one. This number is represented as 0001 in the SLIP-0039 (Shamir Secret Sharing) Word List that was sent with Odin.

Shamir utilizes a setup similar to multisig, except instead of creating a wallet from multiple seeds you just have a single seed that can be assembled from multiple recovery shares. The Shamir setup consists of the following parameters: Total Shares and Thresholds.

Total Shares: The number of recovery shares to be created for a specific seed. For instance, if a customer wanted there to be a total of five recovery shares, they would create five Total Shares. We will return to the actual process of creating these elements further below.

Threshold: The necessary number of recovery shares required to be able to rebuild your seed. Continuing with the example above, if we have five Total Shares, we might want to set a Threshold of three. This means that of the Total Shares (five) that exist for this wallet, we only need three of the recovery shares to reassemble our seed.

Odin

The product is packaged in a sizeable black box with the words “This is for the HODLers” inscribed on it. In the box you will find the titanium hexagons, their accompanied silicon sleeves, an anvil (used to hold the hexagons in place to engrave later), a HODL BODL (very cool water bottle), matches, ear plugs, a high-quality center punch (for engraving), setup guide, some snacks and, in my case, a Trezor hardware wallet.

The titanium hexagon stands at 0.87 inches tall, 4.7 inches long and 0.98 inch wide.

While it fits easily into a pocket, I wouldn’t recommend carrying your keys with you everywhere you go for people to see, even if the silicon sleeve with “Cryptotag” embedded on it looks great.

Odin is sleek and compact in design. The titanium hexagons used for creating the recovery shares are black with four sections per side.

One side reads: Total Shares, Threshold, Share Number and Wallet Number (if you have multiple wallets, you can designate which wallet that particular hexagon applies to).

Each of the remaining five sides has four numbers. For example, the first side is numbers 1-4, then 5-9 and so on. Each number has four digit grids beside it with the numbers 0-9 in each. The digit grids are used for the Shamir backup as a way to encode each word in the recovery share.

Each word has a corresponding number from the word list. For example, “academic” is word number one. For Odin, this number is represented as 0001. Remember, there are four digit grids for each number. Therefore, if the first recovery share word is “academic,” this is how we would proceed:

On the first section of the hexagon represented by a large “1”—this indicates it is recording the first word of the recovery share—you would punch “0” in the first three digit grids and then “1” in the fourth and final digit grid for the first recovery share word.

Now what do I mean by punching a number? How does it actually get associated with the correct number on the digit grid?

User Experience And Guide

Assuming the consumer has zero experience with hardware wallets or self-custody, it needs to be said that this process was exceptionally easy and only mildly time-consuming.

Once you receive the setup guide, the first pages walk you through the simple steps to setup a Shamir Secret Sharing backup supported through Trezor’s hardware wallet, (Shamir has limited support from other hardware wallets).

The steps were simple. First, connect the Trezor wallet to your computer via its USB cable. You will be prompted by the device to go to Trezor’s website where you will be asked to download Trezor’s application onto your computer. The download is quick and easy.

Once the application is up and running, the computer will prompt you to install a firmware upgrade on the device. Once completed, the application will give you two simple choices with pictures. Do you want a normal backup or Shamir?

After clicking Shamir, Trezor walks you through some simple steps setting up a pin number, the generation of each share and specifying the threshold and wallet numbers discussed earlier. It’s extremely easy and user-friendly.

Once the amount of shares is picked, you’ll generate the words associated with each 20-word recovery share for the number of shares chosen. Trezor will prompt you to write these words down—manually!—and will remind you to make sure it is not digitally stored anywhere.

This next part is where things go a little slow. In the goodie bag Cryptotag sent you will find a “conversion sheet” for each hexagon purchased. Here you will find a slot for all 20 words associated with the recovery share of each hexagon. Below where you can write the words, you’ll notice four boxes underneath each word. Simply write the words down, ignoring the boxes below the space for the words.

In the box you’ll also find “SLIP-39 Word List”. Each word, as I mentioned before, is represented by a four-digit number. Locate each of your 20 words per share in the word list and write the corresponding number down below the word.

Now we locate the center punch tool. Remember, these hexagons are titanium, which means in order to leave a mark it takes some pressure. This is also why Cryptotag sends earplugs. I didn’t feel the need to use them, but the neighbors might have appreciated it if I gave the earplugs to them.

For each word of the Shamir backup, you will punch the four-digit number into each section.

This process needs to be repeated for all 20 words for each hexagon being used (one per recovery share). It takes some time, but once it is complete, you’ll have a fire- and water-resistant, laser-etched titanium backup capable of being dispersed in a way that is guaranteed not to hurt you if one is lost or stolen.

Conclusion

Odin is a practical and durable solution to alleviating much of the concern around protecting your keys (seed phrases). I’m thrilled Cryptotag allowed me this opportunity to become a fan of their product. That being said, I did have some concerns.

While anyone holding onto a recovery share for you could look up the public list of words and then decode each word from the punched numbers on Odin, it would still only lead to one share being compromised which means that the threshold would not be broken, maintaining the safety of your keys. This requires clean management of your shares and trusted parties (if applicable), but that’s hardly different from your standard self-custody solution.

The center punch used to engrave each digit on Odin wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t miserable. I managed to get all the way through one hexagon before I had issues with it. After that, the mechanism that holds the end in place began to shift. The fix was a simple movement to return in place, but I did have a fear that it might stop mid-process.

