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OneKey - Classic

Our wallet review process

We examine wallets starting at the code level and continue all the way up to the finished app that lives on your device. Provided below is an outline of each of these steps along with security tips for you and general test results.

Developer

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Custody

Private keys generated and held by user

As part of our Methodology, we ask: Is the provider ignorant of the keys?

The answer is "yes". Private keys are generated by the user on the wallet.
Read more

Source code

Public on github

Released

We could not determine when this product was originally released.

Application build

We could not verify that the provided code matches the binary!
See the last Issue we created.

See test result
Tested 12th July 2023

Platform notes

There is no globally accepted definition of a hardware wallet. Some consider a paper with 12 words a hardware wallet - after all paper is a sort of hardware or at least not software and the 12 words are arguably a wallet(‘s backup). For the purpose of this project we adhere to higher standards in the hardware wallet section. We only consider a hardware wallet if dedicated hardware protects the private keys in a way that leaves the user in full and exclusive control of what transactions he signs or not. That means:

  • The device allows to create private keys offline

  • The device never shares private key material apart from an offline backup mechanism

  • The device displays receive addresses for confirmation
  • The device shares signed transactions after informed approval on the device without reliance on insecure external hardware

Passed 11 of 12 tests

We answered the following questions in this order:
We stopped asking questions after we encountered a failed answer.

Is this product the original?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Fake" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Fake".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Fake" and the following would apply:

The bigger wallets often get imitated by scammers that abuse the reputation of the product by imitating its name, logo or both.

Imitating a competitor is a huge red flag and we urge you to not put any money into this product!

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.
Can we expect the product to ever be released?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Announced but never delivered" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Announced but never delivered".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Announced but never delivered" and the following would apply:

Some products are promoted with great fund raising, marketing and ICOs, to disappear from one day to the other a week later or they are one-man side projects that get refined for months or even years to still never materialize in an actual product. Regardless, those are projects we consider “vaporware”.

Is this product available yet?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Un-Released" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Un-Released".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Un-Released" and the following would apply:

We focus on products that have the biggest impact if things go wrong and while pre-sales sometimes reach many thousands to buy into promises that never materialize, the damage is limited and there would be little definite to be said about an unreleased product anyway.

If you find a product in this category that was released meanwhile, please contact us to do a proper review!

Is it a wallet?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Not a wallet" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Not a wallet".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Not a wallet" and the following would apply:

If it’s called “wallet” but is actually only a portfolio tracker, we don’t look any deeper, assuming it is not meant to control funds. What has no funds, can’t lose your coins. It might still leak your financial history!

If you can buy Bitcoins with this app but only into another wallet, it’s not a wallet itself.

Is it for bitcoins?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "A wallet but not for Bitcoin" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "A wallet but not for Bitcoin".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "A wallet but not for Bitcoin" and the following would apply:

At this point we only look into wallets that at least also support BTC.

Is the provider ignorant of the keys?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Provided private keys" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Provided private keys".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Provided private keys" and the following would apply:

The best hardware wallet cannot guarantee that the provider deleted the keys if the private keys were put onto the device by them in the first place.

There is no way of knowing if the provider took a copy in the process. If they did, all funds controlled by those devices are potentially also under the control of the provider and could be moved out of the client’s control at any time at the provider’s discretion.

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.
Does the device hide your keys from other devices?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Leaks Keys" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Leaks Keys".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Leaks Keys" and the following would apply:

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.
Can the user verify and approve transactions on the device?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Bad Interface" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Bad Interface".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Bad Interface" and the following would apply:

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 a screen or 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. For big exit scams, a companion app could always request two signatures - one for the coffee you are paying and a second to empty your wallet completely. The former could be broadcast while the latter only gets collected for later use.

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.

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.
Is the source code publicly available?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "No source for current release found" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "No source for current release found".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "No source for current release found" and the following would apply:

A wallet that claims to not give the provider the means to steal the users’ funds might actually be lying. In the spirit of “Don’t trust - verify!” you don’t want to take the provider at his word, but trust that people hunting for fame and bug bounties could actually find flaws and back-doors in the wallet so the provider doesn’t dare to put these in.

Back-doors and flaws are frequently found in closed source products but some remain hidden for years. And even in open source security software there might be catastrophic flaws undiscovered for years.

An evil wallet provider would certainly prefer not to publish the code, as hiding it makes audits orders of magnitude harder.

For your security, you thus want the code to be available for review.

If the wallet provider doesn’t share up to date code, our analysis stops there as the wallet could steal your funds at any time, and there is no protection except the provider’s word.

“Up to date” strictly means that any instance of the product being updated without the source code being updated counts as closed source. This puts the burden on the provider to always first release the source code before releasing the product’s update. This paragraph is a clarification to our rules following a little poll.

We are not concerned about the license as long as it allows us to perform our analysis. For a security audit, it is not necessary that the provider allows others to use their code for a competing wallet. You should still prefer actual open source licenses as a competing wallet won’t use the code without giving it careful scrutiny.

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.
Is the decompiled binary legible?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Obfuscated" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Obfuscated".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Obfuscated" and the following would apply:

When compiling source code to binary, usually a lot of meta information is retained. A variable storing a masterseed would usually still be called masterseed, so an auditor could inspect what happens to the masterseed. Does it get sent to some server? But obfuscation would rename it for example to _t12, making it harder to find what the product is doing with the masterseed.

