• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Idelto

Cryptocurrency news website

  • About
  • Monthly analysis
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
  • Bitcoin/Ethereum
  • How to invest in cryptocurrencies
  • News

Wallets

A Look At The Future Of Specter And Bitcoin Sovereignty With Moritz Wietersheim

29/04/2022 by Idelto Editor

Specter is a Bitcoin wallet provider that builds tools for the entire Bitcoin usage stack, from commercial to individual use.

The core principle and design goal of Bitcoin was to be “a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash.” While this statement from the whitepaper is traditionally viewed as being related solely to the processing of payments independent of a financial institution, there are other aspects of Bitcoin that are incredibly important to maintain in order to keep it a peer-to-peer system that empowers its users to maintain control over their own finances. Self-validation is one of the most important things for a Bitcoiner to do in order to maintain their own sovereignty over their money. Privacy is another thing that is also incredibly important in relation to self-sovereignty. Obviously in addition to these two aspects, managing your own keys is key (get it?) to having full control over your own bitcoin.

Specter is a family of open source projects that have been working to make all of these important qualities accessible and easy to use for Bitcoiners since 2018. Moritz Wietersheim from Specter was kind enough to give some time to answer questions regarding the past, present state and future plans of the Specter team in expanding their software and hardware devices to continue simplifying the process of using Bitcoin in the most sovereign way possible.

The project began in 2018 in Lisbon during a steak dinner after the Building on Bitcoin conference. Wietersheim met Stepan Snigirev during the conference, where Snigirev had won the hackathon event with a prototype of a hardware wallet with integrated Lightning Network support. During the course of the dinner, Wietersheim and Snigirev decided to start working together on what would become the Specter DIY (Do-It-Yourself) hardware wallet. This became the core piece for an entire ecosystem of different tools for interacting with Bitcoin.

Specter DIY

The Specter DIY Wallet was designed at a time when the hardware wallet space was much less mature. A comprehensive breakdown of many of the vulnerabilities discovered during that time period can be found at Saleem Rashid’s website as well as the Wallet.Fail presentation at the Chaos Communication Congress. At the time it was an almost monthly occurrence for pretty nasty vulnerabilities to be found in different hardware devices. Although the space has matured quite a lot since that time period, I think it is important to note the environment at the time to give context to the thinking behind Specter DIY.

The Specter DIY is built around the STM32 microcontroller, the same MCU (microcontroller unit) used by hardware wallets such as the Coldcard, Trezor, Bitbox, etc. It’s mounted on a Discovery developer board which has both an SD card slot and USB for communication with software wallets. It also has optional support for a QR code scanner. The original notion of a “stateless” signing device — one that does not persistently store the mnemonic seed or private keys on the device — was pioneered by the Specter DIY. This design decision was made because of the MCU’s lack of physical security when storing sensitive data (the STM32 has been physically compromised to extract secrets many times in the past).

By not persistently storing your private keys on the device, you limit the attack surface any malicious actor can exploit if they are able to gain physical access to the device. Without the seed, the most an attacker can hope to do is access your device, compromise it to persist or transmit your keys instead of wiping them and then replace it and hope you do not notice it has been tampered with before the next time you load your keys on the device. This is by no means perfect, but in the world of security nothing is, and this is a huge improvement compared to simply persistently storing your keys on the STM32 where they can be accessed by anyone with the time to compromise the chip. You can deactivate this mode and store the private key data in the MCU, but unless you can physically secure your device with a very high degree of certainty, this should be something you consider carefully before doing. As well, without a secure element it would be advisable to use a passphrase with such a setup.

