We have announced integration and partnership with DigiByte on 13 Nov and its mainnet coin $DGB is now available on SafePal hardware wallet!
On 1 Dec, our CEO, Veronica had an AMA session in the DGB Telegram community and answered a series of questions about security, hardware wallet and roadmap of SafePal. Thank you all for coming and we appreciated all these curious and insightful questions.
Here are the essential points of the session:
Q: Why we need to upgrade our wallet every time we have a new version, what is the difference from ledger nano X, that no need to upgrade our hardware wallet every time there’s a new list coin on our supporting altcoins on our hardware wallet…
Some user’s it’s not convenient.
A: Firstly, whether you need to upgrade a new firmware version depends on whether you want to on-board the new features. It is not compulsory for every user to upgrade their firmware each time when we release a new version. For example if you don’t hold the coins where are added in the new version, you don’t necessarily need to upgrade your SafePal wallet.
Q: In broad innovation, entrepreneurship and strategy field what are the promising research topics that you think are good to explore in the future? and Where do you see the future of Safepal in 5 years from now?
A: For the second question about the promising research topics in blockchain technology, I think the wallet is an important entrance to blockchain ecosystem in the long run.
Firstly it is the foundation of human-blockchain interaction. Being the custody of private key, wallet plays an important role when users need to interact with blockchain in different scenarios such as staking, transfer, trading and etc. It acts as the intermediate between humans and blockchains.
Secondly, wallet is the fundamental infrastructure of blockchain ecosystem. For now bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are the leading application of blockchain technology, but there are more imagination than that in the future. One promising future is blockchain as the solid foundation of digital identity, where you share your data onto the blockchain as the only authentic proof of identity in the virtual world. In such a context, the wallet is not only used as the custody solution for crypto assets, but also represents our future digital identity connected to the blockchain.
Q: What is the role or they contribute to DigiByteCoin in the Safepal to help the improvement of SafePal Hardware wallet?
Can you provide some insights as to the technical architecture of Safepal together with DigiByteCoin?
A: As for the collaboration between SafePal and DigiByte, DigiByte is famous for its 100% decentralized nature and rapidly growing blockchain ecosystem. In the past 5 years, DGB has been iterated into a world-class blockchain with thousands of nodes running worldwide. In the meantime, SafePal strives to provide the most secure and enjoyable crypto custody solution for the masses, which is a perfect match of DGB’s long-term vision. Being a decentralized wallet, SafePal could provide DGB community with the advanced security while DGB users are still easily accessible to 15 sec block time, negligible fees, SegWit weighted max 1066 TPS on-chain. Coming next both parties will join hand in hand to provide DGB holders with secure, simple and accessible DGB custody solutions.
In the long run, SafePal will play an active role in these two aspects.
Q: What are the security measures that you have for Safepal Wallet to make sure that all the assets stored in your wallet are safe and secure?
A: This is a very important question. And there are many highlights to talk about, I’ll try to make it short here.
Firstly I’ll break it down from the product level: At the bottom level, SafePal S1 is embedded with a true random number generator, a hardware component that is used to make sure your private key is truly ‘random’. Check the difference between true and pseudo number generator here.
Along with that, SafePal S1 adopts a dual-chip architect, with one secure element(SE) for the sole protection of the private key. Around the SE there layouts multi-layer sensors. Once a malicious attack is detected, the chip will start the self-erase mechanism and wipe out all wallet data. At the UX level, SafePal S1 adopts a QR code communication mechanism, instead of WiFi, Bluetooth, USB or NFC. The device is 100% cold and offline.
Other than the product level, the team also plays crucial role in building the product safely.
Among the SafePal team, we have:
– Security experts who were the key members of building the anti-cyber-attack system of Huawei mobile devices, and the senior security architect of Tencent.
– Sophisticated developer who used to be the leading architect of QQ Space, a Tencent social product with MAU over 532 million
– An experienced operational team who has been working on massively adopted platform like QQ and Wechat for 7 years
– Hardware leader who has been working on hardware design and development for over a decade, and successfully launched a hardware product that is now serving nearly one million users across the continents
– QA expert who used to lead the quality control team in Samsung Smartphone Business Group.
These are all the solid foundation we have to provide a truly secure solution for the masses.
Q: What innovations make Safepal stand out in this new economy, and why did you choose DigiByte? Thanks
A: SafePal is the best product in the industry balancing security, easiness, accessibility, and scalability regarding wallet solution. The key innovation lies in our technical strength of hardware and software.
The main reason why we chose DGB is that it has the strongest community we have ever seen. One example is, from the moment we announced the cooperation with DGB, we received many congrats and encouragements from DGB holders, which we found very impressive. During the collaboration with DGB team, we found that it’s a truly decentralized community that stands for the Satoshi spirit. We echo such value proposition and are willing to work with DGB in the long run.
