How Rivetz Uses Your Smartphone to Secure Your Mobile Bitcoin Wallet

A security technology startup is aiming to grab a share of the growing mobile payments market through a blend of hardware-isolated security and bitcoin.
Rivetz develops software that, when released later this year, intends to leverage secure hardware environments embedded in Android-enabled smartphones to manage private keys for mobile bitcoin wallets. The company has partnered with several companies including mobile security firmTrustonic, identity computing solutions provider Intercede and BitPay.
The app will be available to users in the second quarter of this year, and according to Rivetz CEO Steven Sprague the project has garnered interest from several wallet providers including Mycelium and Breadwallet.
Sprague said that bitcoin’s use as a mobile payment instrument has greater ramifications for the broader development of trusted computing and the Internet of Things. The company recently demoed its software solution at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The question of how bitcoin users protect the all-important private key is an old one. In a recent interview he said:

This post was published at Coin Desk on March 3, 2015.