[Pre-Proposal] The Dash Hardware Wallet

[roland]

i am not sure why we have to reinvent the wheel here when trezor and ledger are solid products are well maintained - support MNs and whatever else
my worry is to start a new hardware wallet - bug hunting - maintainance question - support - ....
is that really nessacery when we have 3 killer products out there ?
+
can't beat my trezor tbh

You really think Trezor, Ledger and Keepkey are "killer products"? If so, then I have to agree 100% with you, you should dismiss my proposal right away. No kidding, no sarcasm here.

The reason I'm coming up with this proposal is that I strongly believe that Trezor et. al. do not have the potential to support widespread application of Dash as a payment solution. Something else is needed to support that. Let's assume for a moment that Dash really gets traction, and people start to use it for "everyday purchases". Do you carry a PC/Notebook around just to be able to connect your Trezor via USB? You need something that integrates nicely with your phone to do this job!

Please don't get me wrong, no offense intended. But this is not a proposal to provide some other solution von MNO's to secure their 1000 Dash. For this purpose, the Trezor is just fine, and as there are less than 5k master nodes, even just buying 5k Trezors off the shelf would be much cheaper than my proposal.

My proposal is just to build the best hardware wallet ever, and the first one to be used seamlessly with mobile applications. And to build this thing in a scale that no other hardware wallet available to day has reached yet (and will ever reach).

 

[roland]

I agree with @dashdisciple

"This is a very exciting idea, and it's clear that a lot of thought went into it.

My concerns are mainly in regards to the timeframe, and the general risk of non-delivery.

Overall, I'd love to see this as an independent business that covered its costs from profits on units.

What it sounds like is that this concept needs a large loan/investment capital. It's being structured as a pre-paid buy for 10,000 units to be delivered in the future. The treasury's weak spot is in funding what would otherwise be privately held corporations.

If you could secure some type of legal contract with Dash core directly for this, I'd be in support.

Alternatively, if you came to the table with a more developed prototype and needed money to mass produce, I would be more in support."

@dashdisciple: Thanks for your comment. And yes, right, this proposal is an up-front investment in design and production of a hardware product.

I totally agree with you that the best option would be that the a startup just builds the thing and lives from the profits in units.

However face facts, as of today, there is no way you could possibly sell 10k of such units to Dash owners and even cover your expenses from this (let alone re-finance the development). And sadly, if that was your motiviation, you'd have to do this for Bitcoin and Ethereum first, because of the bigger market (as of today).

But with Dash and the Dash treasury, we have the tools to start such a thing and let the Dash ecosystem benefit from it. Which crypto has the best hardware wallet? Dash! Imagine the press coverage you can get with such a thing in your hands. From my experience I can say, put 500 of those on your booth for the next conference/exhibition, make some sort of lottery and people will crowd your booth as if there is no tomorrow.

About your concern about timeframe and risk of non-delivery. I can very well understand these concerns. I discuss these concerns all the time with our "normal company customers". Typically, risk mitigation for them means: we have a detailed plan, we have a contract, if we don't deliver as planned, they won't pay us. Now, I'm ready to do that, but how can we fit this into Dash's treasury system?

The best idea I came up with is to split the payment into 10 blocks / months, so MNOs could downvote us any time and thus stop funding us. On our side, we could so "some type of legal contract with Dash core", but is that really a possibility on the Dash side? "Dash core" is no legal entity, and I'm not sure if the core team wants to be the "notary" for such types of proposal?

 

[roland]

Does everyone's laptop / computer that runs full Dash node have Bluetooth? I guess I can plug in an adapter

Main market for this hardware wallet are mobile devices (smartphones, tablets). 99% of this devices should have BT. Even for laptops / notebooks, I'd say that that if the device has WiFi, it should have BT (they often share antennas on the module / frontend since it's the same frequency band).

The biggest technical hurdle is the driver infrastructure. Windows 7 doesn't have Bluetooth LE drivers by default, Microsoft only introduced that with Windows 8.1 (and Windows 10 of course). But by the time this product comes to market, Windows 7 will probably not be a big deal anymore.

For the Macs, well, all of them have BT, and it's even a better option than USB (imagine the Trezor hogging your single USB-C port for which you even need a 3rd party adapter to plug the Trezor).

 

[roland]

Keep in mind, on a day to day basis, I probably wouldn't be carrying this device around because when it comes to your example of paying for coffee, I'm okay keeping a small amount of crypto on Coinomi, or on a TenX debit card. For larger transactions, I would use a trezor et al. But then again, you said for mass market, in which case, how does this work with usernames on Evolution? And tbh, I would so much prefer a miniature device I could stick on the back of my phone. As it stands, the use cases I think you're saying are a) easier to use than trezor, b) more secure than trezor, and c) possible use as Point of Sale.

