1. Do you plan to be honest with your clients and say "please don't use our wallet with large amount of funds"? I disagree that your wallet has the same level of security compared to other wallets. Some missing security features you have: 100% airgapped, multisig, btc-only firmware, etc. Any guy on the street can force you to sign a transaction with your ring and you would lose all your funds.
2- I am talking about compatibility with open source software wallets like Sparrow, Nunchuk, Bluewallet, etc. Given that your code is close source, users have to trust 100% on you. How do they know that you are not a bad actor and have a copy of all generated private keys?
To be clear, you are not the only HW with these issues, Tangem and others have the same problems.
Hey, so let's talk a bit about this.
1. Our initial purpose is indeed to target either a) existing crypto users who don't use a hardware wallet already because they're too complicated b) new entrants in the crypto market and c) experienced users who want to have some amount of money with them on-the-go and have an easy way using it. This, however, is not to say that the security of the ring is bad. It's just our user target, at least initially. Let's break it down a bit.
- There is only a single vector of attack, namely NFC. There is no bluetooth, no internet, no inputs etc.
- The chip itself is certified as EAL6+, just for comparison purposes, Ledger is EAL5+. Furthermore, if somebody tries to say inject malicious code, initiate an unnaproved transaction etc through the only existing vector of attack (NFC), then the chip automatically burns itself if it is a real risk since these are chips used normally in bank cards, that's what they were initially designed for.
- Lastly, in terms of backup we use Shamir's Secret Sharing through the Ace Cards. This is arguably, at this moment, the most advanced and secure form of actually backing up a wallet at this point. Ledger doesn't even have the option for this, the only other one I'm aware of who does have this option is Trezor and even then, you must write them down on multiple pieces of paper; whereas we allow users to store them on Ace Cards, which is easier. Now, considering that even if somebody say steals your ringwallet they cannot use it unless they also simultaneously do the following: a) steal your paired phone, b) have your phone password c) have your app password and perhaps d) unless you go home, restore the wallet and move the money.
That is all to say, sure, that's our target audience. But at the very minimum this respects at least the same levels of security that any other hardware wallet does, if not more.
2. Ok so for the second question I am genuinely not sure if I understood it correctly, so I will try to answer what I understood.
a) If you mean that our software won't be compatible with other wallet like Ledger and Trezor, I believe that is exactly how Trezor and Ledger functions as well, I'm not aware of hardware wallet software that is cross-compatible with other devices.
b) Initially the code is closed-source, yet, but that is because we are waiting on our lawyers for a way to attribute a license to our code that will protect us for say 2 years from people using the code commercially, giving us time to work on a newer version before competitors can just fork our code. That is all to say, our end goal is to make the code open-source, and release new versions as open source constantly, just with a 2 or 3 year limitation against using it for commercial purposes. Either way, just to be clear, Tangem for example has 0 open-source code and as far as I am aware, 0 intention of actually making the code open-source. So even if we were to take that route, which I don't think we will, it's not something never seen before.
1. Trezor, Ledger etc are neither airgapped nor btc-only firmware. The only real difference could be multisig but I genuinely don't understand why you say it would be less secure? As for people forcing you to sign a transaction on the street, I seriously doubt that's a casual occurence, sure, there are edge-cases and dangerous locations where it could happen but it's just that, an improbable edge case. I genuinely believe it is much safer to have a ringwallet than any other software wallet (1), and in regards to comparisons with Ledger, Trezor etc the only differnece is you would have it on you, but say you have 2 rings, one you keep at home and one you keep on you. How is the one left at home any less safe than the likes of Ledger or Trezor? Considering it uses Shamir, the chip has a higher EAL rating and there's no bluetooth, wifi, inputs etc it's arguably safer than ledger or trezor.
To answer the question directly, we obviously don't recommend you go walk in a cartel-controlled neighbourhood with a ringwallet holding $1M on it, but that's completely unrelated to the technology or even the ring. You shouldn't go walk in that neighbourhoud, period. And if you do, you shouldn't have anything valuable on you, period. Because chances are whatever you have will be lost if you don't end up dead either way. Whether you have a trezor, ledger, ringwallet, nunchuck etc, the same would happen. That's not normal use case though. I highly doubt you'll be held at gunpoint on a random street/boulevard in the vast majority of countries for you to transfer the contents of your ringwallet. Especially because this is not something instant, it would take at the very least several minutes for the entire thing to happen; time in which what no one notices? It's just highly highly unlikely. And that's not even mentioning the fact that the ring has 0 markings on it of any way, there's just a very small logo on the
inside of the ring. That's all.
2. Nunchuck is also a NFC card so not sure how it's safer but that's not important; I doubt that nunchuck can be run on bluewallet or sparrow software; both of which are software-wallets and genuinely less safe than a hardware solution; pretty much any hardware solution.
As for the open source part, that I genuinely understand and agree with, but as mentioned, our plan is to make it open-source, I just want us to have some time-limited legal protection from competitors just forking our code the very next day. As for us having a copy of all generated private keys, we will be using the official industry standard SLIP-0039 implementation of Shamir's Secret from Satoshi Labs which is open source, the only difference being we store it on Ace Cards as opposed to a piece of paper. Either way, with a bit of luck on the legal side I'm hopeful that it won't be long before releasing the entire code as open-source.
Basically my only wish is for us to have a 2-3 year time horizon on every release before it can be forked in a commercially product, that's all. Which is a fair thing to want I believe.