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Gridlock Crypto Wallet: How This Social Recovery Wallet is Better Than Cold Storage

25 Apr 2022

Gridlock, a fast-growing blockchain startup, has developed a social recovery wallet with cold-wallet and hot-wallet usability, so easy that anyone can keep their crypto safe.

Why Gridlock focuses on security

Crypto wallet hacks have been a common point of contention since the birth of Bitcoin. With billions of dollars in crypto stolen over the years, the need for security over your assets becomes more and more apparent. Despite the crypto landscape maturing with more investment in the space over the past few years, losses appear to be an even more common occurrence.

Better security needs to be a priority. Gridlock has designed a crypto wallet that focuses on making cutting-edge crypto security available to the masses. It's a new type of hot wallet with enhanced security functions.

  • A user's private key is split into five pieces to eliminate any single point of failure.
  • Each key share is distributed between the user, Gridlock, and selected individuals.

digital cubes in black with light blue light connected by a digital network

Gridlock's new model shows that seed phrases are a dated concept. They are challenging to manage and a liability to the owner. This risk is not the only concern with hot wallets, but something that has continued to cause problems and millions in lost or stolen cryptocurrencies.

If a private key is held on any device connected to the internet, it is at risk. Experts notice this issue and often opt for hardware crypto wallets or 'cold storage' to remedy concerns about hacks. Cold storage is usually preferred because it is physical and disconnected from the internet, but there are still many risks with cold storage.

For example, what happens if the cold wallet is destroyed? For those with cold storage, when was the last time you practiced recovery? Cold wallets work for those comfortable with complex technology, but it's risky and tedious to take on personal ownership of crypto security. Gridlock fixes that.  

So, how does Gridlock's crypto wallet combat the issues highlighted with existing methods of crypto storage? First, it's a mobile app for iOS and Android, meaning users can access their crypto anywhere and can use social recovery in the case of a lost or compromised device. But Gridlock also enables crypto holders to maintain full and secure access to their crypto, even if their device is lost or compromised. It all happens through Social Recovery.

What is Social Recovery?

Social Recovery is the process of recovering access to your crypto assets after losing a device or having it compromised. In the early days of seed phrases, if you lost your private keys that would be the end. But with Gridlock's Social Recovery wallet, recovery can easily be initiated by anyone in your Guardian network. Guardians are holders of the key shares that together make up your private keys. They can be individuals that you know and trust, or crypto companies that you select to be a Partner Guardian. No one Guardian can know of the others or control access to your crypto. BUT - any one of them can initiate the social verification process so you can quickly recover your crypto assets.

Gridlock, a fast-growing blockchain startup, has developed a social recovery wallet with cold-wallet and hot-wallet usability, so easy that anyone can keep their crypto safe.

Why Gridlock focuses on security

Crypto wallet hacks have been a common point of contention since the birth of Bitcoin. With billions of dollars in crypto stolen over the years, the need for security over your assets becomes more and more apparent. Despite the crypto landscape maturing with more investment in the space over the past few years, losses appear to be an even more common occurrence.

Better security needs to be a priority. Gridlock has designed a crypto wallet that focuses on making cutting edge crypto security available to the masses. It's a new type of hot wallet with enhanced security functions.

  • A user's private key is split into five pieces to eliminate any single point of failure.
  • Each key share is distributed between the user, Gridlock, and selected individuals.
Gridlock's new model shows that seed phrases are a dated concept. They are challenging to manage and a liability to the owner. This risk is not the only concern with hot wallets, but something that has continued to cause problems and millions in lost or stolen cryptocurrencies.

If a private key is held on any device connected to the internet, it is at risk. Experts notice this issue and often opt for hardware crypto wallets or 'cold storage' to remedy concerns about hacks. Cold storage is usually preferred because it is physical and disconnected from the internet, but there are still many risks with cold storage.

For example, what happens if the cold wallet is destroyed? For those with cold storage, when was the last time you practiced recovery? Cold wallets work for those comfortable with complex technology, but it's risky and tedious to take on personal ownership of crypto security. Gridlock fixes that.  

How Gridlock Wallet improves on existing methods of crypto storage

So, how does Gridlock crypto wallet combat the issues highlighted with existing methods of crypto storage? First, it's a mobile app for iOS and Android, meaning users can access their crypto anywhere and can use social recovery in the case of a lost or compromised device. But Gridlock also enables crypto holders to maintain full and secure access to their crypto, even if their device is lost or compromised. It all happens through Social Recovery.

What is Social Recovery?

Social Recovery is the process of recovering access to your crypto assets after losing a device or having it compromised. In the early days of seed phrases, if you lost your private keys that would be the end. But with Gridlock's Social Recovery wallet, recovery can easily be initiated by anyone in your Guardian network.

Guardians are holders of the key shares that together make up your private keys. They can be individuals that you know and trust, or crypto companies that you select to be a Partner Guardian. No one Guardian can know of the others or control access to your crypto. BUT - any one of them can initiate the social verification process so you can get quickly recover your crypto assets.

