Trezor

Trezor launches education initiative in Africa, funds Bitcoineta trip

Trezor has officially launched its educational program in Africa in addition to funding Bitcoineta, a West African Bitcoin awareness campaign, and the Africa Bitcoin Conference.

Hardware cryptocurrency wallet firm Trezor is continuing its efforts to promote Bitcoin (BTC) education globally by launching a new educational initiative in Africa.

The Trezor Academy was launched at the Trezor-backed Africa Bitcoin Conference in Ghana’s capital of Accra on Dec.

The academy is an educational program focused on spreading Bitcoin knowledge in Africa.

According to Trezor’s blog, the Trezor Academy pilot has been active in Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Burundi and Kenya.

“Bitcoin adoption is perhaps more relevant in Africa than on any other continent,” Trezor CEO Matej Zak said, adding that its properties provide several benefits related to local initiatives such as payment schemes, microfinancing and savings.

As part of Trezor’s education program in Africa, the firm also funds Bitcoineta, a Bitcoin-themed car dedicated to spreading Bitcoin awareness in the West African region, particularly Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria. Bitcoineta was launched in 2018 by nonprofits Bitcoin Argentina and Bitcoin Americana, with the campaign’s name referring to the combination of “Bitcoin” and “camioneta,” the Spanish word for minivan.

According to Trezor, the Bitcoineta campaign is being launched with Bitcoin Cowries, a Ghanian Bitcoin education initiative.

Scam alert: Trezor warns users of new phishing attack

The new active phishing attack tries to steal Trezor users’ crypto by tricking investors into entering their recovery phrase on a fake Trezor site.

Hardware cryptocurrency wallet provider Trezor has warned its users about a new phishing attack targeting their crypto investments by trying to steal their private keys.

Trezor took to Twitter on Feb. 28 to caution users about an active phishing attack designed to steal investors’ money by making them enter the wallet’s recovery phrase on a fake Trezor website.

The phishing campaign involves attackers posing as Trezor and contacting victims via phone calls, texts or emails claiming that there has been a security breach or suspicious activity on their Trezor account.

“Trezor Suite has recently endured a security breach, assume all your assets are vulnerable,” the fake message reads, inviting users to follow a phishing link to “secure” their Trezor device.

“Please ignore these messages as they are not from Trezor,” Trezor declared on Twitter, emphasizing that the firm will never contact its customers via calls or SMS. The firm added that Trezor had not found any evidence of a database breach.

*A fake SMS from scammers posing as Trezor. Source: Twitter*

According to online reports, the latest phishing attack against Trezor customers was launched on Feb. 27, with users being directed to a domain asking to enter their recovery seed. The domain provides a perfectly-made fake Trezor website that prompts users to start securing their wallets by clicking the “Start” button.

*A screenshot from a phishing domain copying Trezor’s website. Source: Bleeping Computer*

After clicking the “Start” button, users will be asked to provide the recovery phrase for their cryptocurrency wallet.

The wallet’s recovery phrase, or private keys, is the most important part of self-custody by keeping your crypto on a software or hardware noncustodial wallet. The safety of the recovery phrase is more important than keeping the hardware wallet safe. Once the private keys are stolen, it means that crypto holdings no longer belong to their original owner.

The news came shortly after metaverse firm The Sandbox suffered a data breach on Feb. 26, resulting in a phishing email sent to users.

The latest phishing attack against Trezor customers is not the first scam of such kind. Trezor wallets were also targeted with phishing attacks in April 2022, with attackers contacting Trezor users posing as the company, asking them to download a fake Trezor app.

Such attacks are not exclusive to Trezor, though. In 2020, rival hardware wallet firm Ledger suffered a massive data breach, with attackers publicly exposing the personal information of more than 270,000 Ledger customers.

Trezor to produce chips for hardware wallets to shorten supply cycle

Trezor wants to respond quickly to demand-triggering events like the FTX collapse by taking control of wallet chip production.

Hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor is accelerating the production of new Trezor wallets by producing its own wallet silicon chips.

