The beta version of Parity Singer 2.0 has been announced, an application that will turn smartphones into genuine hardware wallets that will store and sign transactions on the Ethereum network while offline.
Announced through a Medium post, the application is now available for download on iOS and Android devices, an experimental initiative that seeks to offer a new way to secure ethers and give a second life to old mobile phones.
The wallet works by being downloaded to a little-used phone, which can be kept disconnected from the Internet and any function that allows it to connect to a third party. In this way, Parity Signer makes it possible to securely generate, store and sign offline transactions, turning a cell phone into a cold wallet in just a few steps.
This latest version also comes with a new interface design by Brennan Novak, as well as automatic completion for recovery phrases so users don’t make mistakes when restoring a wallet.
The application has a simple design to better verify and sign transactions. Source: Parity Technologies.
Among other benefits of this new cold wallet, the possibility of selecting the network in which you want to make a transfer, so users can choose between Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Kovan or even the Ropsten test network, thus preventing users from signing on another network by mistake and losing their transaction forever.
One of the important points to take into account about Parity Signer 2.0, is that although the initiative would help many users to have their own cold wallet using an old or unused cell phone, this application is an experimental project.
That is to say, it is still on trial and has its vulnerabilities -for example, its cryptographic library still needs to be audited completely-, so users will have to take additional security measures to use this version.
In this sense, the company considers that smart phones that are going to become wallets must be previously prepared for their function, restoring the device to its factory state, activating disk encryption on the phone and placing a manual password -not recommending the use of fingerprints or facial recognition-, as well as after downloading the application put the phone in airplane mode, deactivate the wifi, Bluetooth, as well as any function that allows it to connect to another device.
If these steps are followed, the team claims that users will be assured of any portfolio failure or cyber attacks. However, they have also advised users to back up and not store large amounts of money in this new version until it has been on the market for a while and is supervised by developers:
We believe that the design makes this one of the safest ways to store Ethereum assets. However, we recommend using Parity Signer with caution, following official instructions and only storing small amounts in it.
Parity Technologies.
Parity also notified new improvements and updates of its products, expecting very soon the launch of its Polkadot implementation, an interoperable platform for blockchains with both public and private applications; a project that goes hand in hand with the initiative that allows the creation of personalized crypto networks.
The company also confirmed that it will soon be including new media in its Parity Signer wallet, as well as confirmed that its recently enabled MyCrypto desktop application would now be operating a “clock-only”-that is, wallets with no seed, no private key-by logging in with the QR code in those Parity wallets, a feature that will allow users to view transactions online without risking stored crypto coins.
