Bitcoin hardware wallet maker CoolBitX has raised $500,000 as part of its push into the broader blockchain security industry.
The Taiwan-based firm plans to use the money to create new implementations of the security in its wallet for use in Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, the medical industry and other blockchain sectors where identity is paramount.
The founder and CEO of lead investor Kyber Capital positioned CoolBitX’s Coolwallet technology as a more broadly applicable “decentralized security protocol”.
In conversation with CoinDesk, Thomas Hu said:
“You can imagine this as an omnipotent hotel key card that can back up not only your personal credentials, but can serve as a payment token.”
CoolBitX secures its wallets with an embedded security device for securing private keys, as well as a complete signature authorization and verification mechanism that can be synchronized with a smartphone and CoolWallet’s own backup facility.
Offline pass phrases can also be used to recover lost or stolen hardware devices.
As possible evidence of industry interest in non-cryptocurrency related applications of CoolBitX’s security tech, Taiwan-based medical devices firm iMediPlus also participated in the round.
In a statement sent exclusively to CoinDesk, iMediPlus’s chief legal officer and intellectual property counsel, Matthew Lee, positioned the technology as a possible means to help prevent insurance fraud, among other broader applications in the healthcare industry.
“We are working with CoolBitX to turn CoolWallet into a secure passport for personal healthcare information and medical data backup storage,” Lee said in the statement.
Other investors include bitcoin mining firm Bitmain and Asia Pacific venture capital firm Midana Capital.
This is the most recent blockchain investment by Kyber Capital, which now boasts a portfolio of eight blockchain companies including Taiwan-based Amis, which is a founding member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.
The growth of hardware
With part of the new investment, CoolBitX plans to develop a secure communication system that encrypts files on a smartphone, as well as implementing a decentralized bitcoin exchange.
But the investment is also part of a larger push in the blockchain industry by a number of companies looking to secure blockchain systems with hardware.
Last month, consultancy giant Accenture partnered with security firm Thales to reveal a hardware security module designed to give enterprises more confidence in securing access to their blockchain solutions. IBM also produces a similar hardware security module.
A business development plan for CoolBitX shown to CoinDesk reveals plans to issue co-branded wallets with 10 enterprise clients in Q2 of this year, followed by the development of a “blockchain medical record” using Coolwallet.
“CoolWallet in this system encrypts medical data with its private keys,” said Hu, “and uses its HD [hierarchical deterministic] wallet architecture to offer different levels of accessibility to different institutions and staff.”
In conclusion, he said the expansion was actually part of an even broader play:
“We see this as an extension to a more decentralized security protocol in various applications, whether its in medical, data security, and identity management.”
Medical investment image via Shutterstock. Wallet image via CoolBitX