Everyone knows a Ledger, Trezor or maybe Coldcard to safely store your bitcoin (BTC). But several companies are also working on a creation of a wallet.

Like Satochip, which stands for ‘Secure Anonymous Trustless and Open Chip’. They call themselves an ‘open source Bitcoin hardware wallet’, based on a secure smartcard.

Bitcoin wallet Satochip

Bitcoin Magazine NL spoke with Bastien with this Belgian start-up, who has been in the field since 2014.

How did you get in touch with Bitcoin?

In 2011, Baudoin, our Chief Technology Officer, completed his PhD in cryptography. That was also the first time we heard about Bitcoin and became integrated.

It takes time to understand how revolutionary it was. So we bought our first BTC mainly for fun and out of curiosity.

After that, we got involved with the business, which led to the first development of Satochip in 2014, just after the launch of Trezor and Ledger.

It was initially a hobby project. At the time, smartcards were still limited in performance and functionality. Now in 2020 there are more powerful smart cards in circulation’.

In your opinion, what makes Bitcoin so revolutionary?

“It’s a very disruptive technology in many ways. Because Bitcoin and the underlying technology has the potential to facilitate transactions worldwide.

On the contrary, we think that trust increases once the intermediaries are removed. It is future music, but we foresee a world without banks and ‘streaming money’. The unit satoshi is a better application than the eurocent.

From a philosophical point of view, Bitcoin makes it possible to fundamentally redefine the concept of money as a social contract. This is because the legitimacy to use Bitcoin as money then stems from its acceptance by users and is not entrusted by a third party.

In short, it contrasts sharply with fiat money, the value of which stems from the obligation to use the euro as a means of payment.

It is no coincidence that Bitcoin appeared in 2009, at the height of the subprime crisis, when banks were kept in the air by taxpayers.

We see Bitcoin as a working lab experiment for the future of money and the way we organise our society.

More and more people own Bitcoin. Why is it important to store BTC cold storage yourself?

Our lives are getting more and more digitized with more and more digital hijackers on the coast. Hackers can access your laptop or smartphone in a matter of seconds. We’re seeing ransomware and phishing mail specifically targeting Bitcoin owners.

So how can you make sure your private keys, the keys to your Bitcoin, are secure? At exchanges and brokers, there is a risk of hacking or holding assets due to government requirements. Also, these parties will soon be required to share customer data with government agencies such as the tax authorities.

In that case, it is wise to store your bitcoin in-house and have control over it’.

Now what is Satochip?

Satochip stands for Secure Anonymous Trustless and Open Chip. We use a smart card to secure the keys that give access to your Bitcoin. Smartcards are specially designed.

The heart is a special processor, the ‘security element’, which we also know from a bank – and credit card. The private keys are safely isolated within this secure element.

A Sato chip looks like a bank card, which can be connected to a computer with a smartcard reader. To perform an action (such as signing a transaction), you need to enter a PIN code to unlock the card.

After entering the wrong PIN several times in a row, the card locks itself. Also, to sign transactions or perform sensitive actions, the user must enter a PIN code.

Our chip has not yet been tested by an independent party. But there are a number of studies in the financial world on the security of this smart card.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine NL