Suppose you could travel back in time to 2010, how much Bitcoin would you buy?
Last updated
Last updated
Most people today would not hesitate to put all their money in Bitcoin if given a second chance. Let us assume we are back in 2010, and you have got your hands on one million Bitcoin. You would be faced with a dilemma that many people still have. Where do you store all these coins? How do you make sure they are still safely yours ten years later in 2021? We at Matrix AI Network think we have found the answer.
How much Bitcoin have people lost in the past ten years?
To put the importance of the first part into context we will briefly investigate the amount of Bitcoin that is presumed to be lost. Let us simply assume that each Bitcoin address that has not seen any change in a long while is a Bitcoin that has been lost. (There is no way to know for sure if these are really lost). Then a total of 5 million Bitcoin (or 200 billion dollars at today’s value) are in this limbo state, whether their private keys are lost for good, or their owners have simply forgotten about them. To put it into context that is more than the net worth of the wealthiest person in the world. Although your Bitcoin might not be worth much today, the future value is unknown and one would not want to lose access to them.
Where then is a safe place to keep all your Bitcoin?
Before we offer our solution, we go over some choices that are currently available.
1. PC wallets (for example Bitcoin Core), 1 star, not recommended.
PC wallets were a popular choice in the early years of Bitcoin. A PC wallet keeps your Bitcoin in your hard drive. Most of the presumed lost Bitcoin mentioned previously are stored in PC wallets. Of course, Bitcoin was not of much value in those days, and many people were simply in it for the hype, mined some Bitcoin on their PC and soon forgot about them. They would be in for significant disappointment many years later when they tried to gain access to their wallets. Even if they still had held onto their five/six-year-old ‘antique’ of a PC, they would soon discover that the hard drive is most likely worn out and useless.
Needless to say then, storing your precious coins in a PC wallet is the last thing we would recommend. The Internet is full of horror stories of people who had it all, but then lost it all in the space of just a few clicks.
Source：https://www.jinse.com/blockchain/563678.html
(This post tells the story of someone who used to have more than a hundred Bitcoin in his hard drive. He got himself another hard drive to backup those Bitcoin. For extra caution, he decided to format this new drive first to clear it of any malware. He unfortunately formatted the wrong one!)
Source：https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1664476519453821723&wfr=spider&for=pc
(This post mentions someone who mined a dozen Bitcoin back when mining was easy. Many years later, she realized she had long since forgotten her private key.)
2. Crypto exchanges (Binance etc), 3 stars.
If you plan to store a considerable number of crypto assets on a crypto exchange, you are advised to use caution. Incidences are not rare where crypto exchanges fall victim to theft, and losses are often staggering.
The Mt. Gox hack of 2014 saw 850,000 Bitcoin stolen. It dealt a heavy blow to the crypto industry and arguably was the trigger for the bear market that followed.
Even reputable exchanges like Binance have fallen victim to theft multiple times. Although to be fair, Binance always cover the loss, the takeaway here is that even powerful exchanges with talented and resourceful people are not always impregnable. Ironically, larger exchanges are more vulnerable as they often have more hackers eyeing their wealth.
But what about the smaller exchanges you ask? They could take all your crypto assets and disappear at any moment. There are far too many instances of this happening.
As we can see, although exchanges are convenient places for storing a small number of crypto assets that you plan on trading with, they are not the ideal choice for holding large quantities for the longer term.
3. Mobile wallet app (like Imtoken), 3 stars.
As the crypto market gets larger, more mobile wallet apps are being developed. These wallets range from centralized ones to decentralized ones. Like with exchanges, centralized wallets run the risk of being hacked. Decentralized wallets on the other hand are safe in most situations, but it is up to you, the user, to keep your private key safe. Most people write down their private keys on a piece of paper and stash it away in a presumably safe place, but this can also be lost or destroyed. Having your private key stolen or losing your phone would be a nightmare and very costly.
Today many people are in the habit of using mobile wallets casually not knowing that their asset safety is actually under threat. Practices such as neglecting to scan your phone regularly for viruses, sending a private key backup to yourself over the internet or storing it in a virtual cloud could all expose your assets to the possibility of being lost or stolen.
If you do choose to keep a physical copy of your private key, the challenge then becomes how to safeguard it against damage or theft. Essentially the same concerns you have for any material wealth you possess.
Therefore, mobile wallets are also not the best place to keep your assets, especially if you want to be sleeping peacefully at night.
