As the crypto industry continues to grow, it’s natural for advancements to occur in the hardware wallet space. MetaMask is your secure wallet designed for interacting with the world of Web3, but as you dive deeper into DeFi, NFTs, and other Web3 applications, it’s wise to consider a hardware wallet for greater asset security.
Hardware wallets bring a greater sense of security as your private keys are stored offline on a physical device, and never exposed to the internet. This keeps your digital assets safe from remote attacks. We’ve launched an open QR code standard that can be leveraged by any hardware wallet team.
For those who are looking to take advantage of a cutting-edge solution for your hardware wallet needs, the Keystone wallet may interest you. The Keystone team has also raised an EIP for the QR code protocol between hardware and software wallets.
Introducing Keystone
Keystone is a QR-code-based open-source hardware wallet.
The wallet is designed to:
Maximize attack cost
Minimize trust
Prevent potential human error
Avoid single-point-of-failures
Boost interoperability
Although nothing on this planet is unhackable, Keystone makes it significantly difficult for nefarious players to get ahold of your funds. Here’s how this hardware wallet optimizes security:
QR: 100% Air-Gapped Protection
Keystone uses 100% air-gapped QR code transmissions to eliminate potential malware infiltration risks and deliver a level of transparency for data transmission.
With Keystone, you are able to decode the QR code content in an easily readable fashion, showing you exactly what the hardware wallet is sending to the Keystone Companion app, and allowing you to verify that no sensitive data is being leaked.
For a deeper understanding of the QR code communication process, take a look here.
The advantages of using QR code transmission are:
Security
Transparency
Compatibility
Security
When using QR codes, your hardware wallet never needs to be connected to a computer, thus isolating your private keys from the internet even when signing transactions. The Keystone hardware wallet has a smaller attack surface and its 4-inch touch screen boasts a better UX experience that mitigates human error—the biggest reason for lost and stolen crypto assets.
The Keystone team believes that blind signing—signing a transaction without verifying the details—is one of DeFi’s biggest security risks, or in other words, Ethereum’s security black hole. The team aims to address this with the 4-inch touch screen, the ability to verify smart contract addresses, and smart contract functions.
Physical attacks are prevented with the Secure Element function, along with a self-destruct mechanism that triggers upon detecting any attempts of hardware disassembly.
Now you can feel like James Bond with your crypto assets 😎 💥 😎
Transparency
Keystone’s QR codes are transparent. Users can verify what is getting in and out of their hardware wallets, ensuring no sensitive information is leaked. The team released the hardware wallet industry’s first open-source tool to decode the QR codes for users to know how the software works and enable signing off on intended transactions.
To provide further transparency, Keystone was the first mover in the industry to switch to open-source firmware for the Secure Element. You can find more details about Keystone open source here.
Compatability
Keystone is compatible with many software wallets, including MetaMask, and has integrated with Dapps like Yearn and Gnosis Safe. Keystone is also the first-ever hardware wallet that integrates ENS to safely display ENS data.
As a Keystone hardware wallet user, you can take full advantage of multi-sig, DeFi, staking, participation in decentralized governance, the Tor network, and even connecting to your own node, without relying solely on the provided Keystone Companion app.
QR Interoperability With MetaMask
QR code interoperability allows the Keystone hardware wallet to have fewer connectivity issues between the device and MetaMask. To learn how easy it is to use this wallet with your browser extension take a look here:
https://youtu.be/1eM53TYG1YA
Lixin Liu, CEO of Keystone, remarked, “Our product philosophy highly emphasizes on maximizing interoperability so our devices would be compatible with the best software wallets currently available. We believe Web3 has an extremely bright future and see MetaMask as the primary gateway for Web3, the metaverse, and beyond. This integration marks our team’s first big milestone and we will continue to work towards Web3 and more contributions are to come so stay tuned!”
To add on more security in your journey as you explore NFTs, DeFi, DAOs, and the metaverse, consider giving Keystone’s seamless experience and secure hardware wallet a shot!
You can take advantage of a 10% discount code, “MetaMask” when checking out. This code is only valid until December 31st, 2021 23:59 CST.