Customer Bitcoin balances, according to the companys chief financial officer Christoph Iwaniez, are booked directly on the Blockchain via a multi-signature wallet, allowing customers to be fully in control of their wallets at all times.
This part sounds to good to be true, without any details, i would assume the bank either :
1. generate private key and give it to user
2. giving user closed source wallet and send the private key to their server
what it probably means is that either:
- user has 1 key, and Bitwala have another, 1 key unlocks user wallet
- user has 1 key, and Bitwala have 1 key, a 3rd key is held by an "independent arbitrator" (approved by Bitwala or German banking regulator etc), 2 keys needed to unlock user wallet
and it's probably the latter option.
in other words, the 2nd or 3rd keys will be used to "keep depositors safe". Of course, that can also stop the user from being able to withdraw their own money as the see fit. But Bitwala will (naturally) say "we only prevent withdrawals if we detect untoward behavior with a customer account", which can mean anything they want it to in practice
whatever multi-sig scheme they're using, it means only one thing: you need them to agree when
you spend
"your" money
dunno about you folks, but that doesn't correspond to my definition of "my money", it belongs as much to Bitwala as it does to me.
welcome to bitcoinbank, banks 2.0