Ledger, a France-based wallet hardware maker, is showing off its latest at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
The Bitcoin world has struggled to get the upper hand in its battle against hackings and theft, the most recent costing the Bitstamp exchange $5 million.
Hardware wallet providers have gained popularity as users confront the grim reality that storing bitcoins on their computers may result in their disappearance. Ledger summarizes this well on its website:
"Computers are not great at protecting such data, especially considering that whenever you sign a transaction your key must be read and stored in the application memory. If your computer is compromised, then your keys are, and your bitcoins are gone forever."
The USB-based hardware wallet is said to be hack and malware-proof. Even if physically lost, the bitcoins can be restored on another device. At CES, users can try out the latest editions, which employ Bluetooth and near field communications (NFC) technology. The latter has become trendy for Payments , currently used with some credit cards, as well as in Apple Pay, BitPay and Circle:
Second day of #CES2015 come meet us LVCC South Hall 1, test drive our NFC and BLE/screen hardware wallets #bitcoinpic.twitter.com/zIAIF4yHPT
— Ledger (@LedgerHQ) January 7, 2015The current edition sells for €29, or 0.1179 BTC. It has gained traction, with Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist Gavin Andresen's approbation:
I bought a Ledger hardware #bitcoin wallet; it's very nice! https://t.co/zY04ZjIKKT https://t.co/mrgIipLaJc
— Gavin Andresen (@gavinandresen) January 7, 2015