The setup guide isn’t worded for advanced users, but it also isn’t worded for beginners. As mentioned above, I reached out to clarify definitions and processes just to be sure. I would have liked for the guide to be a bit more detailed.

The digit grids used to punch in the numbers associated with each word are really small. I’m sure this is by design to keep the product compact. However, I did find myself not being entirely happy with the mark I left which caused me to just add another mark.

The sleek design matched with immense durability offers peace of mind for those looking to take the extra step in security with a bold aesthetic that is hard not to like. Upon testing my Trezor recovery process, I found it worked fine, with the obvious note that any mistake in the creation of the shares would lead to an error upon recovery. All that being said, this is a product for HODLers who appreciate aesthetics and have extra money to spend. I’d happily do it again, but it’s hardly a necessity.

This is a guest post by Shawn Amick. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This post A Review Of Cryptotag’s Multi-Share Titanium Seed Phrase Solution, Odin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Shawn Amick.

Bitcoiners attempting to do their part to secure the network, and run their own full nodes that fully validate transactions and blocks, often turn to hardware and software solutions provided by a range of groups. But those who were leveraging node hardware provided by Casa are now in search of a new solution.

Casa no longer supports its node hardware with ongoing updates, leaving plenty of Bitcoiners wondering how they can keep an updated full Bitcoin node running on their old Casa Node hardware. In the video above, Bitcoin Magazine’s Nik Hoffman recommends installing MyNode on existing Casa Node hardware to continue contributing to the Bitcoin network. 

To help, he provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to do so along with a visual walkthrough. Basic steps include:

1. Unplugging your node hardware
2. Opening the hardware and removing the microSD card inside
3. Plugging the microSD card into your computer
4. Visiting MyNode’s website and following the steps listed to install its software onto the microSD card
5. Reinserting the microSD card into the Casa Node hardware
6. Plugging the device back into its power source, router, etc.
7. Visiting MyNode.Local to complete the onboarding process and return to securing the Bitcoin network

Of course, the video tutorial above provides much more detail and a visual walkthrough for those looking to keep their Casa Node running. Be sure to watch it and subscribe to Bitcoin Magazine’s YouTube page for more helpful Bitcoiner walkthroughs.

This post Video: How To Install MyNode on Your Old Casa Node first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Peter Chawaga.

Bitcoin Magazine reviewed the Billfodl Multishard, a two-of-three stainless steel recovery seed storage device that allows you to split your seed into three shards, ensuring that, even if someone finds one part of your phrase, they won’t be able to steal your funds.

Each shard allows you to store up to 16 words of your seed phrase, and each unit tells you which 16 out of the 24 total words to load up. Shard One houses words 1 to 16, Shard Two houses words 9 to 24 and Shard 3 houses words 1 to 8 and 17 to 24. Once this process is complete, you will have effectively backed up each seed word twice. 

As mentioned in the video review, you can also choose to use just eight slots per shard and fill the rest up with random letters to achieve a three-of-three setup, which would ensure maximum security. Billfodl worked with an industry expert, Dave Bitcoin, the head of Wallet Recovery Services. Dave Bitcoin determined that, if utilizing 1,000,000 modern GPUs, it would take approximately 4 million years (not to mention the roughly $65 trillion it would cost to purchase and run 1 million modern GPUs, even assuming a low electricity cost of $0.02 per kilowatt hour). 

In terms of use and design, the sleek and sharp feel of the individual shards feels comfortable in your hands. However, the individual letters that need to be inserted into the shards come in a punch-out style container that can’t be sealed properly once it’s opened. So, be sure to set up the three shards in one attempt so that you won’t have to store any of the letters in a cumbersome matter. 

Overall, the Billfodl Multishard is an incredibly sturdy and secure device that, if properly set up, can allow any Bitcoiner to sleep safe at night knowing that their recovery seed phrase is safe and properly stored.

This post Video: Reviewing the Billfodl Multishard first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Michael Taiberg.

When it launched during The Lightning Conference in October 2019, HTC’s Exodus 1s smartphone took on the ambitious mission of endowing Bitcoiners with a device that delivers the security of a hardware wallet and the privacy and sovereignty of a full Bitcoin node. 

At a retail price of 219 euro (approximately $245), plus shipping tax, the device is more affordable than a Casa Node and twice as expensive as a Ledger Nano X hardware wallet. Weighing less than 6 ounces and sporting a shiny 5.7-inch screen, the HTC Exodus 1s is also the most portable full node solution available for retail. But is it really the ideal, all-in-one device to replace all of your Bitcoin-related items?

For more than a month, I tested the HTC Exodus 1s under various conditions to highlight both its hardware and software capabilities. The results were rather promising but still leave a lot to be desired from the perspective of a “Bitcoin power user.” Correspondingly, the next sections of this review will focus on the pros and cons of the first full node smartphone on the market. Ultimately, this review should provide useful insight that can benefit potential buyers — and also provide some feedback for HTC.

What’s in the HTC Exodus 1s Box?