Trezor officially announced on Feb. 27 that the firm would start facilitating the production of its key component, the chip wrapper, in its flagship product — the Trezor Model T.

The move aims to significantly optimize Trezor wallets’ production, reducing lead times in the supply cycle from two years to several months.

The optimization will also eliminate delays in shipping finished products and protect consumers from exposure to price fluctuations based on component supply and demand, Trezor said. As previously reported, demand for Trezor wallets spiked by at least 300% after the FTX collapse in November 2022, as crypto investors rushed to move their crypto holdings from centralized crypto exchanges.

Before becoming a wallet chip producer, Trezor was exposed to third-party supply vulnerabilities due to factors like geopolitical disruption, labor shortages due to COVID-19, crypto market conditions and other events. By taking control of the wallet chip supply, Trezor can respond quickly to all these factors and meet the demand at all times.

“By unpacking the process, identifying areas where we could take control, and collaborating with our partner STMicroelectronics in new ways, we’ve managed to make the manufacturing as agile as it can be,” chief financial officer Štěpán Uherik said.

The new business model also enables more design freedom for Trezor’s future products, allowing the wallet provider to build the hardware wallet devices from scratch.

The news comes a year after Tropic Square, a startup operated by Trezor’s parent firm Satoshi Labs, launched a new open-source chip called TROPIC01. The chip provides cryptographic key generation, encryption, signing and authenticating users through digital identification methods. Trezor was reportedly expected to become the first customer of Tropic Square for the product.

“The chosen business model is very unique and can be applied in exceptional cases. Firstly, as a manufacturer, we require high minimum order quantities, and secondly, the customer must have specific know-how to encapsulate semiconductor components,” STMicroelectronics sales manager Tomáš Pokorný said.

Trezor originally announced plans to take control of wallet chip production in collaboration with Tropic Square in May 2020, citing a wide number of reasons for such a move, including expensive chip vendor certification from the government. According to Trezor, state certification policies “exclude independent companies and open-source initiatives from being used in professional areas.”

Bitcoin price not more important than financial independence: Trezor CEO

As Bitcoin briefly crossed above $19,000, Trezor’s new CEO, Matěj Žák, said there’s something more important than its price.

Amid Bitcoin (BTC) seeing a significant price increase so far in 2023, one industry executive stressed that some features of Bitcoin are far more crucial than its price.

Matěj Žák, the newly appointed CEO of crypto hardware firm Trezor, believes that Bitcoin-enabled financial independence is the top benefit of the cryptocurrency and is more important than its market price.

“The year 2023 will be marked by a consolidation of the market and for us,” Žák said in an interview with Cointelegraph, adding that now Trezor has an excellent opportunity to improve its products to prepare for the upcoming bull market.

Bitcoin’s ease of use is one of the primary directions Trezor will continue to focus on this year, as BTC and crypto are still often seen as complicated technical concepts, noted the CEO. “It’s our mission to make self-custody even more accessible for ordinary users,” he added.

Contrary to popular belief, Bitcoin is not a complicated tool but rather a “simple technology with huge potential,” according to Žák. That is because Bitcoin has unlocked unique features that could enable competition with rigid traditional financial systems, Trezor’s CEO said, adding:

“When you understand it in its broadest context, enabling financial self-sovereignty, for example, the price of Bitcoin becomes a secondary consideration. Philosophically this is where I am at.”

The news comes amid Bitcoin seeing solid gains over the past two weeks, returning to levels preceding the collapse of the FTX exchange in early November 2022. Since the beginning of 2023, Bitcoin has surged 14%, briefly hitting $19,000 on Jan. 13. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $18,900, up 3.6% over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.

Trezor is one of few companies that benefited from the FTX collapse and the associated crisis of centralized crypto exchanges, reporting a 300% surge in sales by mid-November 2022. In January, the firm appointed Žák as the new CEO, taking over Trezor co-founder Marek Palatinus. The former CEO will remain at the company as an adviser to help guide the strategic and technical direction of the firm.