4. Ordinary hardware wallets, 4 stars
There are a bunch of hardware wallet options available on the market at present and most could offer better protection than the mobile wallets described above. However, you still need to ensure that you can remember the password/PIN and mnemonic. Should you lose or misplace them, your assets are also likely gone for good.
Do any of these options seem ideal? Is there a wallet that is both more secure and easier to use? Let us welcome the Matrix Bio-Wallet.
5. Matrix Bio-Wallet, 5 stars, highly recommended
What is the Matrix Bio-Wallet?
Bio-wallets are devices that use biometric information as identifiers. The Matrix Bio-Wallet is a hardware wallet that revolves around finger vein recognition. It supports the unlocking of your wallet as well as the signing of transactions using one’s finger vein, thus saving people from the stress of having to remember a password/PIN, and more. In theory, you would never lose access to the Bio-Wallet by forgetting your password.
One may still wonder, how is finger vein recognition different from fingerprint recognition?
Simply put, the difference lies in the level of security.
Finger vein recognition works by sending a beam of infrared through your finger to get the image of your vein. It utilizes the latest and greatest biometric recognition technologies, and you can count on it to perform this with speed and precision.
As part of a living organism existing underneath your skin and tissues, your vein is impossible to replicate using non-living objects. Fingerprints on the other hand are easy to replicate and you cannot avoid leaving your fingerprint on various scanner surfaces, which could expose your assets to unwanted risk.
Besides, finger vein recognition is less affected by your finger’s condition in comparison to fingerprint recognition. The latter could be affected by water or dirt on the finger, or even skin damage. Not to mention that some people do not have distinguishing fingerprint features or even more extreme some people are born without fingerprints.
This table summarizes the comparison amongst different options.
Please stay tunned about our second and third article featuring the details of Matrix Biowallet and Business Value, which are to be released next week.
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Delete Finger Vein |
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Match Finger Vein |
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Register Finger Vein |
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Check Balance |
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Transact and Transfer |
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Back up Wallet |
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Import Wallet |
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Log onto Wallet |
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Create a Wallet |
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Hardware |
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Software |
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Service |
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Matrix Mainnet |
A Brief Summary
The Matrix Bio-Wallet is a point-based finger vein recognition wallet for storing your crypto assets. It will support various features built on the Matrix Mainnet.
After completion of finger vein registration features such as wallet creation, wallet login, wallet import, wallet backup, signing transactions, balance check, transaction history check, etc will all be supported.
Below we will briefly describe finger vein registration and wallet creation.
Creating a new wallet using the Matrix Bio-Wallet
Firstly, it is important to note that the application will generate a mnemonic. You should keep a copy of the mnemonic in a safe place, as this is the only guaranteed way to recover your wallet back. Similar to the Ledger seed phrase.
1. Connect the finger vein recognition hardware to the power source and then via the NFC module to your smartphone which has the application downloaded.
2. After the hardware is connected, enter your finger vein data by placing your finger on the scanner. You may be required to scan your finger a few times for the scanner to get the data it needs. The data will then be encrypted and sent to the mobile application.
3. The application will then begin decrypting the data. This process is almost instantaneous.
4. Upon decryption, the data is then used to generate a password in the form of a keystore file and this is saved in the application.
5. Congratulations! You have now successfully created a new wallet using the unique veins in your finger.
Now that you have created a new wallet, you can use your finger vein to unlock it or to sign a transaction. You can rest assured knowing your crypto asset is well protected in the Matrix Bio-Wallet.
Matrix Bio-Wallet is so powerful but when will I be able to purchase one?
Although the Matrix Bio-Wallet is only a prototype it is already ahead of the industry with a false rejection rate under 0.01%, a false acceptance rate under 1/600,000,000. The algorithm response time is also less than one second. As with any prototype it still needs improvement and vigorous testing before going to market. We will let the community know as soon as we can when it will be available to the public.
Who developed the Matrix Bio-Wallet?
The Matrix Bio-Wallet is developed by Matrix AI Network. Thanks to Matrix’s powerful team and mature ecosystem, the Matrix Bio-Wallet is already incredibly stable, secure, and of course innovative.
What is the Matrix public chain and how is this connected to the Bio-Wallet?
Matrix AI Network is a public chain that brings together artificial intelligence and blockchain. As a pioneer in both fields, Matrix is in the perfect position to employ artificial intelligence to address blockchain’s bottlenecks such as efficiency, speed, security, usability and flexibility to build an auto self-improving blockchain ecosystem.
