[ESHOP launched] Trezor: Bitcoin hardware wallet

[molecular]

it's relevant how much value you transferred.

The value I transferred is 1 BTC. Does another value exists?

Maybe it ought be measured as BTC/DATE?

which can easily be translated to USD or ozAU, which provide reasonably stable value over time (~10% inflation per year, yes, but not 1000%)

[Rassah]

Didn't BFL teach everyone that preordering anything in bitcoin is just generally a very bad idea? At this point, you're paying an extra $700 just for the aluminum case.

[Gyrsur]

Didn't BFL teach everyone that preordering anything in bitcoin is just generally a very bad idea? At this point, you're paying an extra $700 just for the aluminum case.

not if you buy immediately the bitcoins back which you did spend. do this approach anytime in the future!

BTW, Rassah, how is your new car working?  

EDIT: so yes, I got your point. it is a bit too overpriced yet, but anyway they have a funny accent as compensation. 

[hazek]

I made a preorder. Why? Because I believe that someone developing this product and being successful at it is a crucial component of Bitcoin's future succes and even though making this preorder for which I think is a low risk proposition, I don't mind losing my money because my preorder already served its purpose = showing the rest of the community that there's money to be made and hopefully inspired someone else to try and compete.

[StarenseN]

I made a preorder. Why? Because I believe that someone developing this product and being successful at it is a crucial component of Bitcoin's future succes and even though making this preorder for which I think is a low risk proposition, I don't mind losing my money because my preorder already served its purpose = showing the rest of the community that there's money to be made and hopefully inspired someone else to try and compete.

I did in the same way. But then they had to show some "respect" to the supporters like me and you by not doing sales. Althought they had a delay (but the delay is fine for me).

[Rassah]

Continually rising prices is part of the problem. Sure, you converted USD/EUR into bitcoins before preordering, and thus feel like you spent USD/EUR, but you could have just as well bought those bitcoins and held them until they started to ship, thus getting it cheaper anyway. The other part is the long development cycles and risk (I was under the impression that Trezor will come out in November, but now the preorder page says January 2014). BFL was a good lesson about long development cycles and risk, too. I think it would be better to support such projects through donations as opposed to preorders (better PR and easier to manage), or at the least reduce prices when things go haywire.

[molecular]

Continually rising prices is part of the problem. Sure, you converted USD/EUR into bitcoins before preordering, and thus feel like you spent USD/EUR, but you could have just as well bought those bitcoins and held them until they started to ship, thus getting it cheaper anyway. The other part is the long development cycles and risk (I was under the impression that Trezor will come out in November, but now the preorder page says January 2014). BFL was a good lesson about long development cycles and risk, too. I think it would be better to support such projects through donations as opposed to preorders (better PR and easier to manage), or at the least reduce prices when things go haywire.

How is paying 2 BTC more for a metal instead of plastic casing not a donation? ;-)

I'm just throwing my money at these guys because their product is one of the most-needed products in bitcoin-land and I have huge trust in them to pull it off.

Wallet security is a huge huge problem and the trezor makes it a piece of cake for anybody to have a very reasonably secure wallet.

[Rassah]

Besides, you do not know what the final pricing will be when you can order them off the shelve, might be even more expensive. I for sure won't pay todays' prices.
And you do not know if you can order them off the shelve when I already receive my pre-order.

Trezor's main competition is Bitcoin Armory and a cheap used laptop, which can be had for under $100 (and their "substitution" is paper wallets, or just risking it and not bothering with more advanced security systems). So if Trezor continues to sell for $100, they would mostly be making their sales on increased convenience of a single small device, versus a big laptop you have to set up with Armory yourself. They may also end up making more money if they sell it for way less than $100, since more people would be interested in buying it, but obviously not too much less, since the shrinking profit margin (sale price - cost to manufacture) will start cutting into their potential profit. If sales (X) versus price (Y) was graphed, the resulting profit graph would look like a bell curve. It will be up to Trezor to figure out where the top of that graph's hill is, and what price they will get the most revenue from.

So I am pretty sure the final price will be lower than $100, and if it isn't, I'll keep using Armory with the computer I already bought. I would like to buy a Trezor for my parents though, since they're planning on getting a few $K worth of BTC.

[cor]

We're having quite frequent questions about why is TREZOR better than "...".

