Community-focused venture

SatoshiLabs and TREZOR are, for the purposes of this article, best characterized by the phrase “community-focused venture.” The choice of the word “venture” is entirely intentional here, as it alludes to “venture capital,” a form of investment we continue to successfully avoid.

In fact, we are happy to say that we are not bound to any investment company; we have no VC funding precisely because we do not want any external influence or overwatch. This also means that we do not need to follow any VC interests, be it revenue targets or market share. Instead, our venture focuses entirely on the community: you, TREZOR users and fans. You are our investors.

There are two implications here: first of all, we do not chase arbitrary economic targets. We do not develop our device to sell well, but to serve well. We do not need to make the hardware wallet attractive for capital investors. Instead, we make it user-friendly and intuitive for end-users. As we are not bound by external money, we have no other motivations than to make an excellent product for real users.

The second implication is more important though: As you and the community are virtually our investors, we are working to make you happy and satisfied. Especially when it comes to the security of your coins and tokens: if there is a threat, we move as swiftly and transparently as possible to fix it, to keep you, our investors, content.

Open-source development

With such motivations, we clearly had to opt for the most transparent method of development. As many of you may know, the TREZOR device is entirely open-source, both hardware and software. All the components that store and manage the private keys to your cryptocurrencies and digital identities are altogether transparent; any developer can read and verify for you what the device does. This rule also applies to the development of new features and for security updates; all changes are published in our repository on GitHub.

Moreover, TREZOR uses no proprietary parts such as a secure element, which would give us information edge over our customers and attain security at the cost of obscurity. We do not need to hide anything. Our goal is never to withhold information from you, our clients. Moreover, even obscurity, informational or technical, can sometimes fail to protect your coins properly.

Thanks to the open architecture of TREZOR, we can proceed with our philosophy of openness, even when related to security processes, to make sure you and the rest of the community always stay informed. Or better said, we chose to open-source the TREZOR to be fully transparent, in line with our philosophy.

Transparent and swift security: the TREZOR promise.

So what happens when community-focused venture and open-source meets to deal with security? We get transparent and swift action! Proven by our track record and speediness, with which we respond to all challenges.

Therefore, you, our investors, receive not only the device in return, you also benefit from the stable and secure platform, with responsive developers to react to every challenge, deploying fixes within days. Whenever there is a small update or a security fix, we announce it on our blog, via our social networks, and through an email campaign. The TREZOR Wallet also warns you when you use an outdated firmware.

But most importantly, we have a ready-to-act support team to inform you as soon as possible — a knowledgable, responsive, quick, and helpful team of professionals, ready to assist you. Should you have any issues, they will find a satisfactory resolution for you, making sure your coins remain secure thanks to the TREZOR.

They are accompanied by an internal team of expert security researchers and external independent developers, putting every line of our source code under close scrutiny. Open source is only one part of the puzzle after all, the other part is impartial verification — enabled thanks to our openness.

Our transparent and open-source philosophy should undoubtedly become the industry-standard of all cryptocurrency related ventures, as proven by the wide and significant community support. It benefits both parties after all. Thanks to open-source, you gain an insight into the community-focused venture, the TREZOR, allowing you to always verify first. For us, we remain independent of external investors, allowing us to focus on the more important things: security and end-customers’ satisfaction.