Hexa’s New Backup Scheme
When we launched the Distributed Seedless Backup scheme, we got some great feedback on the technical breakthrough. For the first time, the backup scheme in a bitcoin wallet was made resilient, live and without a single point of failure. You all showed your love with your comments and reviews.
But there was something wrong. People were not really using the backup scheme. We spoke to more people, dug in, and this is what we learned. The wallet is designed for newcoiners who are most likely experiencing bitcoin for the very first time. They are not necessarily sure if they want to stack sats or how much they want to. So when it came to our ‘secure distributed backup’, it seemed to be a bit too much for them, especially when they had no sats to secure. This is similar to what most people do when wallets ask them to write down the seed words. They never do that, or if forced, they write it at the back of an envelope and eventually lose it.
What was needed was a backup mechanism that grows with the user. This is why we now have three levels of backup.
Level 1 — Automated Cloud Backup
This is the first level of the wallet’s security mechanism. When a new wallet is installed, the user is asked to back it up on their cloud storage. We’ve created this system keeping in mind the feedback we received from new users who were starting to dabble in Bitcoin. Level 1 backup entirely does away with any effort on the users’ part to back up the wallet. All they have to do is allow Hexa to backup the wallet on their cloud.
Level 2 — Double Backup
The second level of the wallet backup uses a mechanism wherein a user can share 2 Recovery Keys. As the name suggests, Recovery Keys help users recover a wallet in case of loss. 1 Recovery Key is shared with a trustworthy contact person also running Hexa while the other is stored on another phone, also running Hexa. A user is encouraged to upgrade to Level 2 when they have a decent amount of sats in their wallet. A simple definition of “decent” being an amount that users do not mind losing but still wouldn’t want to.
Level 3 — Multi-key Backup
The highest level of security currently is the Multi-Key Backup. This level requires a user to share two more Recovery Keys. Any 3 of the 5 Keys could be used to recover a wallet. We recommend Level 3 backup to people who have a significant amount of sats in the wallet. “Significant” again is self-defined, of course. Still, to give an arbitrary ballpark, it could be a year’s worth of salary!
This feature is still in beta as we clean up some of the UX and minor defects. Please try it out and provide us with your feedback.
More about Hexa Wallet: www.hexawallet.io
Contact Us: https://t.me/HexaWallet
Twitter: @HexaWallet
