What comes with the Keystone Box❓

Four things: Rechargeable battery(if you ordered for Pro or Ultimate) AAA battery holder Type C charging cable The Keystone wallet itself.

Keystone Wallet Review – Is This Hardware Wallet Safe?

Name: KEYSTONE WALLET
Item: Keystone Wallet Review - Is This Hardware Wallet Safe?
Rating: 8.6
Author: Felix Küster

Felix Küster 0 Tagesnachrichten

8.6

Being air-gapped from the internet, it is very secure and leaves no point of entry for hackers

It also offers perks of decentralized finance by allowing users to access other DeFi wallets

The firmware is open-source and verifiable by anyone.

It has been audited, and the audit report is also open-source.

The large screen it comes in makes it easier to view and sign transactions without having to squint your eyes

✅ It has Shamir backups(we'll explain this better later)

✅ The three-pricing model makes it easier to choose a price that fits your budget

INTRODUCTION

Keystone wallet is a security marvel that joins an elite group of hardware wallets with no connection to the online world. Being completely air-gapped, it provides very high security against hackers, malware, and viruses so it’s one of the most popular wallets in the hardware wallet industry.

Lixin Liu, a software developer, founded the Keystone wallet. It was previously known as Cobo Vault under the umbrella of Cobo, a company devoted to crypto technologies.

However, Lixin and his core team of developers left Cobo to develop the Keystone Wallet on June 1, 2021. The reason given was that Cobo decided to prioritize Cobo wallet(hot wallet) over the Cobo vault(the cold wallet option)

KEYSTONE PRODUCTS – SIMILARITIES

There are three products in the Keystone suite. They are the Keystone Pro, Keystone Essential, and Keystone ultimate. These three products have the following similarities:

They are waterproof
They are impact-resistant
They have detachable batteries
They are equipped with fingerprint sensors
They are completely air-gapped
They have a self-destruct mechanism
They employ transaction signing and password verification.

DIFFERENCES

The Keystone Essential is $119 and is meant for long-term holders. It is the lightest of the three, with a mass of 115g. It supports rechargeable batteries but doesn’t come with one. Its surface is made of fiberglass (800 x 480 mm) with a product dimension of 112×65×18 mm

The Keystone Pro is $169 and is meant for frequent crypto users. It is slightly denser than the Essential, with a mass of 132g. It comes with a rechargeable battery and has a product dimension of 112x65x13.5 mm. Its screen is also made of fiberglass with a size of 800x480mm

The Keystone ultimate is the heaviest of them all, with a mass of 189.5g. It goes for $479 and is meant to be used by institutional traders. It also comes with a rechargeable battery. Its surface is made of Aerospace aluminum with a screen size of 1136 by 640mm. Also, the product dimension is 111.8x64x14.6mm.

KEY FEATURES OF THE KEYSTONE WALLET

The Keystone wallet comes as a 4-inch color touchscreen device with no USB port and no WIFI or BlueTooth connections. It only communicates with the outside world using QR codes.

In addition, it has a fingerprint sensor with which its owner can access the wallet quickly. There is a self-destruct mechanism in place if some intruder wants to gain access to the wallet forcefully.

Apart from that, the Keystone wallet also comes with rechargeable batteries with a Type-C cord accompanying. It can also be integrated with DeFi wallets, allowing the staking of assets stored in the Keystone wallet.

Lastly, the firmware is open-source, verifiable, and comes in two types: Bitcoin-only firmware and Multi-coin firmware.

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SECURITY FEATURES OF THE KEYSTONE WALLET

MicroSD card firmware upgrading

This ensures that you do not need to connect the wallet to the internet to upgrade it. All you need to do is insert the SD card into your computer, download the firmware upgrade on it and insert it into your Keystone device to complete the upgrade process

Fingerprint Authentication

This biometric feature adds an extra layer of security to your device.

Self-destruct Mechanism

It comes very handy when someone else has gained physical access to your device and is trying to use brute force to gain entry

Web Authentication

This feature helps you confirm that your product has not been tampered with during supply. It is done on the Keystone website, utilizing QR codes to verify if you have the real deal

Dice Entropy

With this feature, you have control over which recovery phrase you’ll choose for your account. By rolling a dice several times, you can generate your own recovery phrase that no one can guess.

Multi-sig Support

A preferred choice for institutional investors, transactions are only sent when a specific number of people sign them on their various devices.

PSBT Support

This means the wallet is compatible with other wallets, in case you trust those more. It’s compatible with wallets like Casa, Bluewallet, Specter, Electrum, etc.,

Shamir Backup

In simple terms, this feature allows users to split their backup recovery seed into fragments and choose how many of those fragments are necessary for backup purposes.