The software side of the project is built using the embit library. It is a MicroPython/Python 3 library for interacting with Bitcoin data that was built specifically for use with the Specter DIY (it’s also used by SeedSigner and krux, both of which are stateless signing device projects; an LNBits watch-only extension; the Specter Desktop software wallet). The library supports BIP39/BIP32 (mnemonic seed generation and derivation paths for keys), PSBT support for versions one and two, custom SIGHASH flag support (signing different parts of the transaction instead of the whole thing), and output descriptors and miniscript (datastrings to store what’s needed for wallets to find UTXOs it controls and a high level language to make creating Bitcoin scripts easier). It also has experimental support for Shamir Secret Sharing, the Liquid Network, and Taproot (still in progress). For cryptographic functions it uses the libsecp256k1 library maintained by Bitcoin Core. The library is very well rounded with features necessary to meet the basic needs of wallets today, as well as features laying the groundwork for future improvements in existing functionality and the incorporation of expanded features not yet widely deployed in most wallets. Overall it’s a very solid foundation to build from and was all initially put together for the Specter DIY.

In addition to the basic Specter DIY, an extended version called Specter Shield is a major increase in physical security. This is a custom extension board for the main STM32 Discovery board that the base model is built around. The files necessary to have one produced by a PCB board manufacturer are available on their Github repository (linked above). The Shield board has a QR code scanner, a battery and a smart card reader slot. This last feature is really what makes this extension board important. With the extension board and a smart card equipped with a secure element, the wallet can function with the same security model as something like a Coldcard. The key material can be stored on the secure element in a smart card and loaded onto the device during use, but only persistently stored on the smart card. Communication between the MCU and the secure element on the card are encrypted, so the information passed between them is not accessible to the microcontroller handling the smart card interface.

The flow of the wallet (with or without the Shield extension) when persisting keys is the same as most other hardware wallets. The MCU generates a unique secret which is stored in flash memory, and in combination with a user-provided pin encrypts the actual private keys (again regardless of whether storing them on the smart card secure element or the STM32) so that an attacker would have to access both your pin and the secret on the MCU to decrypt your bitcoin keys. This puts both dominant models of bitcoin hardware devices — stateless signers and key storage devices — in the hands of people in a DIY fashion. If you prefer to not rely on a secure element and purely depend on an open source MCU, the Specter DIY can be constructed in that fashion. If you prefer the additive security of a secure element in addition to an open MCU, that can be accomplished with the use of the Shield extension board. To top it all off, it also accepts user input entropy from coin tosses to not depend on the hardware random number generator. Disruptions of supply chains internationally have made it somewhat difficult to get your hands on the necessary hardware, but if you can, the project is worthwhile.

Wietersheim and Snigirev truly accomplished quite a feat in putting together the Specter DIY. It is by no means the first DIY hardware wallet out there, but it’s the first that modularly supports in layman’s terms anything between the security model of something like a Trezor to something like a Coldcard based on what the user constructing it wants. There was just one issue outstanding: wallet software to use it with.

Specter Desktop

When looking at companion apps for the hardware wallet, everything out there seemed to fall short of what Weitersheim and Snigirev were looking for. They did like the functionality of Bitcoin Core, but despite the stability brought to the table by developers, Bitcoin Core has a very minimalistic and in some ways non-intuitive user interface. It does however have a nice interface for PSBTs (Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions) and the HWI (Hardware Wallet Integration) interface, so Stepan hacked together the first version of Specter as a minimal user interface improvement for interacting with Bitcoin Core.

Think of Specter Desktop as a “wrapper” for Bitcoin Core. It includes a nice GUI with multisig support; hardware wallet integration PSBT communication over QR codes, SD card, or USB; verification of receive addresses over QR code and USB; RBF (Replace by fee) support; a labeling system to keep track of your UTXOs and where they came from; and coin control to select specific UTXOs when spending (as well as the ability to freeze specific UTXOs to safeguard yourself from mistakes when spending). They have even integrated an easy to use one click solution to install Bitcoin Core directly from inside Specter Desktop (although, independently installing Bitcoin Core and connecting Specter is something even Peter McCormack was able to accomplish on his own).

