As crypto exchanges struggle in a bear market, are hardware wallets about to make a comeback?
The crypto hardware wallet industry, somewhat eclipsed as crypto exchanges have gained in popularity, may be due for a gradual come-back. As some centralized crypto exchanges experienced operational difficulties while cryptocurrencies fell in value and users clamored to cash out, this increase in instability may have increased interest in the cold wallet industry. According to a report, the global hardware wallet market reached a value of $252 million in 2021 and is expected to reach a value of $1.1 billion by 2027, or a CAGR of 27.2%. This suggests it could surpass the reported 12.7% growth for crypto exchanges, with a projected market revenue value of $675 million by 2028. Read whatever you want.
Suffice it to say that in this bear market, SF-based Hito is launching, marketing itself as an “iPod for crypto,” Hito is the size of a credit card, has a large multi-touch screen and connects to devices wirelessly.
Hito can push on an ever-opening door. Given that two of the primary hardware wallets, Ledger and Trezor, have approximately 5 million users, there seems to be plenty of room for growth, as there are at least 295 million crypto holders who may decide to add hardware wallets to their portfolio.
The Hito is priced at $149. This contrasts with – say – the cheaper Ledger NANO S which comes in at around $65. Hito’s pitch for the extra cost is that transfers can be done wirelessly using either Bluetooth or NFC, while updates and charging are also wireless. So I guess you pay to remove the USB connector?
However, there are other features. These include a 2-inch multi-touch color screen that displays your crypto assets; support for over 600 digital assets, including Bitcoin, ETH and ERC20 tokens; connections to other wallets such as WalletConnect, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Argent, Gnosis Safe Multisig; a single System-on-a-Chip; support for multiple wallets and PINs; and shielding from electromagnetic signal readers.
If Hito is as easy to use as it claims to be, it may have a chance in the market, given current conditions. And it’s fair to say that many hardware wallets require much more technical technical skills than the average person can muster, so any simplification is welcome.
I asked founder Mike Kirillov, CEO and founder of Hito why he thinks Hito has a chance in this current environment: “Previous hardware crypto wallets were built for geeks and by geeks. They are cumbersome, require technical skills, difficult to interact with and always give you the feeling that you are about to do something wrong. Ultimately, they were not able to become a mainstream solution, which means that the money of most crypto holders out there is not safe, he said.
Kirillov claims his team spent three years building Hito in stealth mode as “a ubiquitous, easy-to-use device with great UX. It’s stylish, intuitive and ultimately protected hardware wallet that can be trusted by the mass audience,” he claims.
The more mainstream Crypto becomes, the more crypto scams and scams flourish, favoring the argument for hardware wallets. Crypto fraudsters took a record $14 billion in 2021 (79% year-on-year growth).
And $1.23 billion was lost in the first quarter of 2022, up nearly 8 times from a year ago, according to a report by Immunefi, largely because fraudsters can access crypto accounts online.
Hardware wallets cannot be hacked via the cloud in the same way, since your credentials never leave the device.
However, it remains to be seen whether Hito will be able to when more users from exchanges, and hardware wallets can also easily, physically, be lost.
