Hardware Bitcoin Wallet with Biometric Authentication

CryptoLabs, a Bitcoin startup has announced a new credit card sized (although not that thin) multi signature hardware Bitcoin wallet. It is slated for a 2015 release.


The device facilitates the usual sending and receiving of Bitcoins. Moreover, whats new in this hardware wallet is that it is equipped with state of the art security features, a major cause of concern in the crypto currency industry. The device features biometric authentication, which is by far, one of the most advanced technologies in the security front. Also, CryptoLabs stated that they will begin manufacturing it in the end of November 2014 and it will be available for pre sale testing in December 2014.

This wallet, since it features Biometric Security, will be far expensive than the other physical cryptocurrency wallets around today. People have speculated a price of around $120.

Case is one of a kind. It offers many perks such as, as mentioned above, Biometric Security, and also you will be able to send and receive Bitcoin without having to plug it into a phone or a computer, thus, it is independent and is an actual wallet, as the CEO of CryptoLabs, Melanie Shapiro stated.

Its signature feature, however, is the multi signature security, which, on paper, guarantees you more security to your wallet than that of any of the ordinary ones we use tody, even along with two-factor verification. The basic working of the system is like this: Usually, a Bitcoin Wallet has two keys, a public and a private key, which allows the user to receive and send Bitcoins respectively, but this wallet has three private keys. All the three keys will be stored in different secure locations, which can then be accessed only on the verification of the user. It has not been revealed as of now, how to verify them, but one of the methods to do so has been confirmed to be Biometric. In verification of all these keys, the user will then be able to send Bitcoins to a third party. Also, since the keys are stored in different locations, the hacker would have to hack all three of them, which is quite difficult. The user of the wallet can however, receive the money using his public address as always. Of course, this security looks really good when you read about it, but let’s see how it performs.

Users can gain access to the device through a fingerprint scanner and facial verification, and the GSM SIM card in it makes it usable in a whopping number of 60 Countries. This device is also quite easy to carry around, being very lightweight and in the size of a normal credit card. Although the device may not be as thin, but the company has promised that the future products will have that thinness.

We say that humans do not know what they want unless they see what they want, and now, most certainly, we have seen exactly what we want, and so, we can expect more of these Biometric-security-protected-hardware-wallets in the future.