Q: 10 languages have already been added to SafePal. But there is no Russian language! Are you going to add it to your wallet?
SafePal Wallet now has supported ‘add coins in bulk’ feature. Tell me what this function is and how to use it?
A: Thanks for paying close attention to our product iteration!
Firstly, yes for sure Russian will be added in the coming versions. We are still planning our dev pipeline and will surely update in our community @SafePalwallet.
Secondly, about the ‘Add coins’ feature, it is a feature that enables users to quickly sync their favorite coins onto the SafePal S1 hardware wallet so that they can sign the transaction with the S1 hardware wallet.
The background of this feature is:
When a user firstly creates or resets a wallet on S1 hardware wallet, and pair it with the App, only a few major types of coins will be synchronized between the App and the S1 device, shortening the numbers of QR codes and thus the time for scanning the codes. Once a SafePal App and S1 hardware wallet are paired, then the users can choose their favorite coins up to their needs, and add to S1 device. This will make the user interface more flexible and customized.
Q: Which markets do #isafepal active mostly right now? How did You select strategic partners and why do projects (Neo, Digibytecoin…) choose #isafepal’s solution?
Which is a massive milestone for #isafepal as well as in Blockchain Industry? Do you think that #isafepal can change the real world with blockchain products? #asksafepal
Nowaday, #DeFi is changing our relationship with money, investing, credit and debt? Tell a little about your use case plan for SafePal: can staking, lending, run Dapps … through SafePal?
A: Since users are mostly interested in our unique strength and security feature, I tend to combine them and mention the most details out of it in one answer so that you don’t need to hop and pop between lines.
1. The top 3 countries of our users are US, Italy, China, Germany, and Australia.
2. Primarily we tend to work with the projects with the most active community, decentralized spirit, and open collaboration attitude, and DGB is definitely one of such communities.
3. We have been marking milestones along our journey in the past 6 months, such as the launch of 10-language version, and our 1st reseller partnership. There will be more milestones engraved coming next.
4. From the very beginning, we have been aiming to change the real world of blockchain products because we are building the wallet to be easily understood for novice users. I think SafePal is the best choice when a new crypto holder comes into this ecosystem.
5. Features like staking, lending and Dapps are all possible on SafePal. I don’t see technical barriers here. But being able to do doesn’t mean we need to do it in a short time. We need to prioritize the application with solid user needs and tangible solutions first. Wallet, as I mentioned, is the key and entrance to blockchian ecosystem, it inherently can become the bridge between users and these innovative services.
Q: What step will you do to make users engage more to use SafePal wallet and how you can show major advantages over standard software wallets?
A: 1)We have been sharing practical articles and tips for novice users, to engage new beginners in crypto to learn more insights of blockchain technology. Check one of our articles about important tips for the crypto transaction here.
2)On the UX/UI level, we pay close attention to the user flow in order to make the product most accessible and understandable for common users. Take the wallet creating user flow as an example, you will find it easy to go through all the necessary steps without looking at a user manual.
Q: How SafePal wallets will secure my private keys?
A: The private key is secured in the following manners:
Firstly, a private key is truly randomly created on the SafePal wallet with its true random number generator.
Secondly, it’s kept in the isolated secure element(SE) that is not accessible to any external environment.
Thirdly, once any malicious attempt is detected, the sensors around the SE will activate the self-erase mechanism and wipe out all wallet data, including the private key, preventing any hackers from getting your private key.
At the bottom level, SafePal S1 is embedded with a true random number generator, a hardware component that is used to make sure your private key is truly ‘random’. Check the difference between true and pseudo number generator here.
Along with that, SafePal S1 adopts a dual-chip architect, with one secure element(SE) for the sole protection of the private key. Around the SE, there layouts multi-layer sensors. Once a malicious attack is detected, the chip will start the self-erase mechanism and wipe out all wallet data.
At the UX level, SafePal S1 adopts a QR code communication mechanism, instead of WiFi, Bluetooth, USB or NFC. The device is 100% cold and offline.
Q: How safe is it to store the 24 words phrase in the device itself? Wouldn’t it be able to be extracted in the hands of professionals like the government?
A: In the SafePal knowledge base, we spent 11 sections in explaining our security features. For those who are interested, welcome to dig more in it. 🙂
Per mentioned, if someone tries to open up the wallet and extract the key, the sensors would have detected it and wipe out the data. We don’t think it’ll be that easy even for the government, because there is no way for them to execute the long-distance cyber attacks.
For now SafePal supports 12/18/24 set of mnemonic phrase. The security level of 24 words would be the highest.
Q: How does SafePal work with regulators with countries everywhere?