As soon as you peel the plastic foil off of the HTC Exodus 1s’s plain white box, you are greeted by the core element of the packaging: the black and glossy phone. In terms of appearance, the HTC Exodus 1s looks a lot like a standard iPhone. However, the body is made of plastic, the screen is a 5.7-inch LCD, the Face ID infrared notch is replaced by a fingerprint scanner and the dual cameras are replaced by a single one. All of these adjustments have been made in order to reduce the costs of the HTC device, but otherwise the design is attractive and the feeling of holding the phone in your hand is pleasant. Compared to an iPhone, you can also maintain a better grip, as the build feels sturdy and not as slippery as Apple’s flagship device.

The accessories provided by HTC include a charging cable (micro USB-A), with a power plug that corresponds to your region, and a set of earphones. In the box, you will also find user manuals in multiple languages, a Zion-branded card that can be used to write seed keys, a couple of HTC badges, a pin which helps you open the SIM card tray and multiple HTC Exodus stickers.

The HTC Exodus 1s as a Smartphone

Out of the box, the HTC Exodus 1s is a rather basic Android device whose features are pretty standard for an entry-level to mid-range smartphone from 2019. It has a slick design, sports two 13-megapixel cameras (one in the front for video calls and selfies, and the other one in the back), is driven by the four-year-old Snapdragon 435 octa-core processor and boasts 4 gigabytes of RAM (for reference, the first-generation Casa node has only 2 gigabytes). The specs are toned down from the original Exodus 1 — but given the difference in price (the 1s is one-third as expensive), it makes sense to cut down on hardware expenses. 

In order to review the phone, I’ve used it for two weeks on a daily basis. Excluding any of the Bitcoin-related features, it functions very well and gets the job done for calls, emails and messaging applications. When used for these purposes, the Exodus 1s didn’t have any issues with slow loading times or laggy switching between apps.

The Android 8.1 Oreo operating system may be two generations behind the flagship standard, but it is still pretty smooth. Compared to Apple’s iOS, it has a less intuitive interface to opt-out from microphone, location and camera access — options that many Bitcoiners will want to leverage. But once you get the hang of it and remove the device from the Google panopticon, it’s really easy to use. On the plus side, the Orbot app can route all of your internet connections through Tor — which grants you great privacy. On the negative side, you can’t remove or replace the Google search bar from the home screen, and this is a constant reminder that you need to be cautious about your privacy.

What I found particularly impressive about the HTC Exodus 1s is the battery life. In the first month of using it, I was able to recharge the device every 10 to 12 days. All of that time, the 1s was connected to WiFi and it served an email management role. It should be noted that no SIM card was inserted, and this lack of mobile network connection definitely saved battery. However, after the full node was synced, the battery life reduced significantly, lasting only one full day (as the relaying takes up RAM and processing power).

On the other hand, the cameras are below average for 2019/2020 standards: They take time to focus, they don’t capture colors that look especially vivid and they lack some features that photography enthusiasts find useful on flagship Android devices and iPhones (such as portrait mode, night mode, shutter time, live pictures and Animojis/Memojis). However, there are plenty of applications that can improve the quality and aesthetic of pictures through filters and advanced options. Also, it’s unlikely for anyone to have high photographic expectations from a $245 phone or to purchase a Bitcoin-friendly device for its camera.

Before Syncing the Full Node: HTC’s Zion App

The full Bitcoin node is definitely the most unique feature and the primarily selling point of the HTC Exodus 1s. But in order to proceed with the initial block download, you must first fulfill two conditions: Acquire an SD card that can store more than 260 GB of data (there are 400 GB and 512 GB options, both of which are available for about $100 in most electronics stores), and conduct the download through HTC’s Zion application.

While the former prerequisite is reasonable (the phone only has 64 GB of storage, which means it can only accommodate a pruned node), the latter limits the possibilities involved in a process that should be about liberation and financial sovereignty. Zion, the phone’s proprietary application, serves as a wallet and a dashboard for your full node. Therefore, in order to start downloading and validating the entire history of bitcoin transactions, you must comply with HTC’s privacy policy and accept the inclusion of some features and the lack of others.

For instance, the Zion wallet is not Bitcoin-only and even has dedicated menus for DApps like Maker and Augur, and collectibles like CryptoKitties and Etheremon. The inclusion of these extra features may only be disappointing from a toxic maximalist perspective (where anything unrelated to Bitcoin will automatically be frowned upon), but it does prove that HTC’s main efforts to develop software for the phone were not Bitcoin-centric. 

Also, the Bitcoin wallet itself lacks some very important features. It has no SegWit support and uses a single legacy address for all incoming transactions (which translates to higher fees and very poor privacy), and there is no way to manually set transaction fees (you only pick your time preference). Therefore, running your full Bitcoin node is definitely not the mobile equivalent of using Bitcoin Core on your computer.

Overall, the ecosystem that HTC built to work with the integrated hardware wallet is underwhelming from a software point of view. While the idea of running a Bitcoin full node should involve more financial freedom to send and receive payments, HTC’s Zion app makes it feel constraining. 

Syncing the Full Bitcoin Node

On most computers, synchronizing a full Bitcoin node takes about two or three days, depending on internet speed, hard drive reading and writing speed (it’s recommended to use an SSD) and RAM allocation. The HTC Exodus 1s has great specifications and should be able to download and validate all of the transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain in less than a week. However, my experience was different and it took 15 days to complete the process.

Interestingly, I lost the first day waiting for the node to sync while I had Tor routing activated. As it turns out, this version of the software won’t allow the process to start if that feature is enabled — but after the synchronization was completed, Tor worked just like it should.

