Trust Stamp launches biometric private key vault for cryptocurrency services

Trust Stamp is adding its face biometrics-based secure account-credential and private key storage vault functionality to the suite of solutions it offers to financial institutions which operate digital asset and cryptocurrency services.

The system converts biometric and other data used for authentication into a proprietary Irreversibly Transformed Identity Token (IT2) and immediately deleted. It does not require identity verification and no personally identifiable information is stored or shared.

Trust Stamp CSO Dr. Norman Poh explained the concept behind IT2 tokens and biometric binding with fuzzy tokens in a recent EAB lunch talk.

While misplacing access credentials for a cryptocurrency account is inconvenient and can restrict access to assets, losing the private key for a cryptocurrency wallet or non-fungible token (NFT) leads to permanent loss of the assets they protect.

The products aim to prevent the loss of a private key needed for accessing a cryptocurrency or NFT. To assure long-term data protection and availability, biometric data is irreversibly tokenized by Trust Stamp’s cryptographic processes and stored on an Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB). This provides a transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable append-only transaction log.

The services are being offered to financial institutions including U.S. and international banks to meet demand following an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Interpretive Letter in July 2020, which highlighted the authority and need for national banks to provide digital asset custody services.

“With around US $1 trillion in cryptocurrency and NFT assets in circulation today, billions of dollars are believed to be permanently inaccessible due to loss of account credentials,” said John Bridge, Trust Stamp’s executive vice president responsible for cryptocurrency-related services.

“With cryptocurrency becoming mainstreamed and recognized as an important asset class in diversified portfolios, Trust Stamp is working to deliver parallel or superior protection and convenience for cryptocurrency and NFT investors to that offered by legacy financial institutions.”

Trust Stamp also provides its face biometrics technology for real-time KYC and AML checks at Bitcoin ATMs, the company says in the announcement.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometric data  |  biometrics  |  cryptocurrency  |  data protection  |  digital assets  |  digital identity  |  NFT  |  tokenization  |  Trust Stamp