The basic function of a hardware wallet don't change with evolution: storing the private keys, verifying transactions (by displaying them to the user), and signing them.

All the nice graphical user interfaces stay on the app (smartphone, computer). The resolution of addresses to usernames can be done easily, however this has security implications. Because the transaction will happen on the address itself at the end. So which element verifies that the nicely displayed username really matches the address? Sure you can sign that with X.509 or whatever, but who provides trust in this case? You wouldn't involve a CA system here would you, all in all we're a decentralized crypto currency.

a) easier to use than trezor: yes, that's one of my points. And I think it's big.
b) no, to be precise, my criticism about the Trezor is about usability, maybe there are USB things you might discuss, but that's not a key differentiator of my proposal
c) yes, but future use

you forgot

d) half the retail price of a Trezor (big thing!)
e) use as a marketing tool for Dash, since exclusive to Dash (at least for the time being)

 

[tungfa]

You really think Trezor, Ledger and Keepkey are "killer products"? If so, then I have to agree 100% with you, you should dismiss my proposal right away. No kidding, no sarcasm here.

The reason I'm coming up with this proposal is that I strongly believe that Trezor et. al. do not have the potential to support widespread application of Dash as a payment solution. Something else is needed to support that. Let's assume for a moment that Dash really gets traction, and people start to use it for "everyday purchases". Do you carry a PC/Notebook around just to be able to connect your Trezor via USB? You need something that integrates nicely with your phone to do this job!

Please don't get me wrong, no offense intended. But this is not a proposal to provide some other solution von MNO's to secure their 1000 Dash. For this purpose, the Trezor is just fine, and as there are less than 5k master nodes, even just buying 5k Trezors off the shelf would be much cheaper than my proposal.

My proposal is just to build the best hardware wallet ever, and the first one to be used seamlessly with mobile applications. And to build this thing in a scale that no other hardware wallet available to day has reached yet (and will ever reach).

ok i hear u
but for everyday use - my shopping i will use my mobile wallet (iphone - whatever) where i have x amount of dash for daily use / spend
+
who knows what elevolution will bring
maybe there is a "then needed" possibility to integrate a hardware wallet into the system

sorry but i do not see the need now to get into this and spend that kind of money
trezor and co might not be perfect but work well enough for the general use (i did a trezor session this morning with a friend of mine who is new to crypto and he def understood trezor quicker than dashcore)

 

[tungfa]

e) use as a marketing tool for Dash, since exclusive to Dash (at least for the time being)

for how long will this be dash exclusive ?

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Tbh, I can fully appreciate why people like @tungfa are satisfied with their trezor.. it's perfectly adequate for the crypto crowd. But equally, you are suggesting this will be easier to use than a trezor. I think what I really want to see is a good demonstration / walkthrough, showing us how exactly how it would function and especially in a post Evolution setup, because you have raised questions about username to address issues.

I think you need to make clear the precise use case for this because if you envisage this as a dash only, standalone device for buying coffee, then I struggle to see it being successful. The reality is, end users are levitating towards multi-currency wallets. Or they are using contactless crypto debit cards that will one day (hopefully) bypass visa / mastercard. In fact, ShapeShift's recent acquisition of KeepKey has expressly said they intend to ramp up the number of cryptos they support. And given it's Erik Voorhees behind it, I am sure he will insist on a super easy user experience. So that's what I think you have to convince us of, that your product can go head-to-head with the best.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/...lets-you-pay-without-any-phone-or-electronics

 

[roland]

for how long will this be dash exclusive ?

I made the proposal to open source all software components (firmware, protocol) as well as the hardware schematics.

So possibly, someone could take that and build upon it. Technically, Dash is very similar to Bitcoin, so if you know what you're doing in embedded software stuff, you might have Bitcoin running on the thing pretty quickly. But on the other hand it's a hardware product: the Trezor is open source, how many clones of the Trezor do you see on the market? None. Why? Because it's easy to tinker with some open source hardware, it's hard to pull of project that you can really sell. You still need to do certification, professional production, enclosure, packaging, ...

If we need to invest $893k now, maybe someone could later on take that and build 10k of their own clone in similar scale for $600k, and maybe it'll take them 6 months. By that time we can produce 10k more of the Dash wallet for $450k (retail).