Trezor reports 300% surge in sales revenue due to FTX contagion

The hardware wallet firm is certain that the latest uptick in demand is a result of investors rescuing their funds in the aftermath of the FTX failure.

Amid growing concerns over centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in the wake of the FTX crisis, investors are increasingly moving to hardware crypto wallets.

A major hardware wallet provider, Trezor, has recorded a major uptick in wallet sales in the aftermath of the FTX contagion, the firm’s brand ambassador Josef Tetek told Cointelegraph on Nov. 15.

Trezor saw its sales revenue surge 300% week-on-week and it’s still growing, Tetek reported, adding that the current sales are higher than a year ago when Bitcoin reached its all-time highs at $68,000. Trezor has also recorded a significant spike in its website traffic, which increased 350% over the same period, the exec noted.

According to Tetek, Trezor is quite certain that the uptick in new wallet users was a result of issues with FTX, a crypto exchange at the center of the latest industry scandal involving the misappropriation of user funds. The spike in demand for Trezor wallets started early last week, exactly when “rumors of the FTX insolvency started circulating,” Tetek reported.

Trezor expects further growth in new users in the near future as the failure of middlemen in crypto would only continue to unfold, Tetek suggested, stating:

“We expect this trend to continue in the short to mid term, as the contagion of FTX failure continues to unwind and Bitcoin or cryptocurrency holders lose trust in custodians and finally start to explore their options to self-custody their digital assets.”

According to the executive, Trezor is able to satisfy current levels of demand in the short to medium term. “Even if sales continue at this elevated rate, we are confident there would be a limited impact on our stock in the longer term, as we were already planning for an uptick in sales,” Tetek said. He also noted that Trezor doesn’t plan to increase the prices for its hardware wallets in line with its vision to make “self-custody accessible to all.”

Despite the spike in demand and the associated increase in support requests, Trezor isn’t planning to expand its hiring. “We did not have to downscale as we were prepared for a prolonged and deep bear market,” Tetek stated, adding that Trezor currently employs a total of 100 people working in multiple locations, with the majority based in Prague.

Cryptocurrency investors have been increasingly moving to self-custody with software and hardware wallets, with exchange outflows nearing all-time highs by mid-November 2022.

Ledger, a major rival hardware wallet supplier, has recorded a significant surge in demand for its devices recently as well. The French cold wallet firm saw one of its highest traffic days ever shortly after FTX stopped all crypto withdrawals last week, triggering inventors to offload their funds from exchanges to cold storage as soon as possible.

Amid the ongoing FTX contagion, even some of the biggest crypto exchanges started promoting the need for self-custody. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao admitted on Nov. 14 that centralized exchanges may no longer be necessary as investors would shift to self-custodial solutions like hardware or software wallets.

“If we can have a way to allow people to hold their own assets in their own custody securely and easily, that 99% of the general population can do it, centralized exchanges will not exist or probably don’t need to exist, which is great,” the CEO said.

Hardware wallets to take similar approach to potential Ethereum hard fork

Forked coins have proven to be lucrative in the past. Holders of Ethereum came to possess an equivalent amount of Ethereum Classic when it forked in 2016.

Ethereum’s blockchain Merge is expected to take place around 5:05 am UTC on Sept. 15. It is a milestone that marks a full transition toward proof-of-stake for Ethereum and eliminates the need for energy-intensive mining by a projected 99.9% when compared to Proof of Work (PoW).

Some miners are also getting ready for a hard fork that would allow them to continue using PoW consensus. Forked coins have proven to be lucrative in the past. The holders of Ether (ETH), for example, came to possess an equivalent amount of Ethereum Classic (ETC) when it forked in 2016.

In the event of a new hard fork, in which the Ethereum blockchain would split into two different networks, users holding ETH on-chain would have an equal balance of ETHPoW (ETHW) on the forked chain. This would be an additional token and a totally different asset from ETH.

For ETH holders using hard wallets, the question is more straightforward: What would happen to your tokens if a fork followed the Merge? We have prepared some answers to this question so you don’t get lost or trapped in a scam in the coming hours.

