SatoshiLabs Introduces Recovery Shares-based Security Standard for Trezor

Cryptocurrency hardware wallets are of great use to thousands of enthusiasts. They allow for secure storage of digital assets, while still providing comfort and convenience. SatoshiLabs, the team behind the Trezor Wallet, has introduced a new security standard. Shamir Backup is considered to be a revolutionary development which may usher in a new era of hardware wallet security altogether. 

Adi Shamir Homage

For those familiar with cryptography, the name Adi Shamir might ring a bell. He is the person responsible for creating a cryptographic algorithm, which is dubbed “Shamir’s Secret Sharing” It allows for different ways to store and protect the backup of one’s private keys. In the cryptocurrency world, private keys are everything. Having control over them at all times is mandatory. 

Implementing this solution in a cryptocurrency hardware wallet is no easy feat. Although any concept can effectively be “translated” to suit this particular industry, it often takes a lot of time, money, and effort. As such, the SatoshiLabs team is quite pleased to announce the Trezor Model T is the only hardware wallet on the market today which effectively supports Shamir’s Secret Sharing, albeit with a small twist. 

The Birth of Shamir Backup

To pay homage to the person responsible for the algorithm, the Satoshilabs team decided to call their new creation Shamir Backup. The purpose of this new standard is to give users a bit more control over how they handle their private keys. More specifically, users can create a set number of recovery shares, rather than having to deal with one single seed. Although the seed-based approach works quite well, having some more customization options is never a bad idea. 

As part of their ecosystem, the solution goes by the SLIP-0039 security standard. Because users can set a threshold – determining the number of recovery shares required to recover their wallet – there are many different use cases which can be unlocked. The Trezor Model t can effectively serve as a hardware-based multisignature wallet, should users decide to explore that particular option. It is a very interesting approach to hardware wallet security, and one that may make its way to other products in the future. 

A Promising Development

Despite there being more competitors in the cryptocurrency hardware wallet space, very little has changed in terms of security and private key storage. In fact, it seems virtually all products take a similar approach in this regard, which makes little to no sense. As such, it is good to see at least one company push the boundaries of how security can be optimized in many different ways. 

Moreover, the team will maintain its open-source philosophy. That allows anyone with a coding background to take a look at how they implemented Shamir Backup and potentially port it to other products and services alike. For the Bitcoin industry, this is a welcome development, as it shows there is still plenty of innovation waiting to be tapped.