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| Square Hardware Bitcoin Wallet is Coming |
Jack Dorsey announced in early June that Square was investigating the possibility of launching a hardware wallet for Bitcoin, explaining at the time that the wallet would be built entirely publicly, from software to hardware design and in collaboration with the community.
After the CEOs of Twitter and Square revealed the potential Bitcoin hardware wallet plan in a series of tweets, Dorsey is now back to talk about the content of the new plan.
“Bitcoin is for everyone,” Dorsey said in a tweet. He explained that if Square was to develop a product, it would need to meet the needs of mobile users, provide security, and integrate with the Cash app.
In a small update to the thread, Dorsey said, "We're building a wallet," along with a larger statement from Square's director of hardware, Jesse Dorogosker, who said the team was building hardware wallets and services to make the bitcoin incubator stronger and more powerful than ever.
In short, the first step is to build a small cross-functional team to lay a solid foundation.
Given the continued popularity of Bitcoin, the overall growth of the cryptocurrency market, and Dorsey's Twitter profile, which only lists Bitcoin tags, this move is not surprising.
Bitcoin hardware wallet
Although cryptocurrencies are becoming more and more popular, which means that many people have a certain level of understanding of them, the ability to use these digital currencies easily, safely and comfortably is still a long way off.
Several financial applications have added support for cryptocurrencies. The Square Cash app allows users to buy and sell Bitcoin directly from their personal account balance. It promises transactions that usually happen in seconds.
PayPal has also added support for buying, selling and holding some cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.
Although these applications may be suitable for purchases and micro-transactions. Anyone with a large amount of cryptocurrency should ask for more secure options.
Most people store coins through laptops or cloud-based services which are more risky. But hardware wallets remain one of the most secure and popular options.
A hardware wallet is a physical device that looks like a flash disk and is used to store a user's cryptographic key.
These hardware wallets are isolated from the network, making it difficult for thieves to gain access to your cryptocurrency. This is compared to cloud services and computers that can be connected to the Internet.
Square's efforts are currently still in their infancy, and the introduction of a hardware Bitcoin wallet may take some time.