A while back, the San Francisco-based exchange Coinbase announced the launch of an ethereum-based wallet called Toshi. The application was a private and secure messaging platform tethered to a non-custodial ETH wallet. Now Coinbase has decided to revamp the application and Toshi will become the ‘Coinbase Wallet’ which will not only offer ETH and it’s token derivatives but soon it will also hold BCH, LTC, and BTC.
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Toshi Platform Changes to Coinbase Wallet
Next time someone tells you Coinbase is “not a wallet” you can tell them that the San Francisco firm does offer a non-custodial wallet that provides users with private keys. The wallet is called Coinbase Wallet, a rebrand of the Toshi Wallet the company introduced back in April of 2017. On August 15, the Coinbase engineer Siddharth Coelho-Prabhu revealed the ETH and ERC-20 wallet known as Toshi was changing names but the Coinbase Wallet will have a slew of new features including the ability to hold bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin core (BTC) and litecoin (LTC).
“Toshi was developed by the Coinbase team a little over a year ago — When the product launched, it featured the world’s first mobile dapp browser — Later, we became the first wallet to launch crypto collectibles,” Coelho-Prabhu explains.
As part of our effort to be the most trusted brand in the space, we also set out to provide best-in-class secure storage. With Coinbase Wallet, your private keys are secured using your device’s Secure Enclave and biometric authentication technology.
Testing the Non-Custodial Coinbase Wallet
The Coinbase wallet provides users with a platform that manages ETH, and ERC-20s but also allows crypto collectible storage, and the ability to garner air drops. Furthermore, the application allows users to access decentralized token exchanges and relayer platforms. News.Bitcoin.com gave the wallet a test-run on iOS this week and the Coinbase Wallet does, in fact, allow the owner to procure their own private keys with a recovery phrase. The user is asked right away to write down and store the phrase in a safe location, but they can also choose to ‘backup later’ as well. Followed by the backup step, the wallet then asks if the user wants to utilize biometry (fingerprint) or set up a less secure six-digit passphrase. After all the security steps are complete the Coinbase Wallet provides an ethereum address screen that can also show tokens and collectibles.
Then there’s a decentralized application browser inside the wallet, which features a wide variety of apps, gaming platforms, and marketplaces that can be used with ethereum, and other token assets. The wallet also has a messenger where you can chat with friends or chat and interact with group chats and wallet bots like the @Toshibot. Overall, the wallet is fairly intuitive like most light clients out there today, but people who are interested in the token economy will find it more useful. When BCH, BTC, and LTC are added, the wallet software will likely open up to a much larger audience.
The Coinbase Wallet is available for Android systems and iOS and existing Toshi users just need to upgrade the client’s firmware to see the changes. The decentralized app browser works with any platforms that use web3.js, and the wallet also offers native support for ERC-721 tokens. For those who have absolutely no interest in the ethereum ecosystem, they may want to wait until Coinbase adds BCH, LTC, and BTC.
What do you think about the Toshi app changing into the Coinbase Wallet? Let us know your thoughts on this subject in the comment section below.
Images via Shutterstock, the Coinbase Wallet, and Jamie Redman.
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