The Austrian State Printing House (OeSD) has released a cryptocurrency cold wallet, through its subsidiary company Youniqx Identity AG. Per a press release published on July 29, the solution was developed to combat the worrying increase of cryptocurrency theft and other crypto-crimes that are caused by wallet vulnerability.
The hardware wallet is justly dubbed Chainlock, and is purportedly a highly secure and scam-proof storage solution that enables the offline storage crypto wallets to access keys. The device is also capable of generating the private key only when needed, and is water and heat resistant.+
“So-called hot wallets are a great security risk: the private key used for such cryptocurrency accounts is stored at exchanges or connected to the internet in another way,”
the report reads. The report revealed that the Chainlock wallet will be available via the firm’s partners, including Tokenize Exchange in Singapore and Coinfinity in Central Europe.
Securing its Reputation
The wallet will reportedly operate 100% offline, and a patent application was filed to this effect, so it will rule out the possibility of having unauthorized users gain access to private wallet keys.
Private key scammers will hence be unable to lift keys off the internet, NFC, WiFi, CryptoLocker, and such other means. Inevitably, only the user can gain access to the wallet. Nobody can view the key pair – not even YOUNIQX staff. The private key’s owner will as well benefit from coins created due to forks.
Youniqx added that the device has already been highly accepted in the relevant corners, and will work towards helping retail investors.
“This highly secure solution has been met with great enthusiasm at the relevant trading platforms. What is more, Chainlock is also the perfect token container for STOs pursuing a retail strategy,” YOUNIQX said.
The Chainlock launch goes to further seal the Austrian printing House (OeSD) Group’s efforts to be renowned as a high-security company with a focus on secure identities. Being a full-service provider of ID and e-government solutions, OeSD offers highly secured Austrian passport and personalization solutions for identity documents.
In 2018, the portfolio was extended through the establishment of the subsidiary YOUNIQX Identity AG, which offers solutions in the field of secure digital identities. With MICK (My Identity Check), the highly secure video identification service, MIA (My Identity App), the world’s first system offering integrated identity management, and Chainlock, the secure private key, the company is revving up to be relevant in the future of digital technology.
Cold Storage to the Rescue?
US cybersecurity company CipherTrace reports that digital currencies amounting to 1.2 billion USD were stolen in the period of January to March 2019 alone. $950 million of that amount were from thefts from cryptocurrency exchanges and infrastructure services such as wallets, up nearly 260 percent from $266 million in 2017.
The crime spike has made it increasingly hard for first-time investors to buy cryptocurrency, thereby slowing mass adoption down on a large scale. However, this has caused the crypto sphere to pay a lot more attention to cold storage wallets as a lasting solution.
Last week, it was reported that Civic Technologies and BitGo are working on a privacy-focused cold crypto wallet. Although the development of the product is still underway, the company detailed that the wallet will only store minimum user data required only for KYC and other compliance purposes.
“With the Civic Wallet, individual users are getting more privacy and security in managing their cryptocurrency than ever before,” Mike Belsh, co-founder and chief executive of BitGo added.
“It used to be that if you lost your mobile device, containing your digital wallet’s private key, you lost all of your crypto. This is not the case with Civic’s new wallet. This is a big step forward for individual users.”
If cold wallets successfully solve the security issues for cryptocurrency wallets, it’s hard to say what else could hinder adoption.
