Alternative Wallets: Subdermal NFC chip
How to keep your Bitcoins and Altcoins safe? How to escape from hacking, theft or exchange failures?
For the time being, the outstanding wallets are online (hot-wallet) or offline (cold-wallet — see the Ledger Nano article) but there seems to be an alternative wallet: The Subdermal Microchip!
Exactly! These are microchips implanted under the skin which have the ability to store encrypted Bitcoin private-keys.
It happened in 2014, when Martijn Wismeijer aka Mr. Bitcoin, a Dutchman entrepreneur, had two NFC (near field communication) chips surgically implanted in the back of each his hand, during a biohacking event organized by Permanent Beta.
On IBTimes UK, Wismeijer declares as follows:
“I did it because I wanted to experiment with storing bitcoins using subdermal implants because that’s what I thought would like be the Holy Grail of contactless payments.”
The chip is a tiny glass capsule 2x12mm that contains a RFID tag (radiofrequency identification) — a programmable smart barcode, historically associated with tracking pets and retail products.
It receives power and data from the associated devices (smartphones and tablets) via its NFC antenna. — The NFC chips store 888 bytes of data each, which is enough space for 26 encrypted Bitcoin address keys.
The use of a smartphone is necessary in order to make transactions, decrypting the keys, or to replace the keys, perhaps with new one keys for other cryptocurrencies remotely.
Wismeijer, after his statements to the media, has decided to never store large amounts of cryptocurrencies on his chips under the skin, to avoid being targeted by any petty thieves, but claims that he is not the only one who stores the digital currencies in this way.
In fact, at his company General Bytes, a company that installs Bitcoin ATMs in various parts of the world, it seems that many of its employees in 2014 already have followed his example. In fact, Wismeijer claimed to know at least 50 persons using subcutaneous bitcoin wallets.
Safety is also important for this type of wallet, for this reason it is necessary to be discreet and not to disclose its existence within one’s own body.
In addition, Wismeijer said that the engineer Amal Graafstra, NFC chip inventor, is working on new models, trying to increase the memory amount. Of course the installation in the body will be even more difficult because instead of being injected, they will probably have to be unfolded under the skin.
Therefore, it seems that technology specialists are experimenting this sector with new possibilities, discovering new uses such as using NFC tags on a wireless lock for the home and as an alarm switch.
But, actually, none of this has been formalized yet.
It could be an alternative and exciting idea for many, but the intervention itself, although approved by the FDA, does not seem to be risk-free, with some studies potentially linking NFC chips to cancer.
CONCLUSION
Of course, every intervention is actually risky, but as we all know when fashion calls, the human follows the trend. But imagine, if fashion switch from aesthetical surgical interventions to digital gold custody interventions, what will it happen? And, if from silicone injection, would we switch to the multi-functional technological chip injection?
To date, we don’t know how many people own the NFC chip injected into their body. We don’t know how many people have chosen the alternative subdermal wallet to keep safe their bitcoins and cryptocurrencies.
What we know is that technology is making giant strides in our beloved crypto sector, to protect every bitcoiner and, consequently, the entire decentralized Blockchain eco-system!
CREDITS
This article was originally written in Italian and translated in English by Stefania Stimolo for NovaMining.
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