Coldcard: The Most Hardcore Bitcoin Hardware Wallet?
The Coldcard Wallet is a cold storage hardware Bitcoin-only wallet. But, is it hardcore enough for you?
Covered:
- What Is Coldcard Wallet?
- Coinkite, The Company Behind The Wallet
- Coldcard: Bitcoin-Only Wallet
- Coldcard Software
What Is Coldcard Wallet?
Where to store your precious digital gold is an important decision. Most bitcoiners opt for cold storage hardware wallets. In short, a hot wallet is connected to the internet, and a cold wallet is not. The practice is widely considered the safest way to maintain total control and security over your digital assets.
If you need a primer on cold versus hot wallets, here is a good read.
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Arguably the most hardcore Bitcoin cold wallet is the Coldcard. If you are — rightly — wary about keeping your Bitcoin SAFU as possible, Coldcard is worth a look. Here we will show you the basics of the hardware wallet and what makes it so secure.
It is important to keep in mind that Coldcard open sourced the Coldcard wallet in 2019. They published the official schematics and guides for users to build their own Coldcard wallet. The firmware has always been open source, too. Doing this is in line with the Bitcoin ethos.
Coinkite, The Company Behind Coldcard
Coinkite, the Canadian company behind Coldcard published the blog releasing all the info needed for users to build their own wallet in 2019. This transparency is a welcome sign for those who are skeptical of those building hardware wallets. Coinkite has published the entire firmware on Github since the inception of the Coldcard, and open sourcing everything could even hurt their bottom line; so their motives are clearly transparency based, as bitcoiners demand.
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The CEO of Coinkite Rodolfo Novak said of their decision to open source the wallet: “We encourage advanced users to make a unit themselves and publish their findings, it’s one of the best methods to verify our code/hardware.” When buying a hardware wallet, in a way you are buying trust, from the security expertise, to the supply chain control, the design setup and more. Coldcard does everything possible to give their users piece of mind. The Coldcard Mk3 can be bought for $129.97 from their website.
Bitcoin-Only Wallet
The Coldcard wallet is a Bitcoin-only wallet, perfect for those who look for Bitcoin only products. So what makes this Bitcoin-only wallet different? First of all, the seed phrase, which you need to create to set up any cold or hot wallet, is stored in a specialized chip.
Secondly, as mentioned above, all of the Coldcard code is open source, and can be compiled by anyone. Thirdly, ans most importantly, it is the only hardware wallet with the option to never be conncected to a computer, from seed generation, to signing and completing transactions.
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Another aspect that Coldcard brings to the table is verifiable supply-chain evidence. This is verified by a “tamper evident numbered bag” with the bag number recorded into the device itself. They even offer a “duress” PIN if someone is forcing you to enter your PIN, which generate your private keys. With this option, a fake private key is generated to a duress wallet, but you can acutally put Bitcoin in it to trick the person into thinking that its actually the wallet that holds all of your Bitcoin.
Keeping Your Wallet Safe
The Bitcoin-only wallet goes to extreme lengths to keep your Bitcoin safe. As another example, the main microchip in the wallet are covered by epoxy at the factory, and with the clear case you can look and see if a hardware implant has been inserted into your device. Most hardware wallets trust the main microprocessor, but Coldcard uses “Microchip’s ATECC608A to store the critical master secret: the 24-word seed phrase for your BIP32/BIP39 wallet.”
They also offer an encrypted backup. Using the wallet, you will be able to write an encrypted file to a MicroSD and would backup everything you would need to restore a lost or broken Coldcard. They even allow you verify their encryption, “using any desktop 7z program.” If you don’t want to use an encrypted backup, they offer “clear text backup file output.”
Coldcard Software
The cons of the Coldcard are generally around the software you need to export your wallet to the computer. You can connect to Bitcoin Core, Electrum Wallet, or Wasabi Wallet, as seen below.
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Coldcard reccomends Electrum, which is a company out of China, and many have expressed issues with reccomending Electrum, as there are some trust issues there. The other downside of Coldcard is that its Bitcoin only, and more technically inclined towards enthusiasts rather than beginners–it really appeals mostly to Bitcoin maximalists.
Regardless, with the maximum security measures Coldcard takes to ensure users piece of mind, the wallet is a great option for any Bitcoin only person you may know. More on Coldcard, and how to use it specifically, can be found here.
The post Coldcard: The Most Hardcore Bitcoin Hardware Wallet? appeared first on CryptosRus.
Text source: CryptosRus
