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Lynx Art Collection Financial Revolution Metal Wallet

🔍 Last analysed 29th April 2022 . Leaks Keys

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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 

Note: Some people stated that “FrankBitcoin”, the original creator of lynxartcollection.com has left Lynx Art and that many of the items still listed on the site have already sold out.

Product Description

More like collector’s items, these metal cards do not have funds or keys loaded on them.

This is a set of TWO metal wallets! Each include one private key and one clear sticker to attach your public key’s QR Code.

Each wallet is unloaded; no keys are generated. For the utmost privacy, users may generate their own keys and affix them with the two provided holograms.

The metal’s artwork is laser-engraved and each individual piece is numbered; limited to a total production of 100. These measure the same size as a standard credit card.

All wallets ship inside of a black cardboard sleeve that is secured in a hard plastic top loader for ultimate protection.

Looking to load the wallet? Here’s how to do it:

Generate your own keys and then print them on a regular sheet of paper, ensuring that they are scaled to be smaller than the size of the hologram. Cut out the paper and place it face down onto the back of the metal. Then, peel the hologram and affix it over the paper. When the hologram is peeled, it will leave behind a tamper-evident residue, and the paper will be stuck to the hologram. Just make sure to place the paper’s print-side face down onto the metal. Placing it face up will peel the printing of the keys off when peeling the hologram.

Funding and Storage Disclaimer:

Lynx recommends that if the wallets are being funded, they should be stored in an airtight container within a fireproof bag and finally long-term stored within a safety deposit box. These cards are not recommended for daily use and Lynx is not responsible for any funds that are loaded onto the cards at any point any time. Lynx is not responsible for lost or damaged metal wallets or funds stored on the wallet.

Analysis

Since the user can generate his own keys using another device which are then printed on a piece of paper to be stuck on the metal cards, the risk that we see here is with the printing system (pc, network if network printer, printer itself if harddrive integrated) leaking the keys at creation or the keys being leaked upon later use for spending.

(dg)

Verdict Explained

This product requires sharing private key material!

As part of our Methodology, we ask:

Leaks Keys!

Does the device hide your keys from other devices?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Leaks Keys".

Some people claim their paper wallet is a hardware wallet. Others use RFID chips with the private keys on them. A very crucial drawback of those systems is that in order to send a transaction, the private key has to be brought onto a different system that doesn’t necessarily share all the desired aspects of a hardware wallet.

Paper wallets need to be printed, exposing the keys to the PC and the printer even before sending funds to it.

Simple RFID based devices can’t sign transactions - they share the keys with whoever asked to use them for whatever they please.

There are even products that are perfectly capable of working in an air-gapped fashion but they still expose the keys to connected devices.

This verdict is reserved for key leakage under normal operation and does not apply to devices where a hack is known to be possible with special hardware.

The product cannot be independently verified. If the provider puts your funds at risk on purpose or by accident, you will probably not know about the issue before people start losing money. If the provider is more criminally inclined he might have collected all the backups of all the wallets, ready to be emptied at the press of a button. The product might have a formidable track record but out of distress or change in management turns out to be evil from some point on, with nobody outside ever knowing before it is too late.