In order to transfer a wallet to a new device or do anything involving account security, for that matter, the user needs permission from their friends (guardians). Social recovery is a feature that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin champions. However, it needs to be widely adopted in crypto wallets before the public can have safe and recoverable storage.

Gridlock's social recovery techniques optimize the trend started by companies like Argent, whose Ethereum-only wallet has received some backlash.

Gridlock crypto wallet offers flexibility and a variety of tokens. Gridlock guardians have a host of features that make them ideal for security:

  • Social recovery
  • Suspicious activity monitoring
  • Non-custodial key share hosting
  • Multi-Party Computation (MPC) transaction signing using Threshold Signatures.

What are Threshold Signatures?

With threshold signatures, a hacker must compromise multiple devices to steal funds because crypto keys are spread throughout their network. Only the network owner can bring together the pieces to make transactions.

Thanks to Guardian Recovery, any part of a Gridlock network can be recovered or replaced if it goes missing. The concept of key splitting has been seen before, like in Shamir's Secret Sharing. However, Gridlock fixes a security flaw in these other technologies: the key is split in one location and then distributed. They fix this with Distributed Key Generation. Partial key generation occurs on each device, and all devices then communicate to derive the official crypto key. With this method, the key is never in one place, even during the initial generation.

Gridlock combines the positives of cold and hot wallets while eliminating the negatives. Could Gridlock have finally cracked the code on crypto security? The app is free to use, easy to use, and highlights simplicity as one of the core design concepts.

The CEO of Gridlock, Derek Rodriguez, shares how a personal loss of funds inspired him to start the company:

"In 2009, I mined Bitcoin and lost what would be the equivalent of $3 million today. Almost everyone I speak to has or knows someone who has lost their cryptocurrency. I wanted to design something that removes any single point of failure in security, and Gridlock does just that." - Derek Rodriguez, CEO, Gridlock

Gridlock crypto wallet currently offers storage of Ethereum, Solana, many ERC20 tokens, and even NFTs. Many more coins are coming in the near future and, of course, DeFi integration throughout the space. The team is working hard to bring this technology to the masses because it is exactly what the crypto world is missing.

Easy and secure ownership is needed in the crypto space and Gridlock has offered their solution. Try it today - Download Gridlock Wallet.

To transfer a wallet to a new device or do anything involving account security, for that matter, the user needs permission from their friends (guardians).

Social recovery is a feature that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin champions. However, it needs to be widely adopted in crypto wallets before the public can have safe and recoverable storage.

Gridlock's social recovery techniques optimize the trend started by companies like Argent, whose Ethereum-only wallet has received some backlash.

Gridlock crypto wallet offers flexibility and a variety of tokens. Gridlock guardians have a host of features that make them ideal for security:

  • Social recovery
  • Suspicious activity monitoring
  • Non-custodial key share hosting
  • Multi-Party Computation (MPC) transaction signing using Threshold Signatures.

With threshold signatures, a hacker must compromise multiple devices to steal funds because crypto keys are spread throughout their network. Only the network owner can bring together the pieces to make transactions.

a digital network of devices

Thanks to Guardian Recovery, any part of a Gridlock network can be recovered or replaced if it goes missing. The concept of key splitting has been seen before, like in Shamir's Secret Sharing. However, Gridlock fixes a security flaw in these other technologies: the key is split in one location and then distributed. They fix this with Distributed Key Generation. Partial key generation occurs on each device, and all devices then communicate to derive the official crypto key. With this method, the key is never in one place, even during the initial generation.

Gridlock combines the positives of cold and hot wallets while eliminating the negatives. Could Gridlock have finally cracked the code on crypto security? The app is free to use, easy to use, and highlights simplicity as one of the core design concepts.

The CEO of Gridlock, Derek Rodriguez, shares how a personal loss of funds inspired him to start the company:

"In 2009, I mined Bitcoin and lost what would be the equivalent of $3 million today. Almost everyone I speak to has or knows someone who has lost their cryptocurrency. I wanted to design something that removes any single point of failure in security, and Gridlock does just that." - Derek Rodriguez, CEO, Gridlock

Gridlock crypto wallet currently offers storage of Ethereum, Solana, many ERC20 tokens, and even NFTs. Many more coins are coming in the near future and, of course, DeFi integration throughout the space. The team is working hard to bring this technology to the masses because it is exactly what the crypto world is missing.

Easy and secure ownership is needed in the crypto space and Gridlock has offered their solution. Try it today - Download Gridlock Wallet.


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Written by Reid Zedkongor

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Reid Zedkongor is peeling away layers of confusion around blockchain and cybersecurity. With a computer engineering background, he can dive into the details of crypto complexities to make crypto adoption easy for everyone. In his free time, he often reads fiction or enjoys a good laugh over a beer.

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