Keepkey Bitcoin Wallet Review

The Keepkey Wallet is one of the most recognized hardware wallets out there for Bitcoin holders. If you have an interest in owning and investing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, you must have come across the name somewhere on the Internet. If not, we got you covered. In this post, we analyze the Keepkey Wallet and try to decide whether it’s a good choice or not. You are welcome.

General Product Information

Keepkey was founded by Darin Stanchfield sometime in 2015 as an alternative to TREZOR and Ledger, the top hardware wallets at the time. Currently, the management team consists of 3 people in total with the other two being Kenneth Heutmaker, Director of Engineering and Dough Miller, Director of Strategy & Business Development.

Like any other hardware safe, Keepkey is meant to keep your currency away from the reach of hackers and online scammers by requiring you to physically sign off on every transaction (that is, physically keying in your pin on the device to enable transactions) before it happens as opposed to doing it over the web where hackers can get access to your keys and steal your coins.

Keepkey Features

The device can store a variety of altcoins in addition to bitcoins, such as Dash, NameCoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and DogeCoin.

What’s more, you can still use the device even when your computer contains malware or viruses, and your currency will still be safe. Talking about computers, the Keepkey wallet works on different operating systems including Mac, Linux, and Windows and also comes with a one year warranty from date of purchase.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have its own web wallet like TREZOR but is compatible with some web wallets, most notably MultiBit and Electrum. These enable you to easily send/receive coins from your computer.

Security

The initializing process is the beginning of securing your assets. This is done by the Keepkey with the use of its hardware known as random-number generator in combination with randomness given out by your computer, forms a special private key which is more or less your private access code.

This private key is securely stored in your Keepkey, with no intention of leaving. Your Keepkey therefore is PIN-protected meaning that even if it is stolen, it is useless to the thief since you are the one with the PIN.

In cases where your keepkey is stolen or lost, you can safely recover your device without in any way, putting its private keys at risk. All you need is to remember your recovery sentence.

Setting up Keepkey

Setting up your Keepkey should not be a problem. First of all, you need to have the Keepkey, a computer, a USB cable, an updated Google Chrome browser, a recovery card and a pen and a piece of paper to note down your recovery code.

First, connect the device to your computer using the USB cable. Then key in the URL provided on the user manual on your browser (preferably Chrome), and it will lead you to a page from where you can download the corresponding Chrome extension. Lastly, you will be prompted to download the Keepkey Proxy App and your Keepkey is as well as ready.

For the initializing part, you need a working Internet connection to be able to create a PIN, generate your private keys and a recovery key to give you access to your account when you lose the device. And with that, your Keepkey is initialized and you can begin to transact.

User reviews

To give you an idea of what it feels like to Keepkey, here are a few comments left on Amazon by Keepkey users:

“This device is totally turnkey. Plug it in, update it, initialize it, and use it. Using with no issues across a PC and a MAC. Not much to it, but that is the beauty and elegance of it. I would be interested in an Android + OTG cable solution for portable use. UPDATE: The USB cable that comes with this is pretty nice – fabric covered. Mine went bad, and they quickly sent me two replacements via FedEx. So their support seems very responsive as well.”

“Pretty much turn key. Download the Chrome extension, throw some BTC on it, unplug, and forget. Cold storage made simple. Only down point is that you have to use Chrome. Most Mac people probably use Safari as default. I recommend this as long as you can justify the price. Revision…I bought this little over a month ago and now the price plummeted to $99 from $236??? Are you kidding me? The component cold stores bitcoins and sits in my safe. I want a refund or a discount! This is poor customer service. Revision 3/28/16…KeepKey was quick to respond to my ticket regarding the matter and made things right thus back up to 5 stars. Great customer service!”

However, with an Amazon rating of “just” 4.5 stars from more than 200 reviews, there are some negative Keepkey reviews as well, for example:

“I like the device. I think it is perfectly designed. Unfortunately, I don’t like the chrome extension. The competitor is doing better on that front. The have charts, send max (minus) fees, balance to fiat currencies etc.”

“This device lasted amost exactly year before resetting itself and going blank. When I attempt the recovery process, the mnemonic doesn’t work and the device will sometimes power off in the middle of recovery. I now have one bitcoin stuck on this garbage device. Thanks for nothing keepkey.”

To the last comment, Keepkey responded explaining that “This sometimes can be cause by a faulty cable.”

For more user reviews, check out Keepkey on Amazon.com.

Keepkey Review Conclusion

The Keepkey can be described as a pretty cool device. It’s small and cute and easy to use and most importantly, does a good job at keeping your coins safe. The only downside would be that it seems the product is currently unavailable. A message on Keepkey.com says “Out of Stock.”

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