What do you think is the biggest WEAKNESS in your project? #asksafepal
A: Very good question indeed. 🙂
To go with the Q1 first. For now SafePal only plays as a tool for crypto holders to store and manage their crypto assets. From a regulatory point of view, such a tool(or service) doesn’t pose threats to security, foreign currency regulation, and other potential crimes.
As for the 2nd question, I think the current shortcoming is about product popularity. Being a new player in the wallet territory, we need to spend double or triple effort in promoting our product and convincing our users to use our product. But we are confident about our product and user-oriented spirit, it simply takes time for the communities to get to know us and get interested in our product. So thanks DGB again for inviting me here to share more insights about SafePal the product, the team, and the company.
Q: Does SafePal ship worldwide?
A: Yes of course. 😀
We also provide ‘buy 2 for free shipping worldwide’ service on our homepage. Welcome to order！ Haha
Q: Does SafePal reuse address or generate a new address for every coin receive event for financial privacy?
I encountered address reuse with Ellipal and refused to use it because of address reuse. And I own both a 2.0 and a Titan. They are both paperweights now
A: This is a very good question and a lot of users pay attention to this detail on the wallet. For now all of the BTC addresses can be updated once an old address has been used. It is up to the user to decide which new(or old) address to use for BTC. As for other currencies, the addresses are still reused, but this won’t last long because we are changing the address structure already. We will surely keep everyone posted when we updated this feature. Privacy is indeed a topic that worth paying close attention to.
Q: Besides the SafePal New Coin survey form, is there any way for open-sourced coin teams to work with SafePal to provide the technical assistance in making them available for SafePal users. Asking for $MWC and $XRC.
A: This question is actually related to “whether SafePal is open-sourced and why is that”.
Frankly for now SafePal is not open-sourced yet. We have put it into our pipeline but honestly it’s not going to be launched soon because we still have other focuses at the moment, such as product iteration. At the current stage, we are adding 4–6 blockchains per month. Welcome to propose your favorite coins to make it added in SafePal.
Q: If I bought some crypto currency and store it in SafePal wallet for 10 year’s. Then how can I access it after 10 years as technology like the operating system might have changed by that time?
A: Interesting and creative question indeed. 🙂
First and foremost, we all need to keenly remember that the “mnemonic phrase(or private key) is the only proof of the crypto assets”. That says, even if SafePal the company is bankrupted, or the product is damaged, your assets will still securely locked on the blockchains with the only key(your mnemonic phrase or private key) to the safe.
It’s hard to predict the technology evolution in 10 years, but SafePal is running on an independent OS, so long as the device is still accessible, you can still continuously manage your assets on it.
We also recommend users to upgrade the firmware from time to time, to keep the system up to date along with our product iteration.
And SafePal is a decentralized wallet, so that no one, including SafePal team, can access your personal assets.
Q: What are you planning for 2020 to come, what are your innovations?
A: In 2020, there will be 4 focuses of SafePal team:
1) Continuously currency support, so that more users can access our wallet
2) Continue to enhance product security by introducing bounty program and working with the leading security team in the industry
3) More open collaboration with the strategic partners like DGB in the ecosystem, to empower the safer and simpler future of blockchain technology.
4) Introducing 1–2 new types of wallets to enrich our product lines, providing our users with more options to choose from.
Q: What is the best security feature in Hardware Wallets nowadays that you think will play a vital role in the hardware wallet technology?
A: I think the key focus regarding security on a hardware wallet is ‘how does the hardware wallet interacts with the blockchain or internet when users need to sign and approve a transaction/trading order/etc)’.
Since the private key is isolated in the hardware device, the remaining weakness could lie at the communication gate when the private key needs to sign and approve a transaction.
There are different communication mechanisms between hardware and hot-end(PC/Mobile) such as Bluetooth, NFC, WiFi, and USB.
SafePal adopts an encrypted QRcode mechanism, making the wallet 100% offline. There are no radio frequencies that can be captured in middle-distance, nor USB interface that could be attacked by the online hackers. This is a very important innovation of SafePal wallet.
Q: What are the utilities of SafePal WALLET other than wallet purposes? Does SafePal WALLET have any superior features compared to other electronic wallets?
A: For now SafePal can be used to transfer money, and trade on Binance DEX. Coming next we are going to unveil a milestone feature to enable users to BUY/SELL crypto-fiat in the wallet! Stay tuned!
Our product iteration mainly depends on the user’s demand. Let us know ‘what you want to do with a crypto wallet’, and we might implement that coming next!
Q: Hi! Regarding DGB support. Will DigiByte’s 2nd layer DigiAssets be automatically supported in SafePal as well?
A: This is a very nice feature to have!
For now, we have integrated with DGB chain for the 1st phase, and the 2nd layer DiGiAssets hasn’t been supported by SafePal yet. It would be probably in the 2nd phase. I’ll forward it to our dev team about this so that they could look into it further.
