Topic: Yes, the Keepkey is a worthless black bricklet (Read 582 times)

I now have an OTG cable, so I tested the Keepkey with Mycelium on Android: it connects, then tells me there is no Account. I haven't funded it yet, and Mycelium calls it "cold storage", so I'm not sure if this is the expected behaviour. It would be nice if I can use the Keepkey to receive funds through Mycelium. Update: according to this Reddit post, it should be able to send and receive Bitcoin, but it also confirms Mycelium won't detect an account with 0 BTC. I'll have to Import a Keepkey account as read-only, but haven't tried that yet.

I noticed verifying the password on Keepkey takes a long time. I can't imagine a reason for that, entering the password is so easy, and after that I have to wait for what feels like 30 seconds (I didn't time it).

I also tested the Chrome app again. I didn't dare try Doge again, so I added Bitcoin Gold. After a few seconds, it said it's added. But it didn't show up
I tried again with Bitcoin Cash: that one actually shows up. But I have no use for it.

Then I tested beta.shapeshift.com, which, amazingly, shows a long list of accepted altcoins! I deposited some Doge, and was able to send it again. The fee was more than the usual 1 Doge, and I didn't see any way to choose it. That makes me worry about Bitcoin fees, so I didn't send any Bitcoin to the Keepkey.
But even though beta.shapeshift.com seems to work, it's quite annoying. After everything I do, I get a popup asking me to make an account (which means KYC) and get some of their own shittokens for free. If I click to add another Doge account, I get the same popup, but no new Doge account. Apparently they think I'll make an account if they show me the same annoying popup often enough. Instead, I put the black bricklet back in it's box
All in all it can work, but out of all software options the only one that works is designed to convince you to use Shapeshift. Why am I even surprised?
That's too bad though, because the device itself works much nicer than my Ledger. I really don't like entering a PIN using Ledger's 2 small buttons, and scrolling addresses to confirm on the small display isn't ideal either. Too bad Coinomi doesn't support Keepkey, that would be a good GUI to use.

That's what I did. Shipping was many times more though.

Nothing much to expect from them when you know that at one point you could order Keepkey wallet for as little as $5 

It's supported.

It's not in the list.

I bought it. In Bitcoin, it wasn't expensive But still the price of many, many paper wallets

The Great Doge coin is probably not supported with all the new and frequent code updates  
Maybe you can try again with testnet Bitcoin, if that is even possible.

I hope you all didn't buy that worthless black bricklet 

I didn't consult Google when I was having my issues with the Keepkey, but I assumed I wasn't alone as far as all the frustration and disappointment was concerned. 

Not sure if you're into meditation or hypnosis, but you could use it as a point of focus since it's never going to disappear.  Then again, it might not help you to relax at all since it's a reminder of how shitty the Keepkey is and of the time you've wasted on it.  Good luck using it as a travel wallet, and I mean that sincerely.  If you do end up having a positive experience with it, please revisit this thread and tell us how it's going. 

Yeah, that whole thing looked pretty messed up to me and put a sour taste in my mouth instantly.  It was all downhill after that, and at this point my Keepkey is probably rotting away in whatever dump my garbage goes to.  RIP, little useless brick.

I finally had the pleasure to test my Keepkey. Brand new out of the box, I had to upgrade the firmware. That took a while, but it worked. After writing down seed words, it shows a Bitcoin wallet. When I try to add a Doge wallet (for low-fee testing), it gets stuck at "Loading Accounts". After a while I unplugged it, tried again, and got the same result. Google tells me I'm not alone. That confirms the "worthless black brick"

I wasn't disappointed: entering the PIN code by clicking on a PC is faster than using 2 small buttons on Ledger. Once I have a cable to connect it, I'll see if it works with Mycelium on mobile. If it works I can keep it as a more secure travel wallet, although it's a bit big. I'm not sure what to do with the "Loading Accounts" thing.

When a WALLET requires KYC, it is no longer a wallet. No ducking or dodging by talking about mergers please.

I have my hardware wallet connected to a separate cable that I plug into a USB extension cable so that the micro-USB connector doesn't get worn out.

Side note, a co-worker just had some issues with his keepkey, no response / heartbeat from the usb plug.
Took it apart figuring that the solder connections were bad. (That's just about the limit of my repair ability)
Board actually cracked at the connection point.