I thought that the slow initial sync was a peculiar phenomenon, especially after I placed the phone next to a router in charging mode. Also, the back cover got noticeably warmer during this computation-intensive process. Another full node was being operated on the same Wi-Fi network, so the slow download was not caused by the connection itself.

Furthermore, the device’s specs should be more than capable of a faster download. The phone is endowed with 4 GB of RAM, which makes it just as powerful as the Casa 2 and the Nodl One. Unfortunately, even at peak synchronization, the Zion software did not allow the phone to use more than 165 megabytes of RAM — a mere 4 percent of the device’s capacity. On average, the Exodus 1s only used 85 MB from its memory.

While it’s understandable that the operating system requires a significant chunk of the memory to run and it’s important for the phone to remain operational during the initial synchronization of the Bitcoin node, it’s still strange to see that developers from HTC didn’t allocate more RAM for this process when the phone is in idle mode. There’s a missed opportunity there, as most Bitcoiners most likely won’t use the phone during the sync — or will at least leave it untouched for eight hours or so while they sleep, which poses a perfect opportunity for the software to bump the RAM allocation.

The issue at stake is nothing that HTC can’t fix in a future update. Being able to do the initial sync with Tor turned on and allowing the phone to allocate more RAM for a faster sync would involve tweaks in the Zion app — hopefully something the company will work on in the future.

Using the Full Node on the Exodus 1s

After 15 long days, it was finally time to try some Bitcoin and Lightning applications. As previously mentioned, the built-in Zion app is underwhelming as a wallet (because it uses a single receiving address, doesn’t allow for UTXO management and doesn’t grant manual control for fees). There are better alternatives out there, such as Blockstream Green which offers lots of power user features in a simple and comprehensive user interface. 

However, the full node feature of the HTC Exodus 1s didn’t seem to work with anything outside of the Zion ecosystem. Unlike Bitcoin Core, Zion’s settings menu does not display options regarding specific connectivity and there is only a generic feature to allow incoming connections.

My next attempt was to use the full Bitcoin node in order to onboard the Lightning Network. I’ve downloaded the wallets developed by Lightning Labs, ACINQ (both Eclair and Phoenix) and Nayuta, but none of them connected to the full node. Therefore, I was unable to run Lightning with the phone’s built-in and completely synchronized Bitcoin node feature.

However, this state of Bitcoin node isolation is only temporary and is bound to change with future updates. 

“The full node is not designated to only work with the Zion app,” HTC Exodus Decentralized Chief Officer Phil Chen told Bitcoin Magazine. “The current limitation is because the Bitcoin data folder is under isolated storage in the Zion app, which cannot be accessed by other apps. We are working to support other apps in the future by exporting APIs from HTC Core.” 

New features for the HTC Exodus 1s are expected to be announced during the Bitcoin 2020 conference, which takes place in late March 2020 in San Francisco. 

“We have several exciting plans that we are looking to announce at Bitcoin 2020,” Chen added. “Please stay tuned!” 

Improvements to Be Made

As noted above, I tested the HTC Exodus 1s for two months and it proved to be a great device for every task except the unique feature which might represent its main selling point — the full Bitcoin node. Though the node works well after the otherwise lengthy synchronization, at review time it was still limited to only functioning with the wallet provided by the Zion app. 

Ideally, HTC should create the mobile equivalent of Bitcoin Core with more features for dedicated Bitcoiners, such as full SegWit support and bech32 addresses, the ability to set fees manually, UTXO control for greater sending privacy, unlimited address generation for better receiving privacy, and integrations with wallets that support the Lightning Network. To maintain a focus on simplicity, easy ways to switch to specific apps that offer extra features could be added to the interface. For instance, for Liquid Network or Lightning, there could be added buttons that automatically download and link with Blockstream Green or Zap (or any Lightning wallet, for that matter).

Another improvement that HTC must make involves RAM usage during the initial sync: 165 MB is definitely not enough for a speedy process and the amount should get bumped to 1 GB or more during moments when the phone is charging or is idling. This can also be an option that users can toggle on or off, as Bitcoiners will certainly understand that they must not touch the phone for a few days until the synchronization is complete.

Also, replacing the Ethereum features (there’s even a search bar for Etherscan on the second home screen of the phone, and it can’t be removed by users) with Bitcoin ones would definitely be a step in the right direction, given the fact that the target audience consists of people who clearly understand the value proposition of Bitcoin and want to maximize their privacy, security and sovereignty.

The HTC Exodus 1s offers a great value for the price and is a pioneering device in the Bitcoin space. However, in order for the device to truly satisfy the needs of Bitcoiners, it needs to provide more functionality and step outside of the rigid Zion ecosystem. Bringing integrations and ways to connect the full node to third-party applications is definitely a first good step, but optimizing Zion for newcomers to have more features is also a priority.

Special thanks to Chen and HTC for sending the phone for review.

This post Review: HTC Exodus 1s, the Full Bitcoin Node Smartphone first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Vlad Costea.

Full nodes are an indispensable part of Bitcoin’s system of checks and balances. They further decentralize the network, they keep miners honest, they verify and register every transaction that takes place on the blockchain, and they provide more autonomy and privacy to users.

In order to run a full Bitcoin node, it’s enough to download the Bitcoin Core client on your computer and wait for the initial block download (IBD) to complete. However, some individuals may find that process cumbersome and unnecessarily time consuming. Consequently, companies have developed solutions that minimize the struggles of downloading and running a full node and put it all in a box.