The Matrix public chain is an ever expanding ecosystem. It includes:
MANTA — a platform to learn to use AI for people with no background
MANAS — a distributed AI service platform
MANART — a platform for generating and authenticating NFT assets
MANITO — a platform for industry network open services
As mentioned in our previous article the Matrix Bio-Wallet is a next-gen technology that the team has ingeniously designed for the benefit of the ecosystem. Equipped with finger vein recognition algorithms developed by Matrix’s AI scientists, it is an innovation that is ahead of the industry thanks to its high performance and early mover advantage.
As more people start to use the Bio-Wallet, more traffic will be directed to applications on the Matrix public chain. Currently, most hardware and software wallets do not have their own public chains. All the traffic and transaction fees generated still flow into the pockets of other public chains. While in the case of the Matrix Bio-Wallet, all the traffic and transaction fees generated will directly benefit Matrix.
Since the Bio-Wallet is built on the powerful Matrix public chain, which has an advantage over other projects like Ethereum in the form of transfer speed, transfer fees and TPS. Every transaction signed through the Matrix Bio-Wallet uses computing power from Matrix Mainnet. As people use the Bio-Wallet, the Mainnet will get data traffic, and users’ personal information will be encrypted and stored in the IPFS network on the Mainnet.
As more people start using the Matrix Bio-Wallet, demand will increase for MAN as MAN tokens are the Universal Pass on the Matrix AI Network and transaction fees will also be paid in MAN. Of note it is at a rate far lower than ETH and many other projects.
Overall, the Matrix Bio-Wallet beats other crypto wallets in security, efficiency and transaction fee rate. It is clear that the Bio-Wallet will be a crucial piece of Matrix’s ecosystem, guaranteeing a secure transaction and identification for services on Matrix platforms.
How Does The Matrix Bio-Wallet Empower Users In Different Everyday Scenarios?
Credible Digital Identification
To understand how this will be used we first need to learn more about credible digital identification.
In today’s world there is an ever growing need to move from paper-based documentation to digital documentation. Although this has been adopted by nearly all spheres of our everyday life our most important personal documents (ID, driver’s license and passport to name a few) are rarely converted into digital ones due to counterfeiting concerns.
International transportation is the most obvious real life example of where digital ID documentation would make life a lot simpler. The author of this article has on several occasions forgotten to bring his ID card when travelling with the train and although you can get a temporary ID card made for you at the station, the queue is long and could lead you to missing the train. Oh how much easier life would be if this was no longer a problem.
So why do people/governments not use digital IDs? There may be various reasons but the most obvious is how does one prove you are you?
Since IDs are correlated with one’s personal biometric information, the current common practice is to use face or fingerprint recognition, which of course has its flaws. For instance, the face recognition on our smartphones is incapable of telling someone from his twin. While fingerprint readers are even easier to fool using fake fingerprints.
Therefore, when it comes to people’s important personal data, finger vein recognition is currently the logical way to go. Since this recognition method requires input from a living organism, it is impossible to fake, and not even twins have identical finger veins.
Hopefully in the not-too-distant future credible digital ID (based on finger vein recognition) will become a reality and we will no longer have to take our physical ID along when taking the train, visiting Internet cafes or travelling abroad.
The constant worry about having your ID card stolen and the subsequent hassle that is involved in obtaining a new one will become worries of the past.
Decentralized ID (DID)
Essentially, a decentralized ID is a digital identification document that is not issued by centralized authorities.
In this day and age, managing one’s digital identity can be quite a challenge with many people having different accounts on different platforms, each with its own complicated authentication process. The author for one has no less than a hundred such accounts and often forgets the password to the accounts seldom used like his social security card or residence card.
By creating a single digital identification system that is reliable enough to be used across all platforms, we would then be able to do away with the need to register a new account every time we access new platforms.
Decentralized ID has a number of advantages and if the above is not motivation enough to switch to a DID system the following should provide further support.
Privacy: With the help of mechanisms such as smart contracts, targeted authorization, etc., access can be specifically granted to certain services.
Efficiency: If one single identification method can be used across platforms, no one has to be bothered by the intricate registration requirements each company has.
DID goes beyond this still. A decentralized identification system will let the service provider know whether the user’s ID information is genuine without giving away his/her personal information.
For instance, if an exchange needs to verify your ID, the DID system can do the verification job and report back to the exchange without letting it have your ID card/passport number.
As crypto investors, we all receive scam calls from time to time. You may ask how the scammer was able to get a hold of your information? They know our names and phone numbers, even the fact the we have invested in cryptocurrency. It goes without saying that we have been betrayed by the cryptocurrency exchanges we have registered on.
