In the world of cryptocurrency hardware wallets, there are a few products which everyone seems to love. Both the Ledger Nano S and the TREZOR are two great examples of powerful and popular products. When it comes to KeepKey, however, it seems there are a lot of concerns these days. Its subreddit is filled with various complaints on the overall stagnation of the software side of things. It’s not a positive sign by any means, but the company can still turn things around.
KeepKey Lacks Sufficient Altcoin Support
It is evident that cryptocurrency hardware wallets must evolve and improve over time. Whereas most products were initially designed to support Bitcoin only, that is no longer an acceptable situation. There are a growing number of altcoins and ERC20 tokens which all deserve to be supported as well. Integrating this functionality is not easy, although companies such as KeepKey should have no real trouble doing so over time.
Unfortunately, that is not happening right now. In fact, people are growing concerned over KeepKey’s lack of support for more currencies. Given the success of Bitcoin Cash, one would expect to have seen that hard fork supported by now. Sadly, that is not in the plans for KeepKey, nor is the company (seemingly) looking into supporting other currencies in the future. It is a very disappointing turn of events, especially from a company which has the hardware to rival both Ledger and SatoshiLabs in the long run.
Cryptocurrency investors and speculators began to diversify their portfolios quite some time ago. As a result, they expect their hardware wallets to accommodate most – if not all – of these currencies at some point. Support for Bitcoin Cash, XRP, and even a few other top 10 currencies would be of great value to KeepKey users. While the company has developed a beta client to support BCH, it is unclear if it will ever be turned into a proper client for this wallet.
For its part, the KeepKey firmware works just fine, and has no bugs or issues to speak of. At the same time, there have been no updates since January 31, 2017. This means this hardware wallet’s software has not undergone any changes for almost a full year. It is a clear sign of stagnation, which is something a hardware wallet manufacturer cannot afford in this day and age.
While the current software has no real issues, it is evident that users wouldn’t mind seeing some changes. In particular, Bitcoin’s “locked” transaction fees have become a major problem as of late. Given Bitcoin’s recent surge, there is no reason to set a fixed amount of BTC as the transaction fee right now. It will only force more users to look for alternative solutions at some point, which is never a good thing for such a prominent company.
In fact, it seems a lot of users are already moving to alternative hardware wallet solutions. In particular, the Ledger Nano S appears to be in high demand right now. Its support for prominent altcoins has done the company a lot of favors in recent months, and there is no reason why the KeepKey wallet shouldn’t be on the same level by now. Ever since the company was acquired by ShapeShift, things have not progressed positively for KeepKey by any means.
Whether or not we will see any major software updates for KeepKey remains to be determined. Anyone who wants a hardware wallet solely for Bitcoin may want to look into other options as well, at least until KeepKey fixes its high transaction fees. It’s unfortunate to see such a prominent company derail pretty quickly, as we can always use more competitors in the world of cryptocurrency hardware wallets.