Most of the hard wallet providers are taking the same approach: Monitor adoption on the new chain as well as the forked chain before adding any support for ETHPoW. They also say that there is no need for users to take any action during the upgrade.

Charles Guillemet, chief technology officer of secure hard wallet provider Ledger, explained to Cointelegraph: “In the event of a fork, the first thing everyone should know is that any assets the user currently has on the main network are safe,” adding that the company “will not support an ETH Proof of Work fork on day 1, as there are a number of technical aspects that need to be evaluated to ensure it’s safe for users, chief among those is ensuring the new chain is secure.”

Similarly, Josef Tětek, Bitcoin analyst at Trezor, said: “Trezor Suite will not support interaction with the pre-merge proof-of-work coins after the Merge, but users can still use their Trezor with a third-party interface like MetaMask to access the older version of the blockchain.”

Tangem, a Swiss wallet provider, also has no plans to support the PoW fork. “Until we are certain of the seriousness of the proponents of this hard fork, we are not ready to show our customers support for the project,” stated chief technology officer Andrey Lazutkin.

ETH holders who use non-custodial wallets and control their own private keys will have fast access to both sets of coins (ETHW and ETH). Private key owners can collect the forked coins using MetaMask to connect the PoW network to an Ethereum Virtual Machine wallet.

Crypto wallet companies also warn users to take extra precautions during and after the network upgrade. “Scammers are especially active during major network upgrades. Do not engage with anyone who claims you need to take urgent steps to protect your coins,” warned Tětek.

Hardware wallet Trezor enables direct crypto purchases with MoonPay

The new integration with MoonPay and SatoshiLabs-founded Invity platform provides buy, sell and exchange features directly in the Trezor wallet.

Hardware walletcompany Trezor is moving to enable direct crypto purchases with a new partnership with the crypto fintech startup MoonPay.

Trezor, Czech Republic-based hardware wallet provider, has partnered with MoonPay to allow its customers to buy crypto directly in their hardware wallet, according to an announcement on Wednesday.

Backed by major industry investors including Tiger Global and Coatue, MoonPay is a crypto payment service that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) using debit cards, credit cards and other payment methods. In April 2022, the firm raised $87 million from investors like Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg to focus on NFTs and Web3.

The collaboration with MoonPay builds on Trezor’s previous partnership with Invity, a crypto exchange comparison tool integrated directly into the wallet.

Like Trezor, Invity is a startup operating under the parent firm, SatoshiLabs. The platform connects clients with trusted partner exchanges to provide direct-to-custody trades with various payment methods. Combined, the three platforms provide buy, sell and exchange features directly in the Trezor wallet.

The new integration allows customers to buy and sell a wide number of cryptocurrencies through a noncustodial crypto wallet, helping users to better protect their funds. At the time of writing, Trezor supports more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), BNB, Cardano (ADA) and others.

The latest news is yet another milestone for crypto purchases on Trezor, as the hardware wallet has been previously supporting crypto buys on its native app Trezor Suite via an in-app Trade feature. The option has been available through the crypto exchange comparison tool created by Invity since at least late 2020, Trezor said in one of its blog posts.

“By allowing Trezor owners to buy crypto directly from their wallet, we’re tapping into a committed cohort of cryptocurrency users who take security very seriously,” MoonPay senior business development manager Antonio Talledo said. “Through this partnership with MoonPay, we’re taking the lead to bring secure, borderless and easy financial freedom to billions”

What happens if you lose or break your hardware crypto wallet?

The safety of the recovery phrase is way more important than keeping the hardware wallet safe, according to executives at Ledger and Trezor.

Hardware cryptocurrency wallets are known for granting users full control of their crypto and providing more security, but such wallets are prone to risks such as theft, destruction or loss.

Does that mean that all your Bitcoin (BTC) is lost forever if your hardware wallet is lost, burned or stolen? Not at all.

There are a number of options to restore cryptocurrency for someone who has lost access to their hardware wallet. The only requirement to recover crypto assets, in that case, would be maintaining access to the private keys.