So no matter what hardware wallet you use, when inserting the usb plug, don't be The Hulk.

-Dave

Yes, the KeepKey is compatible with Bip39 passphrase, and it's pretty simple to set up using Electrum or the Chrome extension.  I have not tried to use the ShapShift app set up passphrases, so I don't know if that's possible.    

In the Chrome extension you click on the gear (settings) and, IRRC it's under the advanced menu.

In Electrum you click on the little KeepKey logo in the bottom right had corner of the window, which will bring up the hardware wallet's settings dialog box.  You can manage your pin and your Bip39 passphrase under the "Advanced" tab.  Once the passphrase has been established, to log into passphrase enabled wallet files a dialog box will pop up on the host computer for you to enter your passphrase.  You do so by entering it into the keyboard, just like with the Trezor One.

So I did some digging and yes, it is possible to extract the seed (and bruteforce the PIN) from the KeepKey...

https://blog.kraken.com/post/3245/flaw-found-in-keepkey-crypto-hardware-wallet/
https://blog.kraken.com/post/3248/flaw-found-in-keepkey-crypto-hardware-wallet-part-2/

But like the Trezor... if you have a (strong) passphrase set, you should be "OK"

I've not used a KeepKey, with it's "native UI" or Electrum... so I'm not sure exactly how "clunky" it is to use a passphrase with this device... with the Trezor ONE it's relatively simple... if somewhat vulnerable to keylogging.

Any KeepKey owners can comment? Do you put it in with the device or via the computer keyboard like Trezor One?

That's still not possible to do with a strong enough password, perhaps this video from computerphile may be helpful: https://youtu.be/3NjQ9b3pgIg

Also, I thought they did something to fix the voltage a while ago or was that with ledgers same vulnerability?

I assume that the KeepKey, being based on the same hardware as Trezor, suffers from the same security vulnerability as the Trezor devices (voltage glitching to extract seed)?

Glad I didn't even bother getting any of these when they were being sold at a discounted price.


That is incorrect.

Ledger's Secure Element uses closed hardware and closed source software, you win some, you lose some.

You don't need a 37 character long passphrase to protect your seed, that would give you security comparable to a passphrase wherein 24 words are randomly chosen out of a set of 2048 words, so 256 bits of entropy. A passphrase much shorter or much less complex than that is still going to provide adequate security, 5-6 words randomly chosen out of a set of 300k words will provide 90.97–109.16 bits of security. Good luck with accessing the seed even with such a 'weak' passphrase.

I haven't suffered these same issues when using the KeepKey.

I was able to connect to ShapeShift using Chrome and you only need to register to ShapeShift if you want to exchange cryptocurrencies as far as I'm aware.

Realistically you need to balance the fact that the KeepKey is arguably the cheapest wallet on the market nowadays, the 50% off voucher going around makes it under $20 which is pretty crazy.

Sure it hasn't got amazing security and doesn't support many assets, but it's a decent first step for noobs and certainly more secure than most software wallets.

Definitely a decent stopgap for those savings for a better wallet like the Ledger Nano X.

It can be used without KYC if it's used with Electrum or the KeepKey Chrome extension, which is still available in the app store.  It's not so much that the hardware wallet itself requires KYC for any reason, but rather ShapeShift.com does.  ShapeShift purchased or merged with KeepKey a little over a year ago, and they are marketing the service and the wallet as a package deal.

I'm not a user of Trezor, but from what I can read passphrase can be up to 50 characters long, and PIN can be up to nine digits long. What exactly do you mean when you say "can't be longer than 20 characters", I must admit I do not understand.

However it turns out, if users in not set strong passphrase and his device is stolen/lost, with little knowledge and in a fairly inexpensive way seed can be extracted, and weak passphrase brute-forced = coin lost.

I have one of those, but until now didn't install it. I was worried about the KYC-thing when I bought it, but from a quick search it looked like it can still be used without KYC.
So quick question: can it or can it not be used without KYC? If it can't, there's literally no use left for the thing. Cold storage is supposed to be private.

It can be used as decoy if you ever face the 5$ wrench issue. Just give them your KeepKey