One of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, Coinbase, has announced that Coinbase Wallet users have an option to store an extra copy of their private keys on Google Drive or iCloud.

On its Medium blog, Coinbase noted:

Starting today [Feb 12], you can now back up an encrypted version of your Coinbase Wallet private keys to your personal cloud storage accounts, using either Google Drive or iCloud. This new feature provides a safeguard for users, helping them avoid losing their funds if they lose their device or misplaced their private keys.

The cryptocurrency exchange noted that until the new solution was availed, the private keys generated by Coinbase Wallet had only one point of access – mobile devices. But with this new solution, backing up the private keys to either Google Drive or iCloud increases the chances of recovering your coins in case you lose your mobile device.

Concerning security of your backed up copy, Coinbase said that only the owner will have access since there will be a password associated with the stored private key.

The exchange added that:

Your backup is encrypted with AES-256-GCM encryption and accessible only by the Coinbase Wallet mobile app. The backup can only be decrypted using your password. Coinbase will not have access to your password or funds at any time, preserving your privacy and control. Your cloud backup provider will also not have access your [Coinbase Wallet] funds as only you know the password that decrypts your encrypted recovery phrase.

At the moment, only Google Drive (Android) and iCloud (iOS) are supported although the exchange indicated that they will soon add support for other cloud storage platforms.

Do you think Coinbase Wallet allowing cloud backup of privates keys will reduce cases of people losing access to their funds after misplacing their private keys?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.