Thanks to these enterprising companies, full nodes have become one of the most popular and in-demand Bitcoin-related products, right up there with hardware wallets. Thanks to a growing community understanding around the importance of full nodes and the rapid growth of the Lightning Network, new companies such as Casa, Nodl, Shift Cryptosecurity and even HTC have released retail products that satisfy the demand for convenient sovereignty.

There are at least seven worthy contenders for your full node product consideration. And it’s also worth considering how you might build some of these products yourself. 

Why Buy a Bitcoin Full Node Product

Many Bitcoiners out there might not be convinced that it’s worth buying a product that comes pre-synced with the vast majority of the Bitcoin blockchain. After all, for about a quarter of the price, you could buy an external drive and leave your computer to sync the blockchain overnight. This way, your information wouldn’t be registered with any Bitcoin company and your financial privacy would be better preserved, and it’s likely more secure to download and verify the Bitcoin blockchain yourself (as opposed to trusting a potentially malevolent third party).

However, full node products offer much more than just “Bitcoin Core in a box.” The majority of them run Lightning clients, and some even include BTCPay Server for merchant solutions, Samourai Whirlpool for trustless CoinJoins or Electrum Personal Server for greater sovereignty. In two cases (Shift Cryptosecurity’s BitBoxBase and HTC’s Exodus 1s), a hardware wallet chip is included as a way of increasing the security of your full node.

These devices also offer advanced and desirable features that can be accessed from a user-friendly dashboard. For instance, Casa provides a multisig service which entrusts the company with a key for inheritance purposes, while Shift Cryptosecurity integrates the BitBoxBase in its ecosystem of security-related products (the BitBox02 hardware wallet and the BitBoxApp).

Last but not least, some companies offer advanced customer support and will make sure that your experience with the node is seamless. You don’t need to check if you’re downloading the right client, you don’t have to check the PGP or GPG signatures of developers and you don’t have to consider compatibility issues. It’s all being taken care of, but you have to trust that the company is honest. 

If You Do Run a Bitcoin Full Node Product, Be Cautious

Before presenting the features of the best-known and most popular full node products, it’s important to present a disclaimer: If you choose to trust in a company’s privacy policy and honesty, please take into account its public record and the user feedback. Though the market is bourgeoning with competitive full node products that add more features and drive prices down, malevolent actors might emerge to steal your bitcoin. 

If the node comes pre-synced, it’s better to not trust a third party’s honesty and resync the blockchain from scratch (or else it’s possible to encounter backdoor attacks and all sorts of unwanted background activities that can lead to theft). The extra applications can also be compromised, even if the intentions of the manufacturer are good — the attack surface grows with every new app.

Not vesting your trust in a third party isn’t just an ideological component for the Bitcoin community, but a cautious behavior that’s meant to preserve privacy and fund security. It may be wise to go for the relatively inexpensive RaspiBlitz DIY project or MyNodeBTC rather than one of the products described below. You will have to manually check signatures, download each file yourself and make sure that everything is in tune, but the benefits of sovereignty and acquired knowledge outweigh the inconvenience and potentially difficult learning curve. 

The 7 Bitcoin Full Node Product Contenders

For the scope of this overview, seven of the most popular bitcoin full node products have been selected. Nonetheless, their mention in this article is not an endorsement or a way of vouching for their reliability or security. Financial sovereignty must be embraced with great responsibility and cautiousness and in this early stage of the market it’s difficult to tell which product is “best.” To their credit, all nodes presented in this article run audited, open-source software. However, no project is as time-tested as Bitcoin Core and even reputed Lightning clients such as Lightning Labs’ lnd and Blockstream’s c-lightning may be buggy. Extra applications should also be used with precaution. 

Casa Node 2

The Casa node is by far the most popular product on the market. The first version of the device has received good reviews and endorsements from bitcoiners, and the Node 2 will begin shipping in early 2020. This updated version comes with twice as much access memory and SSD storage — both of which will greatly increase the efficiency of the node. Under the same dashboard, it will run Bitcoin Core, lnd and BTCPay Server.

Nodl One

Conversely, Nodl always seems to one-up Casa with more power and extra features. When the Casa 2 opted for a quad-core processor, the Nodl went for the hexa-core version. And when BTCPay Server became the new norm, Nodl added ElectrumX and Samourai Whirlpool. The company also offers a more expensive Nodl Dojo which helps with the decentralization of the Samourai CoinJoin operations by running the mixes on-device. However, for the purpose of this comparison, only the One model will be considered.

Lightning in a Box

Lightning in a Box also attempts to overthrow Casa with a more powerful processor (the Intel Celeron J4105, which is used on laptops), a more common PC platform whose RAM can be upgraded and the ability to run Windows. If anything, the device seems more general-purpose and offers a more DIY vibe. However, it’s sold at the same price as the Casa Node 2 and may not be the more popular choice in spite of its greater processing power.

Lux Node

The Lux Node is basically an Intel NUC5CPYH mini computer that comes with Bitcoin Core, lnd, BTCPay Server and Ride the Lightning pre-installed. To its merit, it runs on the more stable (at least compared to Windows) Ubuntu operating system and offers 8 GB of RAM (twice as much as any other product featured in this overview). However, the company is rather new and more difficult to trust — proceed with caution and contact a representative before making a purchase.