A private key is a cryptographic string of letters and numbers that allows users to access crypto assets as well as to complete transactions and receive crypto.

Most crypto wallets usually provide a private key in the mnemonic form of a recovery phrase, which contains a human-readable backup allowing users to recover private keys. The mnemonic form is typically enabled through BIP39, the most common standard used for generating seed phrases for crypto wallets.

Also referred to as a seed phrase, a BIP39 recovery phrase is basically a password consisting of 12 or 24 random words that are used to recover a cryptocurrency wallet. Crypto wallet platforms typically generate a seed phrase at the very beginning of setting up a wallet, instructing users to write it down on paper.

Not your keys, not your coins

According to executives at major hardware crypto wallet firms Ledger and Trezor, the safety of the recovery phrase is way more important than keeping the hardware wallet safe.

Keeping a private key safe is a guiding principle for the crypto community, embodied in the phrase: “Not your keys, not your coins.” The principle means that users are not really in control of their coins if they don’t own their private keys.

Both Ledger and Trezor wallets allow users to recover access to their wallets through a seed phrase by simply using another hardware wallet.

“A user could recover their wallet and funds on any of the other new Ledger wallets. Alternatively, they could also recover on a Trezor, SafePal or another hardware wallet device,” Ledger chief technology officer Charles Guillemet told Cointelegraph.

Users can also turn to software wallets to access their funds in case the hardware wallet was lost, stolen or destroyed. “If you lost your Trezor, but you still have your recovery seed, you can recover your funds through many hardware wallets and software wallets in the market,” Trezor chief information security officer Jan Andraščík said.

According to the Ledger and Trezor executives, the list of compatible software wallets includes platforms such as Electrum, Exodus, MetaMask, Samourai, Wasabi, Spot and others.

Threats to a backup phrase

As the safety of the recovery phrase is the top priority in maintaining access to a crypto wallet, one may be wondering how to best protect the seed phrase.

“Preserving the seed is one of the most crucial topics in Bitcoin security,” Andraščík told Cointelegraph. He pointed out three main threats when it comes to BIP39 passwords: those caused by the user themselves, any type of natural or human-made disasters, or theft.

Loss of a recovery phase is very common: A wallet user could accidentally throw it out or just not understand the importance of it at the very beginning of setting up the wallet.

Users could also choose the wrong place to keep their recovery phrase, with one common mistake of simply putting the phrase online. Crypto wallet users should never digitize their seed phrases in order to avoid unfortunate events such as hacking, Ledger’s Guillemet said, adding:

“It is paramount for users to secure the recovery phrase. It should be stored in a safe place and should not be digitized — in other words, don’t put your words in an email or a text file and don’t take photos.”

As such, most crypto wallets recommend their users simply write the seed phrase down on a piece of paper and store it in a safe place.

Tips to protect the recovery phrase

In order to ensure reliable protection for the recovery phrase, one may go further than just writing it down on paper.

Ledger and Trezor executives provide a number of recommendations for crypto wallet users to boost the protection of their seed phrases, including using fire-proof storing capsules or steel plates to engrave the recovery phrase.

Other sophisticated methods to protect a seed phrase also include distributing backups between several groups of people and locations such as family, a safe box at the bank, or a secret spot in the garden. One such method is known as Shamir Backup, allowing users to distribute their private keys into several parts that, together, are needed to recover the wallet.

While hardware wallet providers do their best to help users recover their assets in case they lose their wallets, there’s still nothing much they can do about losing a recovery phrase.

That is because the private key is designed to be held solely by the user of a noncustodial wallet, Trezor’s Andraščík said. He noted that the principle of noncustody and its security implications are completely against the idea of having some kind of “backup,” adding:

“If anyone has an opportunity to recover your Bitcoin, it means they have access to your Bitcoin, and you need to trust that these actors will always treat you with goodwill. We are getting rid of the need to trust, and rather, we encourage them to verify.”

“Ledger is also working to improve the user experience generally, removing the pain points without compromising security. That said, self-custody remains the DNA of blockchain and the DNA of Ledger. Users always remain in control,” Guillemet stated.