In addition to the feature flexibility, the fact that Specter requires spinning up your own full node as a backend is a major privacy benefit compared to many wallets available to users. Most wallets in this ecosystem utilize a third party backend to track their UTXOs, meaning that the operator of that backend is able to correlate all of your UTXOs to a single identity. As well, if not communicating with the backend over Tor or through a VPN service, the operator is able to correlate all of those coins to your IP address. This is a horrible privacy leak that is remedied by Specter’s insistence on a local Bitcoin Core instance to track your Bitcoin balance.

Specter also supports the Liquid Network, a federated Bitcoin sidechain, that also has one-click install support for a Liquid Elements full node within the Specter GUI. It supports Liquid wallets using the Blockstream Jade, Specter DIY, as well as hot wallets directly in Specter. Liquid offers a few interesting benefits with some tradeoffs compared to the main Bitcoin network itself. The sidechain is a federated system, meaning that utilizing the chain requires depositing your BTC into a multisig wallet controlled by the federation operating the sidechain, and then receiving L-BTC, a token issued on the sidechain backed by BTC custodied by the federation. For the tradeoff of trusting the federation, users have the ability to take advantage of Confidential Transactions, a basic zero-knowledge proof scheme that hides the amounts (and type of asset, in the case of Liquid’s implementation) being transacted on the blockchain. It utilizes a “range proof” which cryptographically proves money is not being printed out of thin air without revealing the amounts being transacted.

Liquid also supports the issuance of other assets. A useful example is stablecoins such as Tether (L-USDT), a dollar-denominated stablecoin that allows users to avoid the volatility of Bitcoin in a “self-custodial” way (the token still requires the issuer to honor redemption to acquire “real money” at the end of the day). Liquid asset issuance also allows the creation of other types of tokens such as equities that could be self-custodied and the scripting functionality of Liquid supports more features than Bitcoin itself, allowing more advanced smart contracts such as BTC-backed loans, all handled directly by a user through their own wallet. Specter has chosen to support Liquid to allow users to interact with Liquid in the same way as the main chain: with privacy and total self sovereignty.

Specter Enterprise

Projects such as the Bitcoin Beach wallet actually use Specter as a backend for managing their on-chain multisig funds. They are not the only company using Specter on the backend to manage company funds and, according to Wietersheim, they were not even aware of the companies utilizing Specter until they were approached for assistance. A large part of the revenue keeping the project afloat is actually from such companies paying the Specter team for custom firmware for the Specter DIY and other development services, allowing them to work full time on maintaining their entire software suite.

It’s interesting to think that the same toolset developed to offer individual users the path to self-sovereignty and security are also being used by actual companies towards the same ends. It’s common to think of each group as totally separate markets with completely different needs, but as demonstrated here with Specter, the overlap is much larger than one might think at first glance.

A Bitcoiner’s Command Center

The team at Specter has accomplished something truly spectacular with the project. Everything from hardware devices that securely manage private keys and signing operations to software to validate your transactions has been built out by the team in a seamless, interoperable way. It really is a Swiss Army knife of tools for the self-sovereign Bitcoiner, whether you are an individual user or a professional company managing other peoples’ funds, to handle everything you need to interact with the Bitcoin network. The project is invaluable and the team should be commended for the excellent work they have done in creating this suite of open-source software and hardware for everyone in this space to take advantage of.

This is a guest post by Shinobi. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Filed Under: Bitcoin Magazine, business, English, Feature, Interview, specter, Wallets

Robinhood Crypto Wallets Rolled Out to Over 2 Million Customers

08/04/2022 by Idelto Editor

Robinhood Crypto Wallets Rolled Out to Over 2 Million Customers

Trading platform Robinhood has rolled out its new crypto wallets to more than two million customers. In addition, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev announced that the platform will integrate with the Lightning Network “to bring even lower costs to our customers.”

More Than 2 Million Users Can Now Use Robinhood Crypto Wallets


Popular trading platform Robinhood made an announcement Thursday about its new crypto wallets at the Bitcoin conference in Miami, Florida. Robinhood Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada shared:

We’ve rolled out crypto wallets to every eligible person on the Wenwallets waitlist of more than two million people.


