This is a good presentation on the new Trezor Safe 7 wallet with the main point being that it’s using their own secure element chip they designed out of necessity. Of interest. the beginning of the presentation covers how fiat currency is not really the best way of storing wealth, simply because currency mismanagement and purposeful pursuit of inflation decreases its value. But larger world disruptions and financial scandals can decrease its value much more as well as faster, with the bankers profiting while normal people have their hard earned wealth wiped out. Also, I’ve used their original Model One hardware wallet from 2015, and they kept up with security updates, even with some interesting exploits that were discovered along the way (reason for smeared PIN screen displays…). You could still use those with a passphrase, but the secret key can be extracted from those devices with the proper hardware and why I moved to a secure element wallet. All that to say, Trezor has a long history of providing solid hardware wallets with quick security updates as needed, while pushing for significant security improvements, all while utilizing opensource and being transparent.
Bluetooth has had a lot of issues over the years, but the fact they’re using an encrypted connection over Bluetooth seems like a solid security choice, and it’s the same encryption used over USB-C with the Trezor Safe 5 and 3 (current models with secure element). And I have to give kudos for the battery choice for longevity and minimal battery drain, especially when regular LiPo batteries are pretty good about not losing charge unless there is a parasitic draw of some kind.
Consequently, a lot of the more secure Bitcoin wallets use QR codes and/or SD cards for air-gapped isolation from the host computer, but that doesn’t mean those methods can’t be compromised later if there were poor choices made with hardware or software. There is also RF and sound exploits that can be utilized to attack devices if nearby, especially with dedicated keys regarding sound. And the price point of $249 is comparable to a favorite of the Bitcoin maximalists, the COLDCARD Q, but I’ve seen too many reports of hardware failures along with it being sent from Canada, though it is supposed to be open source as well, and uses two secure element chips which takes me back to the Trezor presentation above with them being able to exploit one such chip that they said their competitors used, which they couldn’t comment on due to NDA. Also, the COLDCARD Q marks their sales as final I believe, and people have also complained about their customer service on occasion. So I wouldn’t put Coinkite in the same league with Trezor for history or security expertise, as well as them not offering any wallet software suite to compliment the device.
And a big plus of the Trezor being compatible with other wallets is that you don’t have to trust their Trezor Suite and can use other wallets if you should choose. It’s also worth pointing out that Trezor Suite is opensource as some say otherwise. For Bitcoin, Sparrow Wallet is the desktop goto, and opensource as well.
So if you are going to hold more than a couple hundred dollars in a software hot wallet, it’s hard to beat the hardware wallets from Trezor or their security history in this very young field. If you were to hold more than $1 million in crypto, the advanced features of the COLDCARD Q and their firmware might be worth investigating further along with investigating their secure element configuration. I wouldn’t use Ledger products and I’d stay far away from Adam Back’s Blockstream products as well, since he’s selling out Bitcoin as having joined the ranks of the billionaires in TradFi.