Keyp Unveils ‘Game Wallet’, a Game Boy Hardware Wallet

A mobile game console becomes a digital wallet

On the 19th, Web3 game-related company Keyp announced a dedicated cassette (cartridge) that can be used as a hardware (cold) wallet for crypto assets (virtual currency) for Nintendo’s handheld game machine “Game Boy”.

Announcing Game Wallet

Turn any GameBoy into a secure offline cold wallet.

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— JOSΞPH (@CupOJoseph) May 19, 2023

The software is developed as open source to ensure transparency and reliability. All updates are released as new games and do not require any firmware updates. It is expected that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) can be stored on the wallet.

What is a cold wallet

A “wallet” that plays the role of a wallet for storing virtual currency and is completely separated from the Internet. There are paper wallets and hardware wallets. Since it is not connected to the Internet, there is no risk of hacking and security is high, but it is less convenient for users who frequently use virtual currencies that are exchanged electronically.

Cryptocurrency Glossary

If there are no supply chain or technical issues, we are targeting a release this summer.

On the other hand, although it is an interesting project from a technical point of view, Keyp’s official website does not mention the approval or permission of “Nintendo”, which developed the Game Boy, and legal risks such as rights issues are also pointed out.

How Game Wallet works

Based on “BIP-39”, a technical standard for defining recovery phrases for cryptographic assets (virtual currencies), the development language “GBAssembly” is programmed into the Game Boy with an open source assembly implementation of the hash algorithm “SHA-256”. It is said that it was realized by converting to .

As far as the official image is concerned, the target is the original Game Boy, which was released in 1989 and gained popularity. According to the developer, the latest models such as Nintendo DS are not supported, but other devices may be supported in the future.

The recovery phrase is randomly generated using the hash of the D-Pad or button operated by the user during gameplay. After completing the adventure (quest) in the game, it incorporates a gimmick that allows you to learn phrases by talking to NPC (CPU) characters such as villagers in the game.

Randomness for generating the keys is introduced by the player as they walk around the world and complete fun quests, RPG style. pic.twitter.com/WJIKNU5Uqy

— JOSΞPH (@CupOJoseph) May 19, 2023

A recovery phrase consists of 12 or 24 English words generated when a wallet is created, and is also called a seed phrase (mnemonic phrase). By entering this, the user can access the wallet and restore the assets in another wallet.

Keyp explained the benefits of using a Gameboy as a wallet:

Devices that cannot be physically connected to the Internet are inherently more secure.

In that respect, the Game Boy, which has been dormant for many years, is a device created before the birth of Bitcoin, and it is a security device supply chain (a series of processes from the production of products and services to the supply to the final consumer). Digital phishing attacks are also impossible.

Sascha Mombartz, Co-Founder of Keyp, also said, “Seeing the controversy surrounding the update of the Ledger hardware wallet, we have reaffirmed the need for true offline cold storage where trust is not an issue. I recognized it,” he said.

Ledger Recovery Phrase Storage Service

Cryptocurrency wallet company Ledger just announced today that it is releasing a new product called Ledger Recover.

The service divides the recovery phrase into three parts, encrypts them, and stores them in third-party companies such as Ledger. While it prevents wallet owners from losing their recovery phrases, there were also concerns that third parties could recover their recovery phrases.

In response, Ledger explains that the companies entrusting the phrases do not have access to the phrases themselves.

connection: Ledger launches private key recovery service Voices of concern about backdoor

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