“Now, all eligible customers who signed up for the waitlist will be able to send and receive any of the cryptocurrencies currently available on Robinhood,” the executive added. The company began rolling out its crypto wallets to selected customers in January.

However, “Due to local regulations, crypto wallets aren’t yet available in Hawaii, Nevada, or New York, and we’ll inform those customers when this changes,” Chennapragada said.

Vlad Tenev, CEO and co-founder of Robinhood, also announced:

Our goal is to make Robinhood the most trusted and easiest to use crypto platform. We’re excited to bring even lower costs to our customers by integrating with the Lightning network.

The trading platform currently supports buying, selling, and real-time market data for bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin sv (BSV), dogecoin (DOGE), ethereum (ETH), ethereum classic (ETC), and litecoin (LTC). Shiba inu crypto supporters have been petitioning for Robinhood to list SHIB but the platform repeatedly said that it is in no hurry to add more coins.

Robinhood’s announcement further notes:

Unlike some other crypto platforms, there is no fee to withdraw crypto from Robinhood.


What do you think about Robinhood launching crypto wallets? Let us know in the comments section below.

Filed Under: English, News Bitcoin, Robinhood, Robinhood Crypto, robinhood crypto wallets, Robinhood Cryptocurrency, robinhood trading platform, robinhood wallets, Vlad Tenev, Wallets

Number of Addresses Holding BTC Taps 40 Million, Non-Zero Bitcoin Address Metric Grew 92% Since 2018

25/03/2022 by Idelto Editor

Number of Addresses Holding BTC Taps 40 Million, Non-Zero Bitcoin Address Metric Grew 92% Since 2018

While bitcoin has risen in value in recent times, jumping 8% during the last seven days, statistics show that the number of addresses holding bitcoin has surpassed 40 million addresses. Metrics from the analytics web portal intotheblock.com show addresses that hold any fraction of bitcoin tapped a 30-day high on March 24, reaching 40.25 million addresses.

Addresses That Hold a Small Fraction of Bitcoin or More Swelled Past 40 Million

Non-zero bitcoin (BTC) addresses or accounts that hold at least a single satoshi of BTC has grown at a parabolic rate since 2018. The news was revealed on March 25, when intotheblock.com’s official Twitter account tweeted about the milestone.

Number of Addresses Holding BTC Taps 40 Million, Non-Zero Bitcoin Address Metric Grew 92% Since 2018

“40M+ Holders – For the first time the number of addresses holding bitcoin has surpassed 40 million,” Intotheblock said. “After dropping in February, the number of addresses holding Bitcoin has continued to grow and set new highs.”

The crypto analytics firm Intotheblock added:

This points to growing interest and adoption for bitcoin.

Back on March 12, 2018, or four years ago, the number of non-zero bitcoin addresses was around 20.86 million. Statistics show that the number of bitcoin addresses grew by 92.95% since that day four years ago. Presently, the number of daily active bitcoin addresses is 955,380 and the number of new addresses is 429,120. In terms of profit, 30.64 million addresses holding BTC have profited at the current price.

100 Addresses Command More Than 14% of the Crypto Asset’s Supply, 3.3 Million Addresses Hold a Small Fraction up to 0.00001 Bitcoin

Intotheblock.com metrics indicate that the concentration of large bitcoin holders today is 10%, while coincarp.com data indicates the top ten BTC holders own 5.58% of the entire bitcoin supply. 20 wallets command 7.78% of the supply, the top 50 addresses capture 11.36% of BTC’s supply, and the 100 richest addresses hold 14.11% of the leading crypto asset’s supply. As far as any address with at least 0 to 0.00001 bitcoin, today there are 3,315,204 addresses holding that amount.

