On Thursday (March 7th), Jack Dorsey, who is Co-Founder and CEO of Twitter, as well as Founder and CEO of Square, announced that he had just bought a Trezor cryptocurrency hardware wallet.
SatoshiLabs, which was founded in 2013, is the Prague-based maker of the popular crypto hardware wallet Trezor (“the world’s original cryptocurrency hardware wallet”). Then, in 2014, “the first Trezor One devices shipped.” Two years later, “the first prototype of the next-generation model was unveiled,” and “the production Model Ts” started shipping in 2018.
During the past five years, SatoshiLabs has introduced more than 22 BIPs & SLIPs standards (such as BIP39 and BIP44, which are “used by the majority of hardware and software wallets”). One very interesting fact about the Trezor range of cryotocurrency hardware wallets is that the firmware is fully open source and available for inspection on GitHub.
Dorsey used the following tweet to reveal that he had purchased a Trezor hardware wallet:
Just bought a @Trezor hardware wallet with bitcoin through @CashApp pic.twitter.com/TBYn1q5XzI
— jack (@jack) March 7, 2019
What he did not say is which model of Trezor he had bought, though the fact that he spent 0.06639467 bitcoin (approximately, $260) suggests that he bought a Trezor Model T. He also did not explain how he used Square’s Cash App to buy this cold wallet “with bitcoin.”
Twitter user “simoncmccabe” replied that “Ledger is great too, but it’s not fully open source,” and Dorsey’s very short reply to him indicated that he had chosen Trezor over Ledger due to the fact that the former’s firmware is completely open source:
This
— jack (@jack) March 7, 2019
The next day (Friday), Ledger, the maker of the very popular “Ledger Nano S”, felt compelled to respond to Dorsey and explain to him that there was much more to having a secure hardware wallet than offering open source firmware:
Hello @jack and thank you for raising awareness about Bitcoin! The security model of hardware is quite complex, and offering open source firmware isn't a silver bullet. We'll provide more flavor during MIT Bitcoin expo https://t.co/TnTmByyi1G on Sunday.
— Ledger (@Ledger) March 8, 2019
Later on the same day, SatoshiLabs used Trezor’s Twitter account to congratulate Dorsey on his purchase of a Trezor wallet:
We are proud to welcome you to the family, @Jack! Kudos for choosing open-source for your journey towards full digital sovereignty! 🙏#hodlon! 😎 https://t.co/Vu05c6KXMa
— Trezor (@Trezor) March 8, 2019
Featured Image Courtesy of SatoshiLabs