Coinkite has released version 4.0.0 of its Coldcard hardware wallet product, a significant update focused on enhancing the security functions within the wallet.
Coinkite is a bitcoin-only, privacy- and security-focused hardware manufacturer. As its flagship product, the Coldcard has been popular in the Bitcoin maximalist community since its inception in late 2017. It is open source, packed full of well considered security features and technically complex in its privacy innovations. It utilizes air-gap ability to operate entirely without a computer, and is designed to securely store private keys.
This update included major internal changes designed to improve the security and privacy that the wallet can offer its users. For instance, with the update a Coldcard can now utilize the same elliptic curve library that Bitcoin itself uses to generate its cryptographic functions.
“[Coldcard is] now using Bitcoin Core’s ‘libsecp256k1’ for all EC [elliptic curve] crypto operations,” states the release announcement. “This is the very same code used by Bitcoin Core for your Bitcoins on-chain.”
In addition, the twenty-fourth seed word for recovering on-chain bitcoin can now be calculated for a user.
“During seed phrase import, after 23 words are provided, Coldcard will calculate the correct checksum and show the valid choices for the last word (there will be 8 typically),” according to the announcement.
There are various other new features as well, and the release is available for download now via the Coinkite release announcement.
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