It’s thrilling to see DGB has to spend major effort in improving blockchain accessibility in the long run.
Q: What is SafePal wallet role in integrating people into the blockchain?
Do you have developed a Chrome plugin for the wallet?
A: For Q1, wallet as the entrance to blockchain ecosystem, inherently plays an important role when someone wants to get involved in blockchain and cryptocurrencies. SafePal deeply recognizes this point of value and strives to build our product easiest to use for new beginners. We wish to become the street lamp guiding new users through the mist of strange blockchain technology.
For Q2, great question! For now, it doesn’t support Chrome plugin. But we are working on a similar project already. Stay tuned.
Open Q-A session
Q: What happens when a user loses his seed, be it by death or negligence? Can SafePal solve this problem?
A: Unfortunately, for now no one can recover the crypto assets when a seed is lost. We are studying this topic internally to see if there is any way to back-up the seed in a social manner, such as to invite your beloved family to keep 1 fragment of the seed for you, and you can recover the seed by these family members helping to recover each fragment of the seed. This is still not mature enough. We will expose more details when we are ready.
Q: Trust is very important in business, what makes investors, customers and users feel safe when working with SafePal?
A: We want to provide trustworthy services for the masses both from technical and spiritual aspects:
From technical level, we built the wallet as a decentralized solution, so that no one including our people can access users’ assets.
From cultural level, from Day 1 we have been keeping transparent and open attitude toward the community, such as sharing our monthly progress, opening up the coin-listing survey, exposing all technical details in the SafePal Knowledge Base, etc. Trust always takes time to accumulate. And we are patient in it because we hold genuine and honest value preposition toward all users.
Q: How will you climb the rankings of your wallet with so much competition? What is the competitive advantage SafePal has that you feel most confident about?
A: Last year when the SafePal project was kick-started, we bought at least 20 wallets from various brands and competitors, cracking them open and studied deep into their claimed and actual features. To be honest we are disappointed to see that a lot of solutions are secure as the team might claim.
For example some are using a cellphone solution, whose data and memory could be easily accessed by a few attempts. Some cases are even worse because they don’t even have a secure element to hold the private key safe.
We not just build the product out of our own proficiency and imagination, but also upon solid understandings and knowledge of the current situation happening in this niche market. We absorbed all of these lessons and, combined with our professionalism, built SafePal S1, a secure, simple and mobile solution.
We have also passed the penetration test of Wallet.Fail, the well-known security team who has hacked Ledger and Trezor at CCC 2018. It’s better to leave this ranking issue to the independent third-parties. 🙂
Q: Can I use Bluetooth to connect SafePal with a computer?
A: Unfortunately no. SafePal S1 adopts an air-gapped signing mechanism and there is no radiofrequency module in it.
Q: do you plan to launch SafePal coin?
A: Haha. No in the short term. We don’t see the necessity of launching a coin simply for ICO. Whether to issue a coin/token depends on if you can find the tangible and real-case application of this coin/token in your ecosystem. For now our focus will still be on product iteration and providing a better solution for our users.
Q: I got a question on Digi-ID. That is an authentication method that was developed by the DigiByte team into the wallets. This makes it possible to login without Usernames and Passwords! Could you also consider to support Digi-ID with the SafePal App?
A: Great question. Honestly we need to look into it first. I’ll leave it to my dev team to have an estimation on it. But it looks a very practical and useful feature. I personally am very interested in it. 🙂
Q: how do you build liquidity for SafePal exchange? Anh how do you select projects to list on SafePal?
A: SafePal is a decentralized wallet, instead of an exchange. The “Trade” feature you see in the wallet is actually the integration of Binance DEX, enabling users to trade in a decentralized manner. Therefore we don’t list token/coin.
Q: Will DGBbe offered on the Binance DEX?
A: No idea honesty(reason can be referred to in my last answer). I think you should post this question to Binance official channel. :0
Q: What vision of SafePal? What are the SafePal obstacles in achieving the vision and mission? And has it been solved?
A: Provide secure, simple and easy-to-use multi-chain cryptocurrency wallet for the masses.
There is still a lot to go between our current stage and long-term vision. Take ‘easy-to-use’ as an example, we will still find some UX/UI detail that is confusing for new beginners. And the limited currencies supported by our wallet right now is also keeping us a few steps away from ‘building a wallet for the masses’.
Luckily we know where we are and where we are going. The only thing remained is ‘keep BUIDLing”.
Q: According to your website, SafePal requires no internet no NFC nothing can you explain how we can approve the transaction? How does process work?
A: I bet you can find it easier to understand from this video tutorial.
Q: For sending erc20 tokens do we need to go to my ether wallet? How to use Binance dex using SafePal wallet what’s the plan on it?
A: No you can send ERC20 token directly in the SafePal wallet.
As for using DEX, refer to this video.