For example, if you split your seed phrase into six fragments and decide that only 4 of those fragments are needed, you are still covered even if you lose one or two of those fragments.

HOW TO SET UP YOUR KEYSTONE WALLET

Before setting up your device, you need to confirm if it has not been tampered with. To do that, go to keyst.one/authentication on your computer and follow the process.

After that is done, follow the steps below:

Choose a password. Make sure it’s strong enough to prevent guessing by intruders
Select ‚create wallet‘ and then ’next.‘
Your recovery seeds will come up. Write it down somewhere safe. It’s best to use a metal plate for this purpose
Confirm your recovery phrase
You have created your wallet!

To connect your keystone wallet with the mobile application, open the app and tap ‚Bind.‘ It brings up a QR scanner which you can use to scan the QR code on the Keystone device.

SUPPORTED COINS

Keystone wallet supports Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in two different firmware:

BTC-only Firmware

The company saw a need to provide firmware for only Bitcoin to protect against isolation bypasses where a Bitcoin fork, like Litecoin, Dogecoin, etc., is used to hack your Bitcoin assets.

This firmware also accepts all types of Bitcoin deposits as opposed to the multi-coin firmware, which only takes native segwit transactions.

Multi-coin Firmware

As you can guess from the name, this firmware supports other coins apart from Bitcoin. The supported coins number into thousands and include ETH, TRX, DOT, etc.

You can upgrade your Keystone wallet from Multi-coin to BTC- only but can’t change it back once you do that.

DeFi Access

This comes on the back of the Keystone wallet’s ability to connect to other wallets. With these, you can access decentralized applications and DEXes for staking, lending, borrowing, saving, swapping, and performing other DeFi functions.

PRICING

These are the prices at the time of writing:

Keystone Essential: $119

Keystone Pro: $169

Keystone Ultimate: $479

Keystone Tablet: $39

Keystone Tablet Plus: $49

Keystone Tablet Punch: $24

OTHER KEYSTONE PRODUCTS

Keystone Tablet

This is the backup of the backup solution offered by Keystone. It’s a way to keep your recovery phrase secure against fire, mold, rust, and other disasters. It goes for $39

Keystone Tablet Plus

It’s an improvement on the Keystone tablet with a difference of 10 dollars. It offers a slot for each tile instead of every four tiles(as present in the Keystone Tablet). Also, it has 13 screws on each side to further hold the slots in place, as opposed to 3 screws on the Keystone tablet.

Keystone Tablet Punch

It’s the stylus explicitly made for writing your seed phrases on the Keystone Tablet and Tablet plus. It goes for $24.

HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO OTHER HARDWARE WALLETS

Many hardware wallets still offer points of entry for hackers, even though they are air-gapped. For example, some might have Bluetooth connectivity or USB connection which provides attack vectors for hackers to build on. The Keystone wallet excels in this area as it only communicates through QR codes.

Also, it has a large screen as opposed to many other wallets with small screens that make it challenging to confirm transactions easily.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this is one of the best crypto hardware wallets in existence today. With the level of security it offers, we can say it is worth its price. We hope this article has helped you decide if it is for you or not.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Is Keystone wallet easy to use❓

Yes, it is. The interface is quite friendly. Once you set it up, it should be easy to follow through.

How do you sign the transactions❓

Transactions are signed with the QR scanner. This limits the attack surface drastically,y and it also doesn’t waste time.

What happens if I lose my Keystone Device❓

If that happens, don’t worry, your assets are safe. Do you remember where you stored your recovery phrase? You’ll need it to import your old wallet into a new Keystone wallet to continue using your accumulated assets

How does Keystone work❓

Keystone wallet keeps your crypto assets air-gapped from the internet world by employing QR codes as the only means of signing transactions. With this, it would be almost impossible for your help to be hacked

What comes with the Keystone Box❓

Four things:

Rechargeable battery(if you ordered for Pro or Ultimate)
AAA battery holder
Type C charging cable
The Keystone wallet itself.

8.6 Testergebnis

KEYSTONE WALLET

Ease of use

8.5

Supported assets

8.5

Security

9.5

Price

PROS

Being air-gapped from the internet, it is very secure and leaves no point of entry for hackers
It also offers perks of decentralized finance by allowing users to access other DeFi wallets
The firmware is open-source and verifiable by anyone.
It has been audited, and the audit report is also open-source.
The large screen it comes in makes it easier to view and sign transactions without having to squint your eyes
✅ It has Shamir backups(we'll explain this better later)
✅ The three-pricing model makes it easier to choose a price that fits your budget

CONS

It is still quite pricey compared to some other hardware wallets
Performing transactions on the Keystone app itself may be cumbersome for frequent users as you have to load addresses every time.