Bitcoin Forum

When it comes to the hardware wallets I always worry about convenience beside the security.
I have been working on the project developing NFC enabled smart ring for a long time and now I'm thinking about integrating hardware wallet into the ring which will be much more comfortable and reliable as you wear it all the time.

I would love to hear your opinion, If you would have used Ring Hardware wallet and If the market really needs wearable hardware wallets?

Looking forward to brainstorming around this topic.

personally i love the idea and i would use it.

but lot of things need to be considered. on top of my head, the ring should not be obvious which is a security risk.

the chances of loosing a ring when u wear it all the time against the chances of loosing a hardware wallet safe at your house must be considered.

maybe its still fine, for say going to a bitcoin event and loading small amounts for some transactions.


but the ring idea is pretty cool. another one would be a locket.

Personally I will use it (if there will be any) but not so sure in regards to the market (majority would probably prefer to use the existing hardware wallets).

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Do you have a draft, in regards to how everything is going to be (doesn't need to be that detailed, as long as we can understand it's pros and cons a bit further)?

To my mind it would be great to have got something like that. But the material, size of the ring and technical side how it will work - there are lots of questions. Do you have some real exact ideas? And the cost of such a ring - it may be too expensive for lots of people. Because such an innovation needs a lot of finance to create it and make testing and so on. But I would use it. Hope some day everyone will have such wallet.

Sounds like a good idea to start with but I already have several questions. Before I begin with the questions I'd like to start some of my opinions and suggestions. When building a smart wearable ring, it must be durable enough to last for several years. Often you'll notice engagement or marriage rings are worn by people and they many don't remove it even while working with rough tools. I notice that the ring often loses its strength and color over time. So if the ring has to be worn, it needs to be made durable to last. Most hardware wallets aren't meant to be moved around and are often kept in people's home in a secure place (locked inside a security locker) as a cold storage. With a ring you're risking some chances of loss or damage (if the ring falls out while attempting to remove it, water damage, etc) It would be a good idea to make use of the NFC chip to make payments from a mobile wallet, without having to use the mobile's NFC but then many users prefer adjusting the fees on certain wallets, add additional inputs, etc and it could probably lead to some extra work or problems.

Now, here are few questions I've had:

1) Do you have some blueprint or a list of materials used for the NFC ring that you've been working on already? Might be useful to get started on discussing on its utility, design and rigidity.

2) How do you plan to use the NFC in the ring (like storing the seed, securing wallet information, a mobile app to view details etc)?

3) Who's your primary target audience and what's your primary market that you target to sell in first? (Just curious to know)

I'm pretty sure I already saw something like that (a video) which is a simple ring that allows you to pay for things and everything.
In the beginning, I was very sceptical and I was thinking "all your wealth on your index finger?" but then I understood it's working with a fingerprint.
Oh, I just found it. It's called Tokenize (dot com). Anyway, your idea is really great for mass adoption I see many people even young teens going out with this and just paying for their clothes and food. But I really believe it should be handled by big corporations with a huge budget because eventually security and quality are above everything and not everyone can supply this.

Thanks guys for sharing your opinion and ideas. I will definitely prepare draft with more details.

Meanwhile let me briefly share my views:

Wearable hardware wallet I think will be perfect fit for the people who are actively doing cryptocurrency transactions, maybe when they are at work, while traveling or splitting bill with a friend (My friends like this), but instead of using convenient mobile wallet, they prefer to hold their money safe in their offline storage. This might be less common today but in the bright future, I believe this behavior will become more general, especially when most of the merchants will begin accepting cryptocurrencies.

For the customer I described, people who don't just keep their coins in cold storage (which can be locked in the home safe for years), but frequently spend it, I think current USB hardware wallets will have higher chance of loosing while carrying than the ring or locket.

Beside the convenience of using Ring Hardware wallet, it can maintain symbolic means of the jewelry as well, the reason why lots of people wear rings every day. imagine, How cool can it be your wedding ring storing Bitcoins.

For more information about the Startup I co-founded please check the following webpage: https://cnick.io/
Currently the material we use for manufacturing the ring is natural wood.

We started two years ago and first launched the product in Georgia. We are inspired with an idea of making authentication absolutely effortless by uniting all the identification needs into the most convenient device. Now instead of following the traditional path of Visa/MasterCard payments, we want to join blockchain movement as we believe in the technology and want to contribute to the mass adoption.

I would prefer a necklace. If it should be a piece of jewelry.

Edit:
Exciting website. I'm following.

I just chose a design in the site, not bad considering the material is wood. Just being curious.

However, people who constantly spending funds aren't using hardware wallets to send the funds but mostly their mobile phones installed with lightweight or 3rd-party wallets.

Something like this (according to the future plan) must be built on a 3rd-party service like a crypto-version of Paypal.
Example* Merchants can accept Bitcoin through a teller device that can read these rings.
If this device works without needing to connect to a phone app, this can be a great alternative option.
This can't be done with a regular hardware wallet.

Otherwise, if this is a hardware wallet that does the same job, it is just looking more like a gimmicky or artistic version of a hardware wallet  that screaming loudly: rob me please!