Keeping your crypto safe has never been so fashionable
| Pros | Cons |
| Elegant Easy to use Well priced for the features | Mobile app is useless Setup for some ERC-20 tokens is difficult Closed Sorce software raises certain security questions. |
In my eyes the SecuX V20 is the tesla of hardware wallets, a very design and user focused device that may not appeal to everyone in the crypto space but is certainly a great way to keep your investments safe.
Who are SecuX and Why do I need one?
SecuX is a taiwanese based company that is going up against the likes of trezor and ledger in the hardware wallet space, but what is a hardware wallet? well is but in short this device holds the private keys to your crypto allowing you and only you to sign transactions on the blockchain for actions such as buy/sell and transfer. your coins themselves are never stored on the device, just the private key and this in turn makes your crypto investments from NFTs to meme tokens more secure than ever.
Pricing
This device will run you around £120 in the UK making it a fairly affordable option in the wallet space with the likes of the ledger Nano X coming in at £140 and the trezor model T over £200 but there are certainly cheaper options on the market too with Nano S, In fact SecuX sell some of their own cheaper wallets but the draw of the V20 is its looks and I suspect this will be the go to wallet for anyone looking at the SecuX range.
Wallet Safety
From the moment you receive the device you get a very Apple Esque experience, this feels like a premium device. It also has security seals on each side of the box to ensure when you get your device it’s not been tampered with. if you get the device and it’s missing these or they are void then don’t use the device send it right back as chances are a third party may have tampered with this. In the box, you do get the device itself, a USB C to A cable, a little carry bag, and some instructions and leaflets for your recovery phrase.
If when you get your wallet you find recovery phases already written or there are some instructions to use pre-defined recovery phrases ignore them and again send the device straight back as this device has been compromised, you can of course just generate a new key and phrases but its advisable to not use the device at all.
Design
Taking the device out one of the first things that struck me was its size, I knew t would be big from its marketing material but this is just impressive, it’s certainly a 2 handed device but it does appear to fit nicely in my palm, especially with the octagonal edge design. The outside is gun metal aluminium, the front sports a 2.8 touch screen with glass and the back has a rubber non-slip coating for placing it on your desk without it moving or slipping too much. Again on the bottom, you will see another security seal over the charge and data port. On the top edge, we have the power button. The device is realistically too bulky to carry around in a pocket and this is also not advised, hardware wallets should really be used in the privacy of your own home, but if you do absolutely have to travel with it you will need to be in a bag or just left on your desk. this begs the question of why the design was such an important factor but it certainly pays off and looks stunning.
Security at its core
The device is built with security in mind and has the Military-grade Infineon Secure Element chip so you know your keys and recovery phrase are safe. Even if someone were to come and try to take this device apart much like a James Bond gadget it’s set to self-destruct so your assets are truly safe.
The setup and overall usability of this wallet were a breeze. I feel like I could give this to my fiancé or even my mother and they would quickly learn to use it, it’s very user friendly and just such a joy to navigate. During setup, you will be given 24-word recovery phrase. Take this and write it somewhere safe in the event you forget your pin or lose the device this is your only way to recover it. In the same vein you can take a recovery seed from another wallet or one generated online and import it here too. You may notice a place for a 25th word, this is for an interesting feature we will touch upon a little later on. When entering your pin the actual array of numbers is randomised each time making it more difficult for people to look over at you and work out your pin based on finger placement and movement.
Connections and use
After setup the device will look a little bare until you get some accounts set up, you have 2 ways to do this, the mobile application or the web portal. I highly recommend the web portal at this time mainly because of the frankly ludicrous limitations the mobile application has when it comes to account setup.
Connecting the device to the app or portal is as easy as choosing a wired or wireless connection, wired just plugs directly in while wireless uses Bluetooth, many will say Bluetooth is very easy to hack and unreliable but SecuX has ensured a high level of security with multi-level authentication including OTP style codes for Bluetooth interaction. When talking to the web portal a few files and identifiers in your xpub and ypub files are transferred. Now at first, this rang alarm bells as it posed as a way for a third party to potentially know my wallets balances and link them to me as a person, thankfully this isn’t the case, a read into these files makes it difficult to actually pinpoint ownership and is a required part of the authentication process.
Once connected choose the account you want to add. this is sometimeseasier said than done, they say they support all ERC-20 tokens (any Etherium-based tokens) and though this is true the setup for many of them is less than Idea requiring the contact address and other information many newcomers to the crypto space may simply not know. Once created and synced though these accounts show straight up on the wallet ready to use. On your wallet screen, you see the accounts and balances. Clicking into one of these shows you the QR code used for receiving balances making it super easy to quickly receive tokens, sending tokens can only be done on the secuX site or app but signing and verification happen directly on the wallet in a quick and easy-to-understand way.
Mobile App
Let’s take a look at the mobile application as this is one of my biggest pain points for the V20 and SecuX’s platform as a whole, the application is unstable when trying to enable faceID, hard to navigate due to button text being off the screen but perhaps most infuriating of all is any ERC-20 you load from the website using the contact address simply doesn’t show up. Meaning I can send or receive it from the application! It’s utterly useless in that respect and if you plan to do a lot of trading on the go right now I simply can’t recommend this wallet.
Hidden Wallets
As I mentioned earlier there is space for a 25th word and that’s because of the hidden wallet function built in, this allows you to have a completely separate wallet alongside your main one, different access pins and private keys this means if a real-world attacker were to get you to physically unlock your wallet you can use the main account with just a small amount of assets while keeping the hidden wallet just that… hidden. Very few people know about this feature but it’s very useful for those more versed in the crypto world.
Conclusion
Now to the question of whether I would recommend this wallet. I think the answer is a difficult one, for a newcomer to the crypto world this may be a great place to start it’s cheap, well designed and very easy to use, particularly with exchanges such as Crypto.com. However, for the more crypto versed the hand-holding may simply be too much and secux’s stance of closed-sourced software may be a deal breaker for many, particularly with the world of crypto being such an open and collaborative one for most. They have noted to me that parts of hardware and software will become open source but until that point for the more versed crypto fan I believe there are better options on the market for you.
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