Being a first mover always mean to push the market forwards, helping others (maybe unwantingly). If you want it cheap, be a follower. Less risk, less gain.

 

[tungfa]

I made the proposal to open source all software components (firmware, protocol) as well as the hardware schematics.

So possibly, someone could take that and build upon it. Technically, Dash is very similar to Bitcoin, so if you know what you're doing in embedded software stuff, you might have Bitcoin running on the thing pretty quickly. But on the other hand it's a hardware product: the Trezor is open source, how many clones of the Trezor do you see on the market? None. Why? Because it's easy to tinker with some open source hardware, it's hard to pull of project that you can really sell. You still need to do certification, professional production, enclosure, packaging, ...

If we need to invest $893k now, maybe someone could later on take that and build 10k of their own clone in similar scale for $600k, and maybe it'll take them 6 months. By that time we can produce 10k more of the Dash wallet for $450k (retail).

Being a first mover always mean to push the market forwards, helping others (maybe unwantingly). If you want it cheap, be a follower. Less risk, less gain.

ok tx for the explanations
open source aside
u personal have no plans to integrate other coins after ?

 

[roland]

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/...lets-you-pay-without-any-phone-or-electronics

While it's a nice website, the thing they are promoting has nothing to do with a wallet. It's just an NFC tag with an address that links to your account.

Buy them in packs of 100 for $0.1 here:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...ne-Available-NFC-Tag-Sticker/32640644962.html

 

[roland]

The reality is, end users are levitating towards multi-currency wallets.

Today, yes, because crypto users are nerds. Because holding crypto is all about hoping that the coins will increase in value, not so much for payment.

This can't be the long-term goal of Dash, to be just one of a bunch of crypto currencys that are all equally easy to use. Because in a market like this, the biggest fish will win and this won't be Dash.

If you're Tesla, and you realise the need to build super charger stations throughout the country, is your first concern how these will be compatible with cars of other brands?

-Roland

 

[roland]

ok tx for the explanations
open source aside
u personal have no plans to integrate other coins after ?

If we do this proposal, we could certainly assure you that we keep our fingers off other coins. That's normal business with "normal customers" all the time. Usually time limited though (1-2 years is common practice).

 

[Leonidas]

Agreed on that. With the risk of disappointing you and solarguy and you: I still insist that concealment is not the top priority of a device like this. I don't say that there are no use cases for concealment. Maybe it's even a big thing for most Trezor users. But I don't want to create another "Nerd-only device". For that, Trezor and Ledger are good enough. I want to create the thing that "normal people" will use to pay with Dash. This is a much, much bigger market.

That is really important. The more the hardware wallet out there, the less concealment you need. Nowadays Trezor kinda the safest place to put your dash. It's like a vault. So.. that kinda put a target on your back (when you buy it, when you promote it, if somebody finds it). Now, if a trezor like device is cheaper and easier to use, then having one would not telle anything anymore to the world. Even though it would be super safe, you'd still be using it for your dailypayment so no way to know if you are using this device for small daily money or for vaulting. It's not the case for the other hardware wallet nowadays.

Now the question is : will your product really be used for daily purchases ? Even though that is the objective intended, I have trouble picturing everybody carrying that thing around for daily use. You don't have lock on your personal wallet, so mobile phone alone do just fine.

That's the reason why I proposed a 10 months timeframe. We'd deliver design results in the process, and as I understood that if MNOs didn't agree that we met our schedule, they could stop funding at any given time, right?

Even though a project can be voted down at anytime, the network is not used to 10 months project. Plus, many people would complain if the price had gotten up between your first payment and your last (which I bilieve would be the reason for some to vote no). You could separate the project in three phases, which would be two or three proposals. Like that, you will be able to adjust the amount of Dash you'll be asking for in each phase (which could be safer for you in case the Dash value would go down in between - yeah, I know, that ain't gonna happen ).

Same goes for the screen: the letters you see on the screen are 6mm high.

That thing is actually a very important observation and can be a game changer, so I absolutely agree with you. If you can't read it you won't buy it (even though design is the best ).

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Today, yes, because crypto users are nerds. Because holding crypto is all about hoping that the coins will increase in value, not so much for payment.

This can't be the long-term goal of Dash, to be just one of a bunch of crypto currencys that are all equally easy to use. Because in a market like this, the biggest fish will win and this won't be Dash.

If you're Tesla, and you realise the need to build super charger stations throughout the country, is your first concern how these will be compatible with cars of other brands?

