Jameson Lopp carried out an interesting test to check how different hardware wallets performed when signing multisig transactions of various complexities. Each hardware wallet has its own limitations, so the question is, which ones are the best for multisig transactions involving 10 and 100 inputs?
First, here is a list of the hardware wallets he tested:
- Blockstream Jade
- Cobo Vault
- Coinkite Coldcard Mk4
- Coinkite Coldcard Q
- Foundation Passport Founder’s Edition
- Keystone Pro
- Keystone 3 Pro
- Ledger Nano S
- Ledger Nano S Plus
- SeedSigner
- BitBox02
- Specter DIY
- Trezor Model One
- Trezor Model T
- Trezor Safe 3
*
More information on firmware and software versions in the source.
The tests were done using Sparrow Wallet 1.8.2 and Electrum 4.5.3 (Ledger only) on Ubuntu 22.04.
Jameson created native segwit multisig wallets on the hardware devices he tested. He funded each wallet with 100 transactions to create 100 UTXOs. Everything was done on Testnet.
Testing Results 2-of-3 multisig:The first test was for 2-of-3 multisig. He made two transactions: the first one spent 10 UTXOs, while the second one spent all 100 UTXOs.
Here are the results:
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.talkimg.com%2Fimages%2F2024%2F05%2F21%2F1gRFI.jpeg&t=665&c=kBnwdemESnQZWA)
We can see that
Seedsigner is the absolute winner, with the best results.
Coldcard Mk4, Cobo Vault, and Keystone Pro also performed decently.
Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano S Plus performed the worst using the HW1 library, with the
Nano S granddad requiring almost two hours to sign the 100-input transaction. The results were better using Electrum.
The Passport Founder's Edition didn't have enough memory to complete the second test but did well for the first transaction. Jameson noted he used outdated firmware and will perform a second test with the newest version.
3-of-5 multisigThe second test was for a 3-of-5 multisig. Again, he made two transactions: one spending 10 UTXOs, while the second spent all 100 UTXOs.
Here are the results:
Seedsigner was again ahead of the pack, with
Cobo Vault and Keystone Pro being the runners-up.
Just like with the first test,
Ledger Nano S and Nano S Plus had terrible results using the HW1 library. It's a different picture when using Electrum, but it's still not good enough.
The
Passport Founder's Edition again failed to sign the 100 inputs multisig transaction.
Scaling performance test:The last test compares each device against each other. The aim is to show if the hardware wallet scales linearly. That means that the 100-input transaction should take 10 times as long as the 10-input transaction. If it scales poorly, it will take longer. If it scales well, it will take less time.
Here are the results:
The overall winners in this category are
Bitbox 02, Keystone Pro, and Trezor Safe 3.
The
Ledger Nano S/Nano S Plus didn't perform bad on Electum, but their results using HWI are the worst of all tested models.
The Passport Founder's Edition couldn't be assessed for the previously mentioned reasons.
I recommend you read the rest of Jameson's report in his blog post. He discusses a major downside of the Seedsigner, despite the excellent performance during his tests. He also offers additional notes on Ledger's performance and the reasons for the bad results.
Source:
https://blog.casa.io/bitcoin-multisig-hardware-signing-performance-2024/