BitBoxBase

Specs-wise, Shift Cryptosecurity’s BitBoxBase is very similar to the Nodl One: same processor, same amount of RAM (4 GB) and a dedicated eMMC drive for booting the software. However, the Swiss-made node is unique because it runs Blockstream’s c-lightning (for reasons explained in this interview) and also has an integrated BitBox02 hardware wallet for greater security. Its comparative downside is that it doesn’t run BTCPay Server and doesn’t come with other pre-installed Lightning apps (which may be a consequence of both Shift Cryptosecurity’s focus on security and the choice of a less popular Lightning client).

myNode One+ 

The myNode One+ comes with a familiar hardware architecture, which you can also find in the BitBoxBase and Nodl One. On the plus side, it offers lots of pre-installed applications that can be controlled from a friendly dashboard (Electrum Server, Ride the Lightning, a block explorer, Zap, Blue Wallet and many others), is $100 cheaper than the Casa Node 2 and grants documentation to help anyone start a DIY project. On the downside, the device is endowed with a slower HDD and the company is rather new to the market (so you need to grant a greater amount of blind trust than in the case of Casa, for instance).

HTC Exodus 1s

Last but not least, the HTC Exodus 1s is the only mobile solution that natively runs a Bitcoin full node and can also use Lightning wallets like Nayuta’s. Through the Zion app, users are able to download the entire Bitcoin blockchain on an SD card (purchased separately) and use basic wallet functions. Though its specs are comparable on paper with the rest of the nodes, software limitations mean that it synchronizes more slowly than every other product in this overview. 

During a personal experiment, it took 15 days to sync the blockchain from scratch and I’ve discovered that the Zion application only uses 100 MB of RAM (out of 4 GB) for the sync. This significantly slowed down the process and proved that the phone is designed as a multipurpose device with the full node feature as an extra — rather than a dedicated device for financial sovereignty. Nonetheless, given the portability factor, it can’t be beaten for the price.

Buy vs. DIY

After presenting seven of the most popular Bitcoin full node products, it’s time to ask an essential question on behalf of potential consumers: How much more does it cost to buy the product directly from the company than it would to build it myself? 

Casa Node 2

The Casa Node 2 can be ordered for $399, but the company has opted for a subscription model. Correspondingly, you get a new device upon sign-up and free renewals whenever they occur, but you don’t necessarily receive a new node every year. You pay for the proprietary software development (which has been open-sourced for greater transparency and security audits), the customer support and the extra features which include the multisig program. Correspondingly, it’s not the most privacy-friendly solution and there is a lot of data that Casa can get if you choose to share your financial information.

The good news is that a Raspberry Pi 4 and a 1 TB SSD can be bought for $155, and the enclosure and cables shouldn’t cost more than $45. Therefore, if you have the patience and disposition to learn and experiment, you can build your own Casa node for $200 ($199 cheaper than buying it from the company, not including shipping costs). The DIY project doesn’t grant you access to the same support and custodial multisig service, but helps you keep your financial privacy.

Nodl One

The Nodl One has a retail price of $499 and, unlike Casa, this is a one-time purchase and you won’t have to pay for an annual service fee. Its processing power is superior, and the inclusion of the Samourai Whirlpool makes it a worthy contender for those who are more privacy- and fungibility-cautious. Nonetheless, you can theoretically build your own by purchasing an RK3399 board for $149 and an SSD for $100. Just like in the case of the Casa Node 2, the DIY solution is half as expensive and comes with the benefit of not having to register in a customer database for Bitcoin-related products.

Lightning in a Box

Lightning in a Box is basically a commercialized DIY project, as the company’s website also features useful guides to help you build your own Lightning node. Its target audience consists of people who want powerful hardware for their nodes and don’t want to bother with software experimentation. Interestingly, the cost of parts to build a Lightning in a Box is $302 — which means that you pay the company only $92 for the hassle of installing everything for you. However, it’s always better to resync from scratch once you get the device: The extra power will make the process smoother, and you won’t have to trust in the benevolence of the company.

Lux Node

Similarly, Lux Node uses a popular mini PC platform to deliver a quick sync and fast access to applications such as BTCPay Server and Ride The Lightning. However, the company’s business model is questionable: an Intel NUC5CPYH and a 1 TB SSD cost $399 on Amazon, and that’s exactly the price of a Lux Node. Maybe the folks behind the project will be able to lower costs through economies of scale, but the profit is still insignificant to keep a company running. Though the machine is the most powerful of any in this overview, it’s probably a good idea to do some research before buying a product for which the profit is minimal. After all, you can build your own Lux for the same price.

BitBoxBase

Despite all specifications being published on the Shift Cryptosecurity website, the BitBoxBase is the most difficult device to build yourself for one simple reason: It includes a hardware wallet whose specifications are similar to the BitBox02. The node is also the only product in this article whose launch date and price aren’t available as of the time of writing. But, given the cost of parts ($79.99 for the ROCK-Pro64 board, $100 for the 1 TB SSD and $100 for the BitBox02), it’s probably safe to estimate a retail price of $350 to $400.

myNode One

There is a clear reason why myNode One is the most affordable product in this article: The cost of its parts is only $94.95. The company also offers premium support for those who purchase the pre-built and pre-synced product, but the generous amount of DIY documentation makes it tempting to simply experiment. The nice, all-encompassing dashboard is also open-sourced on GitHub, so all of the benefits of the retail product can be verified, modified and installed on new hardware. 

