What is Trezor?
Trezor is a cold storage hardware wallet designed to hold access to your crypto assets in a physical device.
Trezor is one of the oldest crypto hardware manufacturers, delivering highly secured devices for nearly ten years. Their software and hardware designs have been open source since the very beginning, and crowdsourced code audits are a hallmark of device security.
Fast forward to current times and they have developed multiple product types to service different user needs.
What is the history of Trezor (and SatoshiLabs)?
Before Trezor (and Satoshi Labs) were formed, Czech founders Marek Palatinus and Pavol Rusnak worked together at non-profit tech company, BRM Labs.
More well known in the crypto world as "Slush" and "Stick", Palatinus shared the hardware wallet concept he had designed with Rusnak and the pair began working on what would become Trezor.
The term "Trezor" is derived from the Czech word for 'vault'.
Soon after the duo recruited finance expert Alena Vranova and raced to finish a working prototype. The growing team launched SatoshiLabs, the parent company of Trezor, which is dedicated to the mission of providing financial independence and digital security to the people.
Trezor and SatoshiLabs Milestones
- 2012 | Founders meet and begin work on prototype hardware wallet
- 2013 | SatoshiLabs formed and team building begins
- 2014 | Trezor One prototype unveiled at Bitcoin2014
- 2015 | Beta testing begins and users are encouraged to audit open source code
- 2016 | First production units of Trezor One begin shipping
- 2017 | Wallet interface released where users can manage assets located on device
- 2018 | Trezor Model T released, a hardware wallet which allows crypto staking
- 2019 | Shamir Backup method for backing up recovery seed phrases introduced
- 2020 | Focus on firmware updates to address increasing number of threats
- 2021 | Trezor Suite replaces traditional wallet interface
- 2022 | Token support expands to 1000s of different tokens
- 2023 | Focus on providing mobile support and improving user experience
Trezor and SatoshiLabs have grown to 150+ employees around the world who are working to make Trezor the safest place to store your crypto assets.
The brands remain privately owned and is headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic.
What is the mission of Trezor and SatoshiLabs?
Trezor founders Marek 'Slush' Palatinus and Pavol 'Stick' Rusnak began working on their first hardware wallet with the mission of creating a secure hardware device to story cryptocurrency.
The blockchain and cryptocurrency industry was gaining popularity in 2012 and there were very few options to securely store crypto assets.
Trezor emerged from the chaos of online exchanges that just couldn't keep up. We realized it was time to step up the security game against online attacks and malicious apps.
Our founders, Stick and Slush, teamed up to create, advance, and revolutionize an entirely new industry, bringing about a complete about-face from traditional, online crypto storage and management.Trezor
At the time, digital assets were typically stored in the custody of crypto exchanges self custodial software wallets.
Both of these options are inherently risky.
When a crypto exchange holds your digital assets, you do not technically own those assets. This is where the famous "not your keys, not your coins" mentality originated.
Self custodial software wallets (also known as hot wallets) do provide complete ownership of digital assets however they can be compromised in a variety of ways including:
- Hacking the device the wallet is installed on
- Signing a malicious transaction
Trezor and SatoshiLabs have operated with the mission of providing accessible, decentralized security for all crypto users since launch.
How does the Trezor cold storage hardware wallet protect crypto assets?
Open source design has been a driving force behind Trezor's security protocol from the earliest days of building. All software code and hardware designs are freely available for review and Trezor encourages the community to take an active role in hunting for bugs.
Trezor wallets use public, open-source code designs, so you can check and make sure each process is legit.
By doing so, everyone benefits from the community-tested design of your wallet, providing robust protection against real- world threats.
Trezor
Secure Element product design prevents physical attacks on the Trezor devices from yielding any useful information for hackers. There are several physical attack vectors protected including:
- Power Analysis attacks which read changes in power consumption to identify keystrokes.
- Cold Boot methods focus on any residual physical memory which may be stored when the device is powered off.
- Faults probing requires physically connecting to the device and introducing various electric currents to induce responses.
Seed phrase recovery via Trezor's patented Multi-Share technology reduces the likelihood of losing your secret phrase by breaking it up into several 'shares'.
Trezor and SatoshiLabs created their own seed phrase recovery for mnemonic codes called SLIP39 (previously known as Shamir's Secret-Sharing)
By splitting your backup into multiple shares, you no longer have to worry about losing a single wallet backup and access to your funds. As long as you have the threshold number of the shares to hand, you can safely recover your wallet.
Trezor
Customer purchase data is deleted or stripped of personal details within 90 days of making a purchase on the Trezor website.
Devices are shipped in tamper-evident packaging which provides a clear visual indicator if your order has been compromised.
How do I connect the Trezor hardware wallet to Backpack?
Backpack wallet supports multi-sig (multisignature) signing from multiple hardware providers, including Trezor. Thanks to Backpack Wallet integrated Trezor support, users can now move their assets to offline storage.
Download Backpack Wallet browser extension.
- Open the Settings menu and select 'Add Account'
- Select 'Import Wallet' and choose the appropriate network
- Select 'Use a hardware wallet' and choose 'Use a Trezor wallet'
- Follow directions prompts on screen to connect Trezor device
- Proceed with wallet setup instructions
Where can I learn more about the Trezor hardware wallet?
The Trezor website is filled with product documents, tutorials and crypto blogs revolving around crypto security.
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