So we prepared a table comparison of the main features of TREZOR with other tools that are being used as bitcoin storage.



Before posting it to our website, I'd like to ask you for your opinion, mainly to see if the comparison is:

• easy to understand (our english :-) as well as the logic)
• correct (because we intent no harm to anybody)

   
Please don't hesitate to post comments, suggestions or questions. Thanks!

[bitpop]

I think without battery is bad English

[Grinny]

i'm not a native speaker myself, but maybe "battery usage" might be more common? of course you would mark the "no" green in this case.

what about "litecoin support"? cannot find it in the table..

[cor]

i'm not a native speaker myself, but maybe "battery usage" might be more common? of course you would mark the "no" green in this case.

that makes better sense.. when thinking of this we even came up with "batteryless" but we stopped ourselves from writing it down

what about "litecoin support"? cannot find it in the table..

good point. we'll include it.
thanks

[bitpop]

Yeah have a native English copywriter go over it. Hack proof also doesn't sound right to me. Otherwise nice chart.

[cor]

paper wallet support encryption, anti teft, disaster recovery if you are not dumb and duplicate them, waterproof with revlar paper

dont underestimate paper  

for Trezor physical hack proof, are you sure the chip don't leak data while under physical torture?

the device self destruct or at least delete keys in secure way if to much fasle pin are entered?

if somebody steals TREZOR then:
http://www.bitcointrezor.com/faq/#somebody-steals-trezor

We can still think about automatically wiping the device after XY bad intents, but what if somebody really forgets his PIN (happend to me after being 3 weeks out of the office and couldn't get in) and also loses the recovery seed (which is rather an unfortunate combination) but then has no chance to get to his coins...

[phelix]

If somebody steals my Trezor, they'll just empty out my wallet before I have the chance to restore anyway. Right?

Not at all. All operations on TREZOR require the user to enter a PIN. The attacker would have to guess your PIN which is very difficult because with each badly entered PIN the time for entering it anew increases exponentially. For example, the delay between 19th and 20th PIN entering is 35 hours. Unplugging and plugging the device won’t help. The thief would have to sit his life off entering the PINs. Meanwhile you have enough time to move your funds into a new device or wallet from the paper backup.

How difficult is it to open the TREZOR and directly read the data?

[stick]

How difficult is it to open the TREZOR and directly read the data?

It is impossible to open TREZOR without effectively destroying the case. Also the data inside is encrypted so dumping it is not helping ...

[Jeronimus]

Is it possible to image it and brute force pin bypassing delays between retry ?

Interesting question, but i assume you could on top of requiring a pin, allow to encrypt the wallet on the device. So even if you break into it using the pin, you are faced with brute forcing the wallet which cannot be done easy if a secure enough password was chosen.

[Luckybit]

paper wallet support encryption, anti teft, disaster recovery if you are not dumb and duplicate them, waterproof with revlar paper

dont underestimate paper  

for Trezor physical hack proof, are you sure the chip don't leak data while under physical torture?

the device self destruct or at least delete keys in secure way if to much fasle pin are entered?

if somebody steals TREZOR then:
http://www.bitcointrezor.com/faq/#somebody-steals-trezor

We can still think about automatically wiping the device after XY bad intents, but what if somebody really forgets his PIN (happend to me after being 3 weeks out of the office and couldn't get in) and also loses the recovery seed (which is rather an unfortunate combination) but then has no chance to get to his coins...

Does Trezor have protection against differential power analysis?

What prevents someone from opening it up? Is the case epoxy so that it will self destroy if opened?

Does Trezor leak any sort of sonic or other emissions which could help an adversary find the pin?

These are important security questions because Trezor is not the only product out there and many of us know a bit about how to crack some of the other products already. Smart cards are notoriously weak against side channel attacks for instance.

[stick]

Does Trezor have protection against differential power analysis?

Power analysis requires lots of trials. While this can be done on smart-cards where no user interaction is needed, one cannot perform this effectively on TREZOR, because each trial requires entering of the PIN.

What prevents someone from opening it up? Is the case epoxy so that it will self destroy if opened?

It is very hard to open the case without breaking the electronics inside. Also keys are encrypted in chip, so even if someone is able to dump the contents it does not help.

Does Trezor leak any sort of sonic or other emissions which could help an adversary find the pin?

No.

[rampalija]

IS it waterresistant?!