British bitcoin exchange CoinCorner has debuted a multisig BTC custody service that splits control of customer keys between the Isle of Man exchange and its US partner AnchorWatch — with holdings insured by Lloyd’s of London.
The service charges 1.5% a year and is pitched at owners who want cold-storage security without managing hardware themselves, the Isle of Man-based company announced Tuesday.
Its new service comes following the Coldcard wallet hack — where bitcoin holders using a single signature wallet lost funds after hackers were able to exploit the popular products due to a firmware bug in the devices that lead to a weak seed generation. About $115 million was lost in the theft.
“Vault offers a simple non-technical setup for customers, and partnering with AnchorWatch means we can offer fully insured, multi-signature custody with the simplicity our customers expect from CoinCorner,” CoinCorner CEO Danny Scott said in a statement.
Customers can open a Vault and deposit whatever amount they choose, but the bitcoin doesn’t move into the insured wallet immediately, CoinCorner said.
Rather, transfers typically happen on the first working day of the following month, and holdings are verifiable on-chain via a wallet address CoinCorner provides.
Top-ups are allowed anytime, the companies said, Customers define their own identity verification rules before funds can move.
CoinCorner added that it is the first service of its kind globally.
Multisig has long been the security-conscious Bitcoin holder’s answer to single-key risk but has also been dismissed as too fiddly for anyone but the technically committed: setting one up traditionally means assembling several hardware devices, generating and backing up multiple private keys and keeping track of which key sits where.
CoinCorner and AnchorWatch are aiming to simplify things. Vault handles key distribution on the customer’s behalf, leaving them with the security properties of multisig without the setup that has kept most people away from it.