HTC Exodus 1s

The cost of purchasing an HTC Exodus 1s and a 400 GB SD card is $340, which still makes the device cheaper than a Casa, Lightning in a Box or Lux Node device. And while building your own smartphone is much more expensive than buying one, you can still get any Android phone (which, in some cases, might be the one that you own) and run Lawrence Nahum’s ABCore client. 

On the other hand, it’s worth considering the unbeatable added benefit of the HTC phone: the integrated hardware wallet. Another device may be costly and may not deliver the same results (for instance, the BitBox02 costs another $100 and works with Android smartphones but is an extra peripheral to carry and connect). While the Zion ecosystem is rather basic and can be replaced by any time-tested Bitcoin mobile wallet, the hardware advantages of the HTC Exodus 1s make it unique and temporarily unbeatable. You can run a full node on your new Android phone, but you won’t get the same security that the integrated hardware wallet grants.

Conclusion

Products that offer full Bitcoin nodes in a box will continue to be popular retail items in the space, but they should be evaluated and purchased with caution. There are at least seven worthy contenders if you’re in the market for such a product and the one you’ll want will depend on your specific needs. Use the article above and the chart below to help understand the differences between these seven contenders and remember that running a full node is one of the most important things a Bitcoiner can do.

This post Buy or DIY? An Overview of 7 Bitcoin Full Node Products first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Vlad Costea.

In this episode of the Bitcoin Magazine Podcast, Dave Hollerith talks with Kiara Bickers, author of Bitcoin Clarity: A Guide to Understanding Bitcoin. Bitcoin Clarity is different from other Bitcoin guides because it leverages a “systems thinking” approach to explain how and why each part of Bitcoin’s system has evolved into what it is today. The two discuss approximating decentralization, Bitcoin as a trustless time chain, the value and limits of information and more.

Follow Swann and Hollerith on Twitter and learn more about Bitcoin Clarity.

The following content is for informational purposes only. You should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice. Nothing contained in this presentation constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement or offer by BTC Media, The Let’s Talk Bitcoin Network, or any third-party service provider to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments.

This post Podcast: Bitcoin Clarity With Kiara Bickers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Bitcoin Magazine.

With self-sovereignty comes great responsibility. Being your own bank can be scary. After all, there’s a reason banks became a feature of modern society: they control the custody of assets, assume the risk of these assets and insure them for their customers. 

This is why most Bitcoiners hold security as the highest virtue. If you want to be your own bank, you need to make sure you’re taking every step necessary and available to secure your bitcoin from theft, seizure and damage. In this regard, no measure is too extreme. There is no such thing as being too secure.

This is why Ragnar Lifthrasir of Guns n’ Bitcoin created the Scorpion Case. Hardware wallets (with the added security buff of multisignatures) offer best-practice custody for your average user, but this may not be enough. In the event of a fire or natural disaster, if these wallets are destroyed (and the seed phrase backups destroyed with them), you can kiss goodbye to your hard-earned satoshis.

The Scorpion Case is meant to mitigate against physical damage and even assault — in addition to its padded interior that houses your hardware wallet, it also comes with molds to hold a handgun, two magazines and a knife (if this sounds paranoid, well you just haven’t considered every attack vector).

To see if the Scorpion Case is up to snuff, I ran it through a number of stress tests. These included: blunt force testing, waterproof testing, fire testing and bulletproof testing. 

Now, Lifthrasir’s company, Guns n’ Bitcoin, only advertises the Scorpion Case’s resilience against physical and water damage. It says nothing about fire, let alone firearm, resistance, but I wanted to test it all the same. I wanted to see just how sturdy this case was and if you can trust your hardware with it.

I would find that the Scorpion Case can take one hell of a beating. 

The Specs

Before we go over the stress tests, let’s start with the basics.

The case weighs in at 2.2 pounds with a 12.6-inch long, 9-inch wide and 4.4-inch high exterior. Its case shell is made of NK-7 polypropylene, a common industrial resin that is made to be both lightweight and sturdy. Guns n’ Bitcoin’s website advertises a water immersion resistance of up to 3.28 feet and heat resistance of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Internally, the case is lined with closed-cell PEF foam on the bottom and a convoluted lid foam on the top to insulate hardware. Its molds can house a pistol, multiple hardware wallets, USB hookups and pistol ammo magazines. 

The release latches come with pinholes added to a padlock, and the hinges are underpinned by stainless steel.

Retailing for $88, the Scorpion Case is a bit pricier than other NK-7 polypropylene cases of its size, though Guns n’ Bitcoin is running a 30 percent off sale for the holidays that brings the price in line with other options.

With these specs in mind, let’s beat this sucker up.

Scorpion Case Stress Test One: Blunt Force and Sharp Force

For my first test, I bludgeoned the Scorpion Case with the blunt side of a splitting maul, and then I flipped the case to its other side to test its resistance to the axe end of the maul.

Guns n’ Bitcoin says that the case is built to withstand a category one impact under Air Transport Association (ATA) specification 300 — that is, it conforms to standards set by the ATA for hard case designs and impact resistance.

This basically means that the case is meant to withstand moderate trauma. It doesn’t, however, say anything about being resistant to heavy blows from something like a sledgehammer. With this in mind, the case exceeded my expectations from test one.

