When you think about it, Proton has always been a crypto company — cryptography, not cryptocurrency. But the Switzerland-based company, better known for its secure email, VPN and storage services, is now launching its first cryptocurrency product.
It’s a crypto wallet called Proton Wallet that’s designed to make it easier to get started with bitcoin. The wallet only supports bitcoin for now, but the company says it will add support for more currencies in the future depending on user feedback.
Proton Wallet is a self-custody wallet, meaning users remain in control of their private keys. In general, when you send cryptocurrencies to another wallet, you need to approve the transaction using a pair of public and private keys — that’s what the wallet does behind the scenes when you hit the send button.
As a comparison, cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase, Binance or Kraken take care of that complexity for you. They hold cryptocurrencies on users’ behalf and they can sign transactions without a user even knowing what a private key is.
Like MetaMask, Ledger’s hardware wallets or many self-custody wallets, Proton uses a recovery phrase as a backup for your private keys. For instance, if you set up a bitcoin wallet via Proton on your device but then lose your device, you can recover your bitcoin wallet by entering your recovery phrase on another device.
It’s a good backup for securing crypto assets, as a recovery phrase is easy to write down and store in a drawer or on a notes app. However, cryptocurrency users are often targeted by phishing campaigns asking for recovery phrases (they should never be shared), so it’s not perfect, but there’s no perfect security model.
With this particular design, Proton can’t access its customers’ digital assets. And even if Proton is compromised or stops operating, users can still recover their assets and transfer them to another wallet — comparatively, if a centralized exchange collapses, your crypto assets are gone. Proton Wallet is open source and has been audited by a third-party firm, the company said.
While the wallet is only accessible in early access by users who pay for the Proton Visionary Plan, the company plans to roll it out to all Proton users in the future. The Visionary Plan costs $39.99 per month (or $29.99 per month if you pay for a year), and gives you access to premium versions of all of Proton’s products. Proton Wallet will be available as a web app, as well as on iOS and Android.
What makes Proton Wallet different from other crypto wallets is that it is integrated with the Proton ecosystem, which counts more than 100 million accounts. That means Proton Wallet users will be able to send crypto assets to other Proton Wallet users by entering their email addresses — there’s no need to copy and paste a long public key. Proton has also partnered with third-party on-ramp companies (currently Banxa and Ramp) so that customers can easily buy bitcoins using fiat currency.
“Bitcoin’s value to society has been hindered by the difficulty of transacting, and security concerns, and we designed Proton Wallet to specifically address both. Proton Wallet’s ability to support bitcoin via email now makes bitcoin transactions as easy to use as PayPal, while preserving the decentralized and non-custodial nature of bitcoin,” Proton co-founder and CEO, Andy Yen, said in a statement.
Proton Wallet has another interesting privacy-focused feature: It rotates public addresses every time a user sends or receives assets from a new person. This way, you can’t use a blockchain explorer to track all past transactions associated with a specific public address.
The company saw the benefits of bitcoin back in 2014 during its initial crowdfunding campaign. New customers could sign up for a premium account using PayPal as a payment option, but PayPal temporarily froze Proton’s account due to the large amount of money going through the account. The company opted for credit card and bitcoin payments for the rest of the crowdfunding campaign.
Overall, just like with its password manager, Proton Pass, Proton isn’t reinventing the wheel with this crypto wallet. But it’s another solid option for people looking to create a crypto wallet for the first time. However, cryptocurrencies tend to be a polarizing topic, so let’s see if Proton Wallet doesn’t hurt Proton’s brand image in the future.