-Roland

Actually, yes. Musk has made a lot of his tech open source or agreed not to pursue patents because he knows to grow the ecosystem he needs everyone on the same page.

As for maximalism, it's dying, thank god. Of course, there are lots of people buying into various crypto in the hope it increases in value. And sure, there will likely be a clearing out of the low-grade stuff. But could there be 10+ cryptos with unique use cases? - absolutely. I'm not betting against Voorhees.

In fact, I would argue that Evolution should also embrace multi-currency, in a functional sense. There's no escaping the multi-currency world we're entering, whether it's the digital Singapore Dollar or a Chinese backed crypto.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

@Leonidas I disagree a little. We are entering a new world of finance that is vastly jeopardizing personal safety. If you do some research on bank jobs, you'll see just how much of an easy target they were. When banks upped their game, criminals went for the next easy target.. customers. Go look up the stats on ATM stick-ups and I'm sure it will show a rapid rise. Now that we are approaching "be your own bank" as a common idea, I'm afraid to say, abductions and drive-bys are going to increase exponentially. Personal safety is the future trend, guaranteed.

 

[roland]

You don't have lock on your personal wallet, so mobile phone alone do just fine.

The threat scenario of your personal wallet (non-crypto, dollar notes in it) is that is gets physically stolen from you by a thief next to you. The threat scenario to your mobile phone is that some hacker steals your coins / private keys. Not because sitting next to you, because you surf to some malware-infected web page, you install some malware-containing app etc. That's a completely different thing. Usually we assume that this threat vector is much, much bigger because it's not limited by your physical vicinity.

Or in other words: your Trezor protects you nicely from the malware stuff (if you use it correctly). If the Trezor gets stolen, don't feel to safe about it. I wouldn't trust the memory protection of the STM32F205RE much. But I don't blame the Trezor for that, it's simply not the purpose of the device.

Even though a project can be voted down at anytime, the network is not used to 10 months project. Plus, many people would complain if the price had gotten up between your first payment and your last (which I bilieve would be the reason for some to vote no). You could separate the project in three phases, which would be two or three proposals. Like that, you will be able to adjust the amount of Dash you'll be asking for in each phase (which could be safer for you in case the Dash value would go down in between - yeah, I know, that ain't gonna happen ).

Thank you, maybe this is really a good idea. I will definitely think about this way. It's a little bit challenging with hardware projects, because typically people will then expect high-gloss, finished-looking prototypes after phase 1 (whereas technically seen, phase 1 would probably greate schematics, Gerber files and 3D models). But we can probably figure out a way.

-Roland

 

[Leonidas]

Now that we are approaching "be your own bank" as a common idea, I'm afraid to say, abductions and drive-bys are going to increase exponentially. Personal safety is the future trend, guaranteed.

Your vision of the future is quite worrying but makes sense. However, how are gonna market crypto or Dash if our vision is "be your own bank but get abducted for that" ?

But I will still repeat myself. Although abduction might increase, abduction is risky and people will always go for the people with money. So the question is how to hide the people with the money amongst the others. What I liked about that idea was having a product that does not necessarily screams "I'm a vault" but still good be one.

 

[roland]

And tbh, I would so much prefer a miniature device I could stick on the back of my phone.

I understand what you mean. However, that's not possible. Such a device would totally defeat the purpose of a hardware wallet and just add no security at all. It'd just give you peace of mind (until your coins are stolen).

You can miniaturize storage and communication functions on such a device, for sure. But to make a hardware wallet safe, it needs a password protection which is independant of the accompanying device (e.g. phone). For that, you either need keys of a screen of a reasonable size. Then, you also need a screen to show the transaction details before signing a transaction. The user must verify this.

Without a screen, and without looking at the screen and really comparing numbers (amount, address), a hardware wallet has no effect at all.

Trezor, Ledger Nano S and KeepKey all do the correct thing. Any hardware wallet without a screen is a scam. It's as simple as that (at least as long as there isn't another way of communicating directly with your brain). You could possibly swap the PIN for a fingerprint reader / eye scanner one day (yes I know some people think that's not safe enough), but the requirement for the screen stays.

 

[roland]

So the question is how to hide the people with the money amongst the others.

I think you already came up with a solution for this, didn't you?

Today: everyone who carries a Trezor might be identified as "someone with the money" (why would he own such thing otherwise?).

Tomorrow: if everyone carries a hardware wallet, we're fine, because we can't see whether theres $1 or $1,000,000 in it.

Just like today, all of us carry a normal wallet with some bills in it. Just the view of a wallet in your pants doesn't make your a target of abduction. At least not in most countries.