Coinprism: The Android App For Coloredcoins

Coinprisms Android App is now available on Google Play. This Bitcoin 2.0 platform, based out of Ireland, has taken on the attitude of ‘less is more’. They’re ploughing ahead with a clear vision of facilitating frictionless asset trading straight from mobile.

“Coloredcoins are used to represent assets. For example, a colored coin might represent a stock in a company, or a gram of gold, or a US Dollar"
—  – Coloredcoins

Coinprism won the Bitcoin Foundation award prize of $10,000 USD in BTC at the 2014 Startup Challenge. The judges included Gavin Andresen, Roger Ver, David Johnston, and Peter Vessenes.

Flavien Charlon, Founder and CEO of Coinprism, demonstrated that the Coinprism API was able to send and receive colouredcoins and bitcoins using the Open Assets Protocol, a protocol used for storing and transferring custom, non-native assets on the Blockchain.

“The Open Assets protocol has been fully defined and finalized, and various companies like Coinprism and Assembly.com can now independently implement it, while still retaining the guarantee of interoperability.”
— – Coinprism.

Coinprism has been in the works since January 2014, the web version of the wallet was launched in May 2014 and incorporates many uses:

• Issue any assets 
• Send and receive assets and bitcoins 
• Full block explorer
• Two-factor authentication 
• Export and backup wallet 
• Import private key 
• Issue Dividends 
• Optional miners’ fee 
• Colored coins API
• Crowdsale management
• Proof of Authenticity of assets

Until the App launch, there has not been a platform for user-issued tokens to be used with a mobile wallet.

“This will be the first mobile wallet for a "Crypto 2.0" platform, and will allow users to exchange and pay using user-created assets as frictionlessly as with bitcoin, directly from their phones.”
—  – Charlon

The mobile wallet has been designed for mainstream use, it offers a simpler user experience than the web wallet. The mobile wallet offers the basic features required to transact, primarily sending and receiving bitcoins and assets. It can also display a history of recent transactions. It puts the power of asset transactions literally in the palm of the user’s hand. The freedom and flexibility this solution awards is evident.

“There are many interesting use cases enabled by the mobile wallet. You could automatically receive loyalty points on your wallet as you pay for a coffee in Bitcoins. In a conference or event, promotional colored coins could be distributed to attendees. Colored coins can represent votes, and could be used during exhibitions for voting for example.” – Charlon

By implementing a Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallet that is compliant with BIP32 and BIP39 the app includes a high degree of security

Interestingly the Coinprism mobile wallet doesn’t require any sign up or account creation. The phone or tablet generates the key and the Coinprism app can be used immediately. Charlon advises in the press release that he doesn’t think end users quite realise the potential of Coloredcoins. However, he does believe this will change in the future as more features are released such as frictionless mobile payments, micropayment channels and anonymous coin mixing.

“What’s exciting is that now, people can not only hold Bitcoin on their phones, but they can also use it with currencies (Dollar, Euro, etc…), or even precious metals. This is expanding the scope of cryto-currencies to uses that haven’t been possible until now.”
— – Charlon

B.Holmes, author of The Range of Illusion and The Private Key instalments, is currently located in Thailand, researching and writing about crypto. You can follow B.Holmes on twitter @BanteringB, or contact via email: [email protected]