Introducing FROST, a secure & offline cold storage wallet for IOTA.
I’ve been a very big proponent of cryptocurrency ever since I discovered Bitcoin in early 2011. My starting project in the crypto-sphere even won me the the 1st Coinbase Hackathon.
More recently though, I’ve jumped on the IOTA bandwagon. The cutting edge technology & team behind the project seem promising. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a convenient way to securely store IOTA for the long term and that’s where Frost comes in.
Say Hello To Frost!
Frost creates and reads encrypted IOTA seeds. With Frost you can quickly create a cold wallet for prolonged IOTA safe keeping.
What is a cold wallet? A cold wallet is the most secure way of storing a cryptocurrency. The seed/private key generation is done offline and the wallet remains “cold” until funds are spent from it.
A lot of time went into keeping the UI clean and simple. As a result, users with little or no technical background can generate encrypted IOTA wallets in just a few seconds. You can try the full working wallet in any modern web browser by visiting the following URL: http://frostwallet.info
How secure is Frost?
At it’s core, Frost is a decentralized app. There is no website, server, or company powering the project. Your IOTA are not generated or stored on a server and your wallet cannot be “leaked” in a hack.
The 100% open & complete source code can be found on GitHub: https://github.com/zachalam/frost
IMPORTANT NOTE: Using cryptocurrencies (including IOTA) does involve risk. Take precautions when using ANY wallet to reduce chance of loss.
How can I keep my IOTA safe?
The security of Frost (and any wallet) depends on you. Here’s a quick checklist of things you can do to keep your wallet safe.
- Disconnect from the Internet before generating/accessing wallets.
- Use a UNIQUE & secure password to encrypt your wallet (10+ characters, letters, numbers, special characters).
- Keep secure copies of your wallet in multiple safe places (where they cannot touch the Internet).
- DO NOT REUSE COLD WALLETS. By definition a wallet is no longer “cold” once you’ve spent funds from it. ALWAYS generate a new cold wallet after this happens.
So, how about a “Hot” wallet?
I’m honestly hoping that Frost is just the start. If we can attract enough community adoption I would love to take things to the next level. What does this mean? Simply put: I will dedicate time and resources towards the development of a hot IOTA wallet. This wallet will be be able to send/receive funds, do the transaction POW, and attach to tangle.
Stay tuned for updates!
