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Census Tangem Smartcard

🔍 Last analysed 3rd May 2022 . Bad Interface Not functioning anymore
19th June 2020

Jump to verdict 

Do your own research!

Try out searching for "lost bitcoins", "stole my money" or "scammers" together with the wallet's name, even if you think the wallet is generally trustworthy. For all the bigger wallets you will find accusations. Make sure you understand why they were made and if you are comfortable with the provider's reaction.

If you find something we should include, you can create an issue or edit this analysis yourself and create a merge request for your changes.

What is a bearer token?

Bearer tokens are meant to be passed on from one user to another similar to cash or a banking check. Unlike hardware wallets, this comes with an enormous "supply chain" risk if the token gets handed from user to user anonymously - all bearer past and present have plausible deniability if the funds move. We used to categorize bearer tokens as hardware wallets, but decided that they deserved an altogether different category. Generally, bearer tokens require these attributes:

  • Secure initial setup
  • Tamper evidence
  • Balance check without revealing private keys
  • Small size
  • Low unit price
and either of these applies:
  • Somebody has a backup and needs to be trusted.
  • Nobody has a backup and funds are destroyed if the token is lost or damaged.

The Analysis 

Isitdownrightnow.com reports that this wallet’s web servers are not responding. This, along with a lack of any recent information, often gives us cause to assume that a product is defunct or will not be released.

Census has a Facebook account with some activity in October 2021.

The product may bear resemblance to:

Internet Archives

The most recent capture from the Internet Archive (June 2021) is a single page stating that Census is “coming soon.”

This older capture includes descriptions and images of the product.

It’s a Smart Note, as convenient as credit card and as easy to use as cash with encryption security on top. Tap a note with an NFC-enabled smartphone to verify assets and available funds, then confirm assets and transfer to another wallet. You can either use the card as a hard wallet, as a Gift Card or as a tangible medium of payment.

picture

The site also offers a companion app called Census Wallet. While the link to the App Store version of this app refuses to load, the Google Play version is still accessible.

Verdict

Census Tangem Smartcard’s page on Amazon claims it still has one copy left in stock. According to Amazon, the card was first made available on June 19, 2020.

The website is currently out of commission, and there’s little, if any, recent information on the state of this product. We believe this product was discontinued.

(dg)

Verdict Explained

The design of the device does not allow to verify what is being signed!

As part of our Methodology, we ask:

Bad Interface!

Can the user verify and approve transactions on the device?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Bad Interface".

These are devices that might generate secure private key material, outside the reach of the provider but that do not have the means to let the user verify transactions on the device itself. This verdict includes screen-less smart cards or USB-dongles.

The wallet lacks either an output device such as a screen, an input device such as touch or physical buttons or both. In consequence, crucial elements of approving transactions is being delegated to other hardware such as a general purpose PC or phone which defeats the purpose of a hardware wallet.

Another consquence of a missing screen is that the user is faced with the dilemma of either not making a backup or having to pass the backup through an insecure device for display or storage.

The software of the device might be perfect but this device cannot be recommended due to this fundamental flaw.

But we also ask:

Defunct!

Is the product still supported by the still existing provider?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Not functioning anymore".

Discontinued products or worse, products of providers that are not active anymore, are problematic, especially if they were not formerly reproducible and well audited to be self-custodial following open standards. If the provider hasn’t answered inquiries for a year but their server is still running or similar circumstances might get this verdict, too.