Topic: I got a new hardware wallet to store my BTC, but there is a catch. (Read 233 times)

It's because that we are bias in some products and beliefs that sometimes they're against our will and thought that not all products are from China wherein fact that many of the products that we use in our homes came from there or probably assembled there. But there are actual products that are said to be made in China to be known as fakes, there's a huge fake market and manufacturing there and that's why I guess that stereotype and taboo will never be gone. Keep us updated with Keystone, I don't see a lot of people use that hardware wallet but I might consider gifting myself a new HW but with other brands like that.

Your choice is your risks and only your responsibility. You have the right to buy and use a hardware wallet purchased even in a gypsy’s backyard. If you like it, then use it (Keystone 3 pro).

This is not a matter of hatred. There is a stereotype in the world that Chinese products are cheap garbage and rubbish due to their mass production, although even the products of well-known brands come from the same China. Hello iphone owners.

Ledger (there are many such companies) is a French brand, all products (components) of which are manufactured in China. At one time there was news that Ledger wanted to open their own factories in China (investors’ money was allocated for this), but it seems something didn’t work out for them.

Actually, this is true.
But I would say differently. Try to find those devices (or components) that are definitely not from China.

That is correct, but I think that majority of exported products from China are still junk and they are well known for cloning industry,
so you need to dig real good to find more hidden quality stuff and it can be like a lottery sometimes.

When we are talking about hardware wallets coming from China aka Hong Kong, Keystone is probably one of the best, but I don't have good experience with OneKey, Ellipal, SecuX, BitHD and others.
Coolwallet is based in Taiwan and some people would say that is not the same as China, but they have interesting device with card-like format.

Agreed. To mitigate the might-be  threat coming from any of those entities the trust should be centered on multisig wallet with a few  cosigners (the more the better, but at least 3 for 2-of-3 setup)  relevant to different manufactures and/or team. Country doesn't matter to much, in my view. Many good products are produced in China nowadays. The only problem is not  to fall across the brand counterfeit.

I think that Ledger has already confirmed that part or even the whole device actually consists of parts that are manufactured in China, so it is completely meaningless whether something was manufactured in China or the parts were imported from China and assembled somewhere else. I have some Chinese devices that are of premium quality and have been working without any errors for years, so I have no doubt that the Chinese cannot make a high-quality hardware wallet, the only question is whether it is completely open source and whether they might have a backdoor.

Not that I want to scare anyone now, but it is a well-known fact that the Chinese have been caught several times in the act of military and industrial espionage by installing hidden chips in computer components. This is why the US administration started a trade war with them and decided that all key components for computers/servers used in critical infrastructure will be produced outside of China.

I wouldn't base my trust in a device that's supposed to hold my BTC on the country of manufacturing, country of the company or the team. That guarantees you nothing.
In terms of build quality, you can get every level of quality from China; from total trash to high-quality luxury products.

I am repeating myself, but you really want to avoid as much trust as possible and instead verify. For hardware wallets, this means you want open-source and verifiable hardware & software.
Find dkbit98's list here: [L​IST] Open Source Hardware Wallets

Is he not aware of what Ledger did in the past few months? Maybe you should just tell him that Ledger is not the best choice if you care about security & privacy. I find it unlikely that he didn't read news about Ledger even if he didn't follow the market properly since it was trending on social media. I can understand if he said this if you live in a country where shipping is expensive and only Ledger products are cheap, although that's unlikely too.

I have never seen somebody openly hate Chinese-made products in crypto. Probably just a matter of your social circle. But it is not surprising, as mentioned above Chinese is famous for its cheap knock-off, although people seem to forget that other companies exist. Most of us have a problem with generalizing stuff to suit our agenda to begin with. At the end of the day you should research the product you want to buy, whether it comes from China or not.

Most of the chips and electronic components come out of China nowadays. Some hardware wallets are completely produced and assembled in China, others are shipped out in parts and then assembled in the respective countries.

Passport Foundation is a company that assembles its devices in the US. I don't know about the chip production, but I am guessing it is either China or Taiwan.

Coldcard gets assembled but not produced in Canada.

Complaining about Chinese products nowadays is futile. Not wanting a product out of China, but using 90% of chips and other components out of China in other devices is pretty much the same.

Most of the things they make is junk with short lifetime and that is a fact, but they also make iPhones and everything else because they have cheap labor force and they probably use prisoners for this.
Keystone is not a bad hardware wallet, but I don't like their new Keystone 3 model with integrated battery.
They promised to release Bitcoin only wallet around bitcoin halving so let's see what they have to offer.

Ledger is totally coming from China, they only assemble it in France, it's easy to confirm this on packaging.

Read this:
https://github.com/KeystoneHQ/keystone3-firmware/releases
https://blog.keyst.one/when-we-talk-about-open-source-what-are-we-discussing-1a751223a1f0

Currently it's not completely open source.


Well it's a stereotype that China's product has lower quality than US or EU's product, but the price of Keystone 3 isn't really that cheap, so I guess the quality should be similar or even better.

Since Keystone 3 is relatively new and not completely open source, I guess DWYOR.

Yes Keystone hardware wallet is fine. I read through to know the model you bought but I think you missed out that part. The Keystone hardware wallet comes in different models and there are differences with each of the models.

Any user of Elliptical, Trezor or ledger wallet can easily argue that they are the best as for me, I am going to stick with my software wallet which I feel very comfortable with.

If we are to talk of hardware wallets, they are one of the best means of using a cold storage for our safety and privacy, but i want to believe that not all of them are good for us to get what we actually want from, this wallet you talked about that you just bought is the first time I will be hearing about it, though ledger may not be too good for our privacy but it's also important that we follow suit with bitcoin wallet that are of high reputation and standard well recommendable like trezor among others.

Its already a common misconception especially in developing countries that all china products are counterfeit.
China's are known for imitating/producing any product at a cheaper rate
Which in most cases leads to inferior quality
This doesn't necessarily mean they cant produce good products
But they want to meet the demand of those in need of cheap goods
thus the low price,which in turn usually affects the quality.
Mind you if you want quality
They can give quality
The Bitmain Antminer S19j Pro+ is produced by a china company.

In my country, almost everyone believe that China is a country where fake items and goods are been manufactured and sell to other countries, some believe that nothing good is made out of China, if it's from China it means it's bad.

Back to crypto, I got a hardware wallet, made from China, the Keystone 3 pro to store my Bitcoin, and whenever a cousin or friend ask which hardware I use and I say Keystone, they always say it's made in china, even some people online said the same thing, thinking it's not safe.



I choose this hardware wallet because it's one of the top most secured one out there, better than using ledger, it's open source finally, and it's also air-gapped, my cousin said I should have go for ledger and knowing what is happening with ledger I lost interest.

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The thing now is, why do people hate china products so much? Especially in crypto, are people not aware that some Asic miners they use to mine crypto are made in china? China accounts for over 73% of Asic manufacturing worldwide, as if they don't produce quality hardware, if you don't know this I think you should now, China is a leading leader of it's own, they build strong products too.

Ledger isn't manufactured in China and still they aren't as strong as even Trezor, it doesn't matter where a product is from, if it works as intended and also performs better then it's a great choice, let's be more concern about what the product is capable of, instead of where it's from.