With DID, one would no longer have to worry about one’s privacy.
However, with all its clear advantages, one thing DID cannot do is to authenticate the truth of someone’s identity, and if the ID information entered into the system is false in the first place, the rest then becomes pointless. For this reason, centralized identification is still indispensable, although it is inefficient, as the authorities behind it lend credibility to its results.
Therefore, credibility is still the biggest hurdle to DID, while the Matrix Bio-Wallet is created to be the perfect solution. The Bio-Wallet uses finger vein recognition to verify the users’ identity. It is both credible and decentralized. Since each Bio-Wallet is a vessel that contains a user’s DID information, a system of these can provide accurate identification while guaranteeing privacy and ease of use.
DID will be the foundation of tomorrow’s Internet, and the Matrix Bio-Wallet is the missing piece of this puzzle!
Personal Data Ownership
To elaborate further on our previous article about credible digital identification and the concept of decentralized identity (DID) we thought it important to discuss personal data ownership.
A Gaming Example
If you are an avid gamer, you have probably come across the ongoing lawsuit between one of the largest Chinese-based gaming companies and the operator of a virtual item trading platform. The lawsuit is based on the claim that the gaming company owns all in-game items and that players are only allowed to use their accounts to participate in the game but have no right to trade them amongst each other.
Many gamers have spent tens of thousands of dollars on in-game purchases so why should the gaming company decide whether players can trade those in-game items. Not very fair one might say and the need for a form of decentralized ownership becomes very clear.
Personalised advertising, where do they get your information?
It is an all to common occurrence nowadays that when watching a TikTok or YouTube video, you get a pop-up advert for the exact same smartphone cover you browsed for online. How does TikTok/YouTube know this?
Sometimes after chatting with a friend on WeChat, you go to JD and find the exact same product you talked about right there in JD’s recommendation list. Where did JD get this information?
Even if the above examples do not bother you much, what about the possibility that those sensitive personal items you searched for on Taobao or Amazon pop-up in your browser just when you are in an important business meeting? What a catastrophe that could be.
Why is your private information shared among all these unrelated companies? And, for that matter, why should apps owned by the same company be allowed to share your data among themselves? Surely, there is no economic interest involved. They are just helping each other out for free, right?
In the future, the need for privacy protection will only become greater. To be able to give back to users the ownership of their personal data, we need an ID management system that is a layer above all these apps and platforms.
If Taobao or Amazon want your data, it should pay you for that permission. Rather than letting some random company profit from your personal data, you should be the one profiting directly.
Blockchain has laid a solid foundation for this, but we still need a good DID verification tool, and the Matrix Bio-Wallet is the answer.
Yet that is not all. The Bio-Wallet could become an integral part of the foundation of the next internet.
IPFS (InterPlanetary File System)
IPFS is the cornerstone for the next-generation internet as it has a significant advantage over the current HTTP protocol.
Data saved on IPFS is permanent. There is no risk of losing it or deleting it by accident and importantly decentralized sharing as well as point-to-point saving is supported for all types of data.
This is a traceable system that keeps track of every change you make and since the hash does not change, every piece of content can be traced back to the original source. Seeing that the traceability of any piece of content always remains valid, the result is reliable.
IPFS has a vast number of use case scenarios.
It will deliver an upgraded experience for today’s apps, including content creation platforms, cloud storage platforms, art platforms, etc.
Use Case Scenarios of IPFS
https://www.yunhe24.com/article/101295
One common use case scenario is cloud storage. Not only is IPFS perfectly compatible with these apps, but it will also improve the download speed and lower the price of current cloud storage services.
That said, data security may be the biggest concern for cloud storage.
Does it make sense to store my data on IPFS? Is it a safe option?
While IPFS itself does not offer data encryption, the Matrix Bio-Wallet is more than capable of keeping your files safe without the need to remember complicated passwords. It is the perfect complement to IPFS in terms of data safety.
To answer the question posed in our first article. If you had the chance to time travel back to 2010, be sure to take the Matrix Bio-Wallet with you. It is would be all you need to keep your 1 million Bitcoin safe. It is however also clear from everything noted above that Bio-Wallet will also be the answer of the future.
~End~
Delete Finger Vein
Match Finger Vein
Register Finger Vein
Check Balance
Transact and Transfer
Back up Wallet
Import Wallet
Log onto Wallet
Create a Wallet
Hardware
Software
Service
Matrix Mainnet