Number of Addresses Holding BTC Taps 40 Million, Non-Zero Bitcoin Address Metric Grew 92% Since 2018

Bitcoin addresses with at least 1 to 10 BTC held, account for 680,261 addresses on March 25, 2022. In terms of whale addresses with at least 1,000 to 10,000 BTC, there are currently 2,200 addresses today that fall into the whale criteria. As far as mega-whales are concerned, or bitcoin addresses with at least 10,000 to 100,000 BTC, there are only 82 addresses that meet the requirement. Furthermore, in terms of the biggest bitcoin whales of them all, or addresses with at least 100,000 to 1,000,000 bitcoin, there’s presently four BTC addresses that hold that amount.

What do you think about the fact that non-zero bitcoin addresses have crossed the 40 million mark this week? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Filed Under: accounts, Active bitcoin addresses, addresses, Bitcoin, Bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin address, bitcoin address count, Bitcoin Addresses, BTC addresses, BTC holder, BTC owners, count, data, English, Intotheblock, intotheblock.com, News, News Bitcoin, non-zero bitcoin addresses, non-zero BTC addresses, number of addresses, owners, Stats, Wallets

Investors Inject $450 Million Into Consensys, Ethereum Incubator Now Valued at $7 Billion

15/03/2022 by Idelto Editor

Investors Inject $450 Million Into Consensys, Ethereum Incubator Now Valued at $7 Billion

The Ethereum software firm Consensys has announced the incubator has raised $450 million in a Series D funding round led by Parafi Capital. The latest financing brings the company’s valuation to over $7 billion, following the $200 million Series C raise Consensys secured last November.

Consensys Raises $450 Million, Proceeds From the Round Will Be Converted to Ether


The Ethereum software and incubator firm Consensys has revealed it closed a $450 million Series D led by the venture capital firm Parafi Capital. The financing round also saw participation from Third Point, Marshall Wace, True Capital Management, Temasek, Softbank Vision Fund 2, Microsoft, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures, UTA VC and C Ventures. Interestingly, the company says that the $450 million will be converted to ethereum (ETH) right away.

“All proceeds from the round will be converted to ETH to further build Consensys’ ‘ultra-sound money’ position as a rebalance to its ETH to fiat ratio in line with Consensys’ treasury strategy,” the firm’s announcement on Tuesday disclosed. Consensys adds that the company has kept ether on its balance sheet for quite some time alongside stablecoins and other tokens. The assets are put to work, Consensys details, via staking and “actively using its own financial infrastructure.”

Metamask Captures 30 Million Monthly Active Users, Infura Commands Over 430,000 Developers


The Consensys announcement concerning the $450 million funding round comes at the same time the company’s Metamask wallet hit 30 million monthly active users (MAUs). The disclosure highlights that the “United States, the Philippines, Brazil, Germany and Nigeria represent some of Metamask’s most active markets.” Consensys also announced a milestone tied to the blockchain infrastructure product Infura. According to Consensys:

[Infura] has more than 430,000 developers and in excess of $1 trillion in annualized on-chain ETH transaction volume, 10x that of its nearest competitor.


Joseph Lubin, the founder and CEO of Consensys said that while this financing round will convert the fiat to ether, the “next round will be our ‘Series ETH’ where we will assist investors in getting fully crypto native and contributing ETH.” Alongside Consensys, the Ethereum network and its native token ETH saw phenomenal growth. ETH is up 38.8% year-to-date and the chain commands 54.79% of the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) or $109.03 billion, at the time of writing.

“I think of Consensys as a broad and deep capabilities machine for the decentralized protocols ecosystem, able to rapidly capitalize at scale on fundamental new constructs that emerge, such as developer tooling, wallets, security audits, defi, NFTs, layer-2 scaling, DAOs, and more,” Lubin added. “This view has resonated with our crypto native and growth investors in a Series D that will enable us to execute exciting growth strategies.”

