THELOGICALINDIAN - Hardware wallets like the cryptocurrency stored aural them can abet able affections in their owners Hodlers like what they like and thats the end of the amount If the aboriginal accouterments wallet you bought was a Ledger youre apparently Ledger for activity Likewise if youre in Team Trezor Keepkey which completes the angelic trifecta of accouterments wallets is beneath acclaimed than its ancestors but the glassy atramentous artificial accessory still packs a punch
Also read: A Review of the Swiss-Made Digital Bitbox Hardware Wallet
Is Keepkey a Keeper?
At Consensus New York, my account wouldn’t amplitude to the €49,000 diamond-encrusted Nano on display, but there was amplitude in my bag and my affection for a Keepkey. At $129, it’s a little pricier than the Ledger Nano or Trezor One, but cheaper than the classy new Trezor Model T. I should apparently add a admonishing at this stage, incidentally: the analysis you’re about to apprehend is acutely long, which is a absorption of how continued it took to get this abuse wallet working. But we’ll get to all that in due course. First, let’s alpha at the start…
Ever back aftermost year, Keepkey has been the acreage of Shapeshift, who bought up the company, enabling Keepkey users to barter amid cryptos after advertisement their clandestine keys online. Keepkey promises “bank-grade security,” whatever that means, and a arrangement so accessible that “even your grandmother can assure her bitcoin wealth,” which seems a little patronizing. If gran was acute abundant to buy bitcoin, she’s absolutely got the accuracy to assignment a cardboard wallet.
Beauty Is in the Eye of the Behodler
It’s funny how abundant form, rather than function, influences our purchasing decisions – alike back we’re purchasing a cryptocurrency wallet that’s destined to be boarded to the aphotic belly of a safe. Beauty is in the eye of the behodler, but there’s a able case for asserting that Keepkey’s accouterments wallet (they alone accomplish one) is added attractive than a Trezor, and arguably smarter than the Nano too, alike if it lacks the latter’s brushed metal exterior.
Visit the Keepkey store and you’ll acquisition aloof two articles to accept from: a single, approved Keepkey and a box of 50 which retails for $6,450. Perfect for the aegis acquainted banker who brand to accumulate their shitcoins on abstracted sticks in abstracted vaults. The failing and plasticy feel of the accessory is somewhat choleric by the affection of the USB cable that comes arranged with it. It feels comfortable to the touch, but it’s here, afterwards installing the Keepkey Chrome browser app, that I appointment my aboriginal problem: it has a accepted USB affiliation but my Macbook Pro does not. That’s Apple’s fault, not Keepkey’s, but it’s a affliction back you’re on the road, as I begin myself at the time of autograph this review, and appropriately after admission to a USB-thunderbolt adapter.
Third Time’s a Charm
At home, 24 hours later, I bung the accouterments wallet into my laptop via the arrow adapter, but there’s no assurance of life. I’d accepted a USB drive to appearance up on my Macbook Pro, or for the Chrome app to affectation a notification and the Keepkey to ablaze up, but nope. Not a peep. Figuring it ability aloof be the arrow adapter, I try abutting the accessory to my old Macbook Pro, which has a USB port, but still nothing. Then I try my Chromebook, and already again, nothing. In a moment of afflatus I google “keepkey setup” and conservancy arrives.
According to Keepkey’s Get Started page, you charge to aboriginal accessible the app by “navigating Chrome to chrome://apps/”. This is beneath than intuitive, but is partly Chrome’s accountability for accepting a abominable UI that conceals extensions and apps abaft submenus. This does mean, however, that every time you go to use your Keepkey (if you’re as chaotic as I am) you’ll charge to google “keepkey setup” to admonish yourself of how you get into the abuse thing.
Wait, Not So Fast…
Having auspiciously gotten my Chromebook to amend the Keepkey, I adjudge to reconnect it to my Mac and see if the laptop can now ascertain it. It can, and am prompted to set up my PIN and afresh address bottomward my 12-word accretion phrase. I’ve accounting it bottomward once, and am aloof advancing to jot bottomward a additional archetype back the accessory inexplicably disconnects and I’m affected to alpha the accomplished action all over again. After re-entering my PIN twice, I activate account bottomward the new accretion phrase, back the aforementioned affair happens. Keepkey and my arrow adapter can’t assume to get along, so I resignedly reconnect it to the Chromebook.
Eventually I accomplish in award the apps area of Chrome by pasting the URL into my browser, whereupon I’m prompted to authority bottomward the button on the Keepkey and bung it in to amend the firmware. When that’s done, I’m presented with a awning assuming a BTC wallet set up by absence and annihilation else. I hit the additional assurance to add a BCH abode and again browse the QR cipher from my Bitcoin.com wallet. I baddest $5 of bitcoin banknote and accelerate it to my Keepkey address. The fee is 3 cents. While I’m cat-and-mouse for the transaction to clear, the Keepkey logo lurches beyond the awning in instalments. It reminds me of the handheld connected soccer bold I played as a kid. Anachronistic, but comfortingly nostalgic.
Nice Device, Now How About Some Altcoin Support?
I like the architecture of Keepkey, and I like the cable, if it’s accessible to accept amore for a USB cable, while the software is passable. Is the accessory able of arduous Trezor and Ledger? Sure…provided you’re blessed to hodl namecoin, doge, and dash. 2016 aloof alleged and it wants its altcoins back. In candor to Keepkey, there is at atomic BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC abutment and built-in ERC20 badge abutment is currently in beta so should eventually arrive. Given some of the ERC20s I’m ashamed to own, it’s apparently for the best I didn’t get a adventitious to screenshot them in this review.
Keepkey’s better weakness appropriate now, as its aggregation are assuredly aware, is the curtailment of bill that can be stored on it. While the bazaar leaders are acute advanced with monero support, Keepkey is still way abaft the curve. It would be abundant to accept EOS, cardano, zencash and maybe some ripple for the ladies. It’s odd that there’s abutment for the 295th bread by bazaar cap (namecoin), but allowance for aloof six out of the top 20 cryptocurrencies – or top 100 if you wanna accomplish that accomplishment alike added damning.
I’ll absolutely accumulate application the accouterments wallet, application it to abundance any additional BTC, BCH, and ETH I amass, but a accessory so accessible that “even grandmother” could use it? Please. My grandmother could accept mined the alpha block and she’d still attempt to affix this affair to her Chrome web app. I’ll accumulate my Keepkey, but in my affection I’ll be active afterwards one of those design encrusted Nanos I saw at Consensus. Hell, I’d alike achieve for a approved one.
Have you approved the Keepkey wallet and if so how do you like it? Let us apperceive in the comments area below.
Images address of Shutterstock, and Keepkey.
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