Tangem Wallet 2.0: Low Cost, Simple, Mobile Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallet (Unbox, Setup & Review) 

Thanks... There are certainly a lot of folk who mindlessly plug this as the best option ever chasing those affiliate sales... (Compounded by the fact that there is no real incentive for most folk to publish a video that won't drive affiliate sales)

Yea it's certainly something that will meet the needs of some users. I was going over the SDK when I was putting this together and it seems to me that they could actually provide a workflow that allowed a user to basically start an the app, verify the authenticity of the apps, then take it offline for the seed generation and backup step. (I didn't notice the line that calls home to their servers during the backup step until earlier today)

This would definitively be an improvement and a good suggestion for Tangem. I was a bit disappointed that I had to go online during the card setup. As you mentioned - it’s comprehensible for the verification step but seed phrase and backup should be possible offline.

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No reason to not go by the list near the end of this video. Bitcoin exclusive, air gapped... Cold card and keystone and really why choose anything else? If you choose a seed phrase I don't see a good reason to use tangem If you don't want to deal with a seed phrase then like you said three cards is the only option, and I think really the only thing to do with tangem... Their original intent. A seed phrase on your phone is ridiculous. Defeats the whole purpose. Should only be generated offline. Larger amounts of crypto should have higher security, not tangem, but no seed phrase for anybody to access is a great advantage... But now you have to trust three cards indefinitely... And should certainly check a few of them periodically. Let one of them sit in your bank. At least they were smart enough to have an option for seed phrase versions having no recovery ability with two cards. Would be pretty stupid to have a seed phrase version and be compromised by two cards anyway just like their original 1.0.

Yea it really does seem that the seed compatibility being added was mostly an afterthought for marketing sake, with a fairly insecure implementation to boot...

Any microSD adapter will be fine. :)

That's exactly right and I don't think they have nearly enough warnings about it. (I have been lurking in their subreddit and Telegram groups and many users are totally unaware of how this works) That said, you can disable the access code recovery for specific cards now with the v2, so that is very good. (So you could leave it on for some backup that is in a very secure place and leave it off for others, etc) Recovery seed backup makes the card based recovery less important, but the challenge with their screen less approach means that the seed based method is less secure for reasons outlined in the video)

No

No plans at this stage, it doesn't follow standards...

Yep, once the initial setup has happened you can use any of the cards with any phone and it will "just work"

It's just a one time purchase

Probably not, it's extremely overpriced and doesn't offer anything at all to justify the cost...

Not really, but if this accepting the official firmware then at least the code on the main MCU is official

@@CryptoGuide should I return it or use it?

It's your call, but they may not accept the return from the sound of it. (Though they do advertise it as part of their security they offer, so I don't think it's unreasonable to expect/require them to actually deliver...)

Only on the 2.0 cards

@@CryptoGuide ah right, I have a 2.0 card, it does say 2.0 in the title, now I am confused. Anyways. Nice video. I'm happy with my decision so far to use one.

Yea as long as you are aware of the shortcomings these are fine for small/medium amounts of funds.

@@CryptoGuide I guess you'd have to define both small and medium, and why not large? If you're confident in your ability to keep your cards safe and secure, then why not larger amounts? Again, speaking on the 2.0 3 card set.

It's a blind signer, so that on its own makes it unsuitable for larger amounts. (Anything over 10k USD) Edit: That backup scheme is also a problem in that if you want actual cold wallet security, you need to use the on-card backup method, for which you are unable to make additional replacement cards as they fail over time. (So basically you would need to check your backups annually and then manually move all funds to a new set if any cards fail)

No, it's only an extremely basic device.

If they are just v1 cards (or you didn't disable the access code recovery for v2 cards) you can just do the access code recovery process.

It's only an very basic device, so looks like you can store cardano but not stake it or anything.

:)

@@CryptoGuide We Yanks have upgraded our English from Old School Britannia to better coordinate our crypto communications 😘 now go buy one of those really cool Perth mint kangaroo gold coins... Or Bitcoin 😘

I'll stick with Bitcoin ;)

Because it almost certainly isn't the most secure ;) The main reason is that there are plenty of obscure wallets out there, including a few that I own that aren't on the table, but I have never struck someone using the bitfi...

@@CryptoGuide The keys are not on the BITFI 2 wallet which makes it uncrackable. You cannot say it isn't the most secure if you haven't bothered to try it. May be your reluctance is because Bitfi doesn't offer incentives to RU-vidrs?

It's not a actually a cold device, so isn't really in the same security category as proper hardware wallets. Their previous device has all sorts of vulnerabilities, so hopefully they learned from that. The key issue seems to be that they are doing something proprietary for backups, rather than following established standards, and the links to the recovery tools don't work... Certainly doesn't inspire confidence... I cover plenty of DIY stuff which has zero incentive (and costs me money) and also have videos (like this tangem one) that are seen as some as quite negative... So if you want to think it's about a lack of incentive then nothing will change your mind...

@@CryptoGuide Have you bought and tried Bitfi?

Nope, but the information on their website makes it pretty clear that it is a good device to avoid. (Especially when you consider how much of a disaster their first device was) If I end up with a consultation or support session where someone is using one, I might consider it, but haven't seen any one actually using these in the wild...

They are identical except for the ability to initialise with seed (Which is implemented in an unsafe way for 2.0 cards) and the ability to disable the access code recovery feature for some cards.

no way. then please hack my tangem 2.0.which i have with me. give a try​@@CryptoGuide

Basically it's still vulnerable in a few ways. Basically if you used the seed based method, then the seed is how hot and is only as secure as the device you used. For the actual operation of the app itself, it's all blind signing, so a single piece of malicious software on the system you are using with it could take your funds. Tangem is fine for small/medium amounts, but for anything more, you will want a proper hardware wallet.

i have 25000$ and please take just 1 $ out of it. talk is cheap, show me practically

That isn't how this works, but also doesn't mean anything with regards to be being secure... (You would probably be no worse off just using TrustWallet) Do you understand what the difference is between a hot wallet and a cold wallet? Do you understand what it means that the Tangem cards just blind sign? The best place to start is to have a look at my older video on malware vs hardware wallet. The Ledger prevents the malware from being able to send funds to a scammer, a Tangem would have just sent them no questions asked...