What do you think about Consensys raising $450 million in a Series D funding round? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Filed Under: $450 Million, $7 billion, Anthos Capital, C Ventures, ConsensYs, defi, English, Finance, infura, Joseph Lubin, layer 2, marshall wace, metamask, Metamask MAUs, Microsoft, News Bitcoin, NFTs, Parafi Capital, proceeds converted to ETH, security audits, Series D, Softbank Vision Fund 2, Sound Ventures, Temasek, Third Point, True Capital Management, UTA VC, valuation, Wallets

Bank of Russia Reports First Successful Digital Ruble Transfers Between Users

16/02/2022 by Idelto Editor

Bank of Russia Reports First Successful Digital Ruble Transfers Between Users

Testing of the digital ruble has started in Russia with the country’s central bank announcing the first complete transactions between individual wallets. The monetary authority, a staunch opponent of cryptocurrencies, says its digital currency will create new opportunities for citizens, businesses, and the Russian state.

Digital Ruble Transactions Carried Out by Commercial Banks and Bank of Russia

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) and participating financial institutions have begun testing the digitalized national fiat currency. The trials have been launched after a prototype of the digital ruble platform was completed in December, 2021.

Twelve banks applied to join the pilot group for the project and three of them have already connected their systems to the CBDC platform. Two of the banks have successfully completed a full cycle of digital ruble transfers between clients using mobile banking applications, the regulator explained.

The users were able to open digital ruble wallets through the apps and exchange regular electronic money from their bank accounts for digital rubles and then transfer the coins between themselves, the CBR detailed in an announcement.

The digital ruble is based on a two-tier model. Bank of Russia is the issuer and operator of the platform while end customers access it through intermediaries. They will be able to create wallets and conduct transactions via the mobile app of any bank. First Deputy Chairman of the CBR Olga Skorobogatova has been quoted as saying:

The digital ruble platform is a new opportunity for citizens, businesses and the state.

Transfers with the sovereign digital currency will be free of charge for Russian residents and available anywhere in the country, she elaborated. The system will also reduce transaction costs for companies and allow them to offer new products and services. The government will have a tool for targeted payments and management of budget spending.

During the first stage of the trials, participants will focus on opening wallets for banks and private clients. The second stage will involve processing payments, including for public services, implementation of smart contracts, and interactions with the Federal Treasury.

Plans for the future include introducing offline transactions and eventually allowing non-residents to use the digital ruble. Based on the results of the piloting phases, a roadmap for the full implementation of the new form of the fiat currency will be drafted.

The CBR has been developing its digital currency in parallel with ongoing discussions about the future of cryptocurrencies in Russia. The monetary authority has vehemently opposed their legalization and proposed a blanket ban on crypto-related operations in January.

However, its hardline stance has left it in isolation as other institutions in Moscow, including the federal government and the finance ministry, have supported regulation under strict rules, as a more appropriate approach, over total prohibition.

What future do you see for CBDC projects such as the digital ruble? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Filed Under: Bank of Russia, Banks, CBR, Central Bank, crypto, Cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency, digital coin, digital ruble, English, Finance, News Bitcoin, participants, Payments, pilot, pilot phase, pilot project, ruble, Russia, russian, Testing, tests, transactions, transfers, Trials, Wallets

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 31
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Archives

Recents articles

  • Bill Gates: Crypto Has No Valuable Output — It’s Not Adding to Society Like Other Investments
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki Thinks Bitcoin Could Bottom Out at $9K — Reveals Why He Remains Bullish
  • Kevin O’Leary Expects US Crypto Regulations to Come Out After Midterm Elections
  • ETH Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin Says The Merge Could Happen in August, There’s Also ‘Risk of Delay’
  • Draft Law About NFTs Submitted to Russian Parliament
  • Dubai Creates Committee to Help Cement Its Position as ‘Key City in the Metaverse’
  • Crypto’s Barren Wasteland: A Look at What’s Left of Terra’s Defi and Token Ruins
  • Celebrating Bitcoin Pizza Day With Knoxville Bitcoin Network

© 2022 · Idelto · Site design ONVA ONLINE

Posting....