Silicon Valley-based SealBlock just released the world’s first cryptocurrency hardware hot wallet. A hardware hot wallet? What?

According to a press release earlier today, SealBlock’s wallet is designed to help consumers and businesses hold their digital assets in a secure but connected location.

“The new solution addresses the needs of token funds, exchanges, project operators, miners, traders, and other industry players who require sophisticated crypto wallet solutions.”

SealBlock claims their wallet “addresses the most pressing security change in crypto asset management today – the protection of the private keys that are used to sign online transactions.”

Private keys are vulnerable to hackers, malware, and unauthorized internal access. That’s why a growing number of people choose cold storage solutions that store private keys offline, away from internet access points. This dramatically improves security, but at the cost of making your crypto difficult to access. Effective cold storage also comes with high maintenance and management costs.

How does SealBlock solve this problem? How can they provide the security of cold storage and the convenience of a hot wallet?

SealBlock’s storage system involves using a programmable policy engine to bind a set of signing policies to each private key (or wallet). These policies can include a multi-signature policy, for example, a whitelist policy, or an account limit policy. Transactions will not be signed by the private key unless all signing policies are satisfied.

SealBlock also uses Intel SGX hardware enclave technology to protect private keys, transaction signing, and security policies. With Intel SGX, there’s a chip-level encryption boundary isolated from the entire system – even the operating system.

“With this security by design approach,” explains SealBlock, “SealBlock hardware wallet can be connected 24/7 online to serve queries while maintaining a level of security similar to a cold wallet.”

In other words, SealBlock allows you to implement policies that replicate the security of a cold storage wallet, and those policies are protected by Intel SGX hardware enclave technology, isolating them from the rest of the system. It’s not quite as bulletproof as cold storage systems (where you remove internet connectivity entirely), but it’s the closest thing the crypto community has right now.

“SealBlock marries the convenience of software hot wallets with the security that hardware cold wallets provide,” explains Richard Yu, CEO of SealBlock. “We believe that this wallet solution offers a secure and effective solution for anyone storing and trading digital assets.”

SealBlock can be used for more than just storing cryptocurrencies. The company claims the storage system can be used to protect personally identifiable information (PII) data and sensitive business records, among other data.

The company claims their storage system is already in use with companies across the Silicon Valley area, including SWFT Blockchain, uMining, SVBC, and 6M Capital.

About SealBlock

SealBlock was incubated by VeriClouds, described in the press release as “a cybersecurity company and a leader in hardware encryption.” Over the last three years, VeriClouds has worked with some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names including JD.com and Oracle. They’re also a strategic partner with Alibaba Cloud and Intel, and have received investments from Harry Shum, executive vice president of Microsoft.

Company CEO Richard Yu has 12+ years of experience with HP and EMC, while CSO Ricardo Diaz has worked in information security for 22 years. The CTO, Rick Wang, has a Ph.D. in information security and previously worked as a senior researcher at Microsoft.

Meanwhile, early Bitmain investor Jiaping Wang is serving as an advisor to the company.

Conclusion

SealBlock appears to have combined the security of cold storage with the convenient of a hot wallet, creating the ideal blend of accessibility and fund safety. To learn more about SealBlock and how it works, visit online today at SealBlock.io. The company is offering a free trial of SealBlock online.