Bitfi is a global payments technology company based in the US that enables businesses and consumers to securely participate in a decentralized economy. Their mission is to accelerate the growth and adoption of digital assets. This past week the company released their Knox hardware wallet focusing mainly on user-friendliness and air-gapped security. When visiting the homepage of the Bitfi website they state its “the worlds first un-hackable device”, and seeing this as someone who has been in the computer space for over 15 years it can bring a sense of unease. Ignoring the fact that they supposedly have John Mcafe now on their team, let us dig in further to what makes this device so remarkable.
The transition of storing cryptocurrencies on any type of cold wallet can seem highly technical for someone who is inexperienced with encryption technology. If sets of rules are not followed funds can be lost forever. Bitfi intends on making this easier and safer for the average individual. Instead of having to write down a 24-word mnemonic phrase or separate private keys for each coin, and then worrying on how to safely store it from theft or damage. Bitfi created an algorithm, which acts similar to a brain wallet giving a user the freedom to make a long unique phrase they can easily remember (for example: “Ilovemyjobbecausetheypayme@5”) will be specific for them and impossible to guess or brute force.
Unlike popular cryptocurrency hardware devices such as Trezor or Ledger Nano S, the Bitfi Knox wallets DO NOT store the user's private keys in the hardware. If the Bitfi Knox device is stolen or seized and then taken apart the keys are unable to be retrieved. Since there are no private keys are stored on the device there is also no potential for a “man in the middle” or distribution attack that can occur where a user's keys are stolen prior to actually receiving the device. We saw this happen when unfortunate consumers purchased the Ledger Nano S from 3rd party sellers this past year.
https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/03/20/ledger-nano-s-hack-cryptocurrency/
As explained by CEO Daniel Khesin, the Bitfi Knox wallet is not a storage device but rather a separate CPU running calculations for their open sourced algorithm. A secret phrase the user created will calculate the private key to sign for transactions made on the Bitfi dashboard. The device will also update automatically to the latest firmware when connected to Wi-Fi, and routes to company node that allows a user to view all their balances on the device. Bitfi will also release an app on the phone that will work with the Knox wallet to allow their users to purchase products and services on the go.
CEO Daniel Khesin (podcast) https://www.futuretechpodcast.com/podcasts/daniel-khesin-founder- bitfi-worlds-first-un-hackable-crypto-wallet/
The device itself has a smartphone type of look to it with an LED Touchscreen, multi-currency support, dashboard and other additional customizable features. Bitfi plans on continually integrating blockchain assets every few weeks. They currently support Bitcoin, Ethereum (ERC20 tokens), EOS, NEO/GAS, Litecoin, and lastly Monero being the first company to functionally implement the popular privacy coin on their wallet without additional downloads from Github.
On their webpage, it looks as if the wallet already went on sale, and within a short period of time sold out entirely. In my opinion, I have never heard of a hardware wallet that performs like this so I am interested in purchasing one just to see if Bitfi Knox succeeds in its functional promise.
'The Most Comprehensive Cryptocurrency Wallet Guide': Simona Vaitkune https://medium.com/@fastinvest/the-most-comprehensive-cryptocurrency-wallet-guide-5e820a26ed44
Bitfi (comparables to other storage) http://bitfi.com/bitfi-wallet
Bitfi (news) https://btcmanager.com/bitfi-and-mcafee-announce-unhackable-crypto-wallet/
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