The first swing with the sledge end of the maul left a dent, and I was pleased to see that the hardware wallet I inserted into the case before testing was unscathed. Now, I have no way of measuring the PSI of the swing, but I came down with all my strength on the case and it withstood the test.

Next, I swung with the axe. To be expected, the resin cracked under this pressure (I anticipated this because, again, the case makes no guarantees against this kind of trauma), but it did not shatter. And once again, the hardware wallet was still intact. 

So, all of that to say, in the rare event that someone takes a sledgehammer to your Scorpion Case, it’s going to hold up for at least the first few swings. Additionally, if your house were to come toppling down, I’d imagine your hardware would remain safe under the rubble.

When it comes to impact resistance, the Scorpion Case performed very well under pressure. 

Scorpion Case Stress Test Two: Water 

For this next test, I ran the case under running water, back and front, for about ten seconds. 

Boring compared to an axe attack, I know, but it had to be done and, to be honest, there’s not much else to report. It’s as watertight as advertised, and even with the crack in the back from the axe blow, a negligent amount of moisture pooled behind the PEF foam but did not seep into the foam itself or run anywhere near the hardware wallet, which remained completely dry.

Regretfully, I didn’t think to do an immersion test, but given that no water breached the case under an open faucet, I would venture to bet that it’s good down to at least 3.28 feet as advertised and maybe even more. At the very least, if it’s exposed to rain or some leakage in its storage space in your house, you have nothing to worry about.

Scorpion Case Stress Test Three: Fire 

Once again, Guns n’ Bitcoin does not advertise its case as being fire resistant (only heat resistant up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit).

Still, I couldn’t help but to push the limits. So, using isopropyl alcohol and an old t-shirt (after a failed attempt at setting it ablaze with a molotov cocktail — yes, feel free to laugh), I exposed the underbelly to fire for about a minute.

The end result: The case withstood the flame but left the exterior’s plastic carbuncled with heat damage and melted off bits of the rubber-lined handle. It also fused the bottom and the top lip of the case, so I couldn’t open it with my bare hands afterward (the latches were unscathed, though).

The flame-licked resin fusing together is of little surprise, especially considering the heat would have been well above the 140 degree Fahrenheit mark (~1000 degrees Fahrenheit). That said, the hardware wallet was undamaged (as I would figure out after the next test) and the case’s shell was only bubbled over with heat damage, not burnt through from the test.

It wouldn’t survive a house fire, but it’s not supposed to anyway.

Scorpion Case Stress Test Four: Firearms 

This final test took the case to the extreme, well beyond what Guns n’ Bitcoin claims it can withstand.

For the first firearms test, I unloaded two 2 and 3/4 inch, 1 ounce birdshot shotgun rounds from a 20-gauge shotgun into the case from a distance of roughly 15 yards. Both of the shots blew the case wide open, thereby splitting the fused lid.

But the hardware wallet was still largely intact. The only deformity came from a crack caused by one of the pellets from the birdshot. I was shocked to see that it wasn’t completely shredded. In fact, the BB that did hit it was one of the few that actually penetrated the case. The NK-7 polypropylene absorbed most of the blow, and most of the BBs were embedded in the exterior casing. 

For the final test, I put the Scorpion Case up against an AR-15. Now, for those of you who are unaware, an AR-15 is essentially a semi-automatic, civilian version of the M16, one of the U.S. military’s most ubiquitous rifles. It shoots a 5.56 NATO round (and/or .223 Remington round, depending on the manufacturer) and can penetrate steel.

So naturally, it cut through the Scorpion Case like butter. I unloaded roughly 10 rounds into the case from 15 yards. The final two rounds, which entered the case from its bottom side just between the hinges, chipped two significant pieces of casing off. The hardware wallet, still, was undamaged, but if it had been in the path of one of the bullets, it would have been torn to bits.

Conclusion

It basically took an AR-15 to really bust up the Scorpion Case. While the 20-gauge blew the case open, the exterior still absorbed the vast majority of the birdshot and kept the wallet safe — and the latches still worked after this test, too. A shotgun from relatively close range would be enough to damage the case, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to break all of the hardware it houses. 

Overall, the Scorpion Case performed admirably under all of the stress tests. It’s impressively resistant to both blunt and sharp force trauma and is as watertight as you’d need. It’s not completely flame retardant, but even so, it resisted the fire well enough to keep it from eating a whole through the casing (prolonged exposure would still probably turn the thing into a hard, resinous lump, but Guns n’ Bitcoin isn’t making any promises there, and it was still incredibly resilient under the ~1000 degrees Fahrenheit I subjected it to).

My only regret is that I pushed the case to its limits and effectively destroyed it over the course of the tests. The fire and firearms really pushed it over the edge, but — if I can stress this one final time — even under these extreme conditions the hardware wallet escaped intact and is still operational. 

If you’re a Bitcoiner and looking for a solid case to protect your hardware, the Scorpion Case is top of the line — it under promises, over delivers and provides a sturdy, all-in-one option to hold all of your hardware wallets and your pistol (self-sovereignty in a box).

If you’re interested, you can purchase it for 30 percent off at Guns n’ Bitcoin just in time for the holidays.

This post Review: Scorpion Case Is a Hardware Wallet Carrier That Over-Delivers on Protection first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Colin Harper.