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Opendime disposable hardware wallets sold out in two days

Opendime has created a small, disposable, USB device that must be physically broken in order to spend any funds kept on it, creating a whole new niche for bitcoin wallets. The inexpensive tool can store any amount of bitcoin, with the option to add more over time.

Opendime has created a small, disposable, USB device that must be physically broken in order to spend any funds kept on it, creating a whole new niche for bitcoin wallets. The inexpensive tool can store any amount of bitcoin, with the option to add more over time.

“Give an Opendime to anyone and they don’t need to worry that you can take back the funds later,” Opendime’s website says. “You’ve got the private keys in the device.”

It’s far safer to receive an Opendime than a paper wallet. The private key, held inside the device, is generated in a secure zone that isn’t accessible to anyone, even the originator, until the wallet is physically broken open.

Opendime“It’s like a piggy-bank. You must destroy it to spend the funds. At first that seems expensive and wasteful, but it’s a key part of our security model: you can trust a sealed Opendime, and it’s obvious when it’s been opened.”
— – Opendime

The device went on sale Thursday, for the price of US$29 for a pack of three. Two days later, the company reported selling out of the initial batch, which ships during the month of May. However, the website is still taking orders, and the next batch is scheduled to ship in either June or July.

Opendime’s parent company, Coinkite, was best known for their popular bitcoin multisignature wallet. A week ago the legacy bitcoin company discontinued the offering, preferring to concentrate on “less centralized services.”

The company will continue to sell a merchant point of sale terminal, although they are "working on a new decentralized/stand-alone unit" to replace the existing terminals with. Also, they are considering several other hardware products, including a secure hardware wallet with a printer built in.

Opendime wallet

Opendime’s caseless, bare-silicon appearance was designed to both save money and to make tampering extra easy to spot.

When you first receive an Opendime from the manufacturer, the units are empty and don’t have any private keys. After plugging it into a computer, using a standard USB port, the device will generate the keys for you. The device then acts as a read-only wallet, storing the public key and a handy QR code in files on the device.

“Acts like a read-only USB flash drive. Works with any computer, laptop, and phone. A QR Picture and Text file inside contain Bitcoin address and support.”
— – Opendime

The open-source software running on the device stores 53 files on it, mostly divided into three folders. The first is for the general operating system, the second for use when it is still in read-only mode. The third folder, which is only accessible after the device has been broken, allows access to the private key.

At the center of an Opendime card is a long, narrow strip that will snap off when pushed from either side, causing irreparable damage. Once that piece has been broken out, the contents of the third folder will change, and the private key will be revealed. The device is considered insecure and disposable at this point, and funds should be moved to another wallet.

BitGo engineer and founder of the bitcoin node statistics site Statoshi.info, Jameson Lopp, tweeted about Opendime soon after launch, declaring it the "first bitcoin bearer bond," while noting that Opendime is "Great for privately trading batches of ‘investment’ coins."

He noted that payments can be taken off-chain using the device, by simply trading Opendimes as cash, which could lead to "limitless scalability" in bitcoin.

“This is physical Bitcoin as it was meant to be: just hand it to someone and they’ve got it. Pass it on multiple times! Simple as a handshake. No miner fees, no confirmation delays.”
— – Opendime

Opendime could also help alleviate any future threat to Bitcoin’s fungibility. As the science of blockchain forensics develops, tracking tools like SABR, Coinalytics, and Numisight threaten to make certain, specific bitcoins worth less than other coins of the same amount, by marking them as illegitimate or stolen.

Having a way to get bitcoins off the blockchain, and transacted in the physical world, breaks the trail, and makes forensics services useless as a weapon against fungibility. Until now, paper wallets and physical coins like the Casascius coin were the only way of doing this, and both come with their own security risks.

Physical bitcoin representations with added wallet functionality are perhaps the closest relative to Opendime. They can be passed around in use as money, and often hide a private key inside them. However, physical bitcoins have to have their private key generated, printed out, and assembled by someone.

This problem is also inherent in paper wallets. Would-be customers who want to keep large amounts of bitcoin on them generally think twice before trusting the supplier. Even worse, anyone in possession of a paper wallet can typically open it up and see the private key along the way, making paper wallets completely useless as a form of money.

Unit price is also in Opendime’s favor. Made out of rare or precious metals, the highly ornamental physical bitcoins look great, but are less likely to be passed around as money. Currently sold for 0.39 Bitcoin, or about US$163, per coin, Casascious coins are priced at almost 18 times the price of an Opendime, and other physical coins aren’t that much cheaper.

If the price of an Opendime ever comes down to a price point of a dollar or less, perhaps we’ll see them in use as money far more as people start to think of them as actually disposable. Until then, bitcoiners can happily use them as a private, longer-term storage device, ideal to keep savings on in a safe or even for transferring funds to others on with a high degree of privacy, reducing blockchain transactions in the meantime.


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