In benign cases, code symbols are replaced by short strings to make the binary smaller but for the sake of transparency this should not be done for non-reproducible Bitcoin wallets. (Reproducible wallets could obfuscate the binary for size improvements as the reproducibility would assure the link between code and binary.)

Especially in the public source cases, obfuscation is a red flag. If the code is public, why obfuscate it?

As obfuscation is such a red flag when looking for transparency, we do also sometimes inspect the binaries of closed source apps.

As looking for code obfuscation is a more involved task, we do not inspect many apps but if we see other red flags, we might test this to then put the product into this red-flag category.

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.
Can the product be built from the source provided?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Failed to build from source provided!" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Failed to build from source provided!".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Failed to build from source provided!" and the following would apply:

Published code doesn’t help much if the app fails to compile.

We try to compile the published source code using the published build instructions into a binary. If that fails, we might try to work around issues but if we consistently fail to build the app, we give it this verdict and open an issue in the issue tracker of the provider to hopefully verify their app later.

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.
Does the published binary match the published source code?

The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Not reproducible from source provided" and the following would apply:

The answer is "no". We marked it as "Not reproducible from source provided".

We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Not reproducible from source provided" and the following would apply:

Published code doesn’t help much if it is not what the published binary was built from. That is why we try to reproduce the binary. We

  1. obtain the binary from the provider
  2. compile the published source code using the published build instructions into a binary
  3. compare the two binaries
  4. we might spend some time working around issues that are easy to work around

If this fails, we might search if other revisions match or if we can deduct the source of the mismatch but generally consider it on the provider to provide the correct source code and build instructions to reproduce the build, so we usually open a ticket in their code repository.

In any case, the result is a discrepancy between the binary we can create and the binary we can find for download and any discrepancy might leak your backup to the server on purpose or by accident.

As we cannot verify that the source provided is the source the binary was compiled from, this category is only slightly better than closed source but for now we have hope projects come around and fix verifiability issues.

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.

Application build test result

Update 2023-07-12: We followed the steps that provider sent to us and ran a script which is based on their Github actions. Here is the result for v3.0.0:

$ sha256sum classic.3.0.0-Stable-0511-0bf60dd.bin downloaded-firmware.bin

1b0e3382adc909fd85b2225f83cf6cd3886e73ff1bf2901ed8ccb1a6414366fd  classic.3.0.0-Stable-0511-0bf60dd.bin
a5d4ac8b98c1249f839fba018850df7deb66a3720f13a01c5d94250e426a0a71  downloaded-firmware.bin

The hashes were different, So we had a look at the diff of the hex formatted binaries:

$ xxd classic.3.0.0-Stable-0511-0bf60dd.bin > classic.3.0.0-Stable-0511-0bf60dd.hex
$ xxd downloaded-firmware.bin > downloaded-firmware.hex
$ diff classic.3.0.0-Stable-0511-0bf60dd.hex downloaded-firmware.hex

...

304c304
< 000012f0: 63f0 c4f9 2022 0021 15a8 63f0 bff9 3d46  c... ".!..c...=F
---
> 000012f0: 63f0 c2f9 2022 0021 15a8 63f0 bdf9 3d46  c... ".!..c...=F
328c328
< 00001470: 97fd 31b0 bde8 f08f f8ff 0120 2de9 f74f  ..1........ -..O
---
> 00001470: 95fd 31b0 bde8 f08f f8ff 0120 2de9 f74f  ..1........ -..O
402c402
< 00001910: 0120 0020 7047 2822 0021 62f0 afbe 0000  . . pG(".!b.....
---
> 00001910: 0120 0020 7047 2822 0021 62f0 adbe 0000  . . pG(".!b.....
518c518
< 00002050: 4ff0 0003 01d0 5df0 a3ff 0cb0 10bd 00bf  O.....].........
---
> 00002050: 4ff0 0003 01d0 5df0 a1ff 0cb0 10bd 00bf  O.....].........
751c751
< 00002ee0: 1a68 1b9b 5a40 4ff0 0003 01d0 5df0 58f8  .h..Z@O.....].X.
---
> 00002ee0: 1a68 1b9b 5a40 4ff0 0003 01d0 5df0 56f8  .h..Z@O.....].V.
775c775
< 00003060: 019b 5a40 4ff0 0003 01d0 5cf0 99ff 02b0  ..Z@O.....\.....
---
> 00003060: 019b 5a40 4ff0 0003 01d0 5cf0 97ff 02b0  ..Z@O.....\.....
799,800c799,800
< 000031e0: 1899 2030 2844 1db0 bde8 f04f 61f0 1eba  .. 0(D.....Oa...
< 000031f0: 019b 3246 03f1 2004 6019 1899 61f0 16fa  ..2F.. .`...a...
---
> 000031e0: 1899 2030 2844 1db0 bde8 f04f 61f0 1cba  .. 0(D.....Oa...
> 000031f0: 019b 3246 03f1 2004 6019 1899 61f0 14fa  ..2F.. .`...a...
1249c1249
< 00004e00: 5bf0 cef8 27b0 f0bd f8ff 0120 f0b5 0346  [...'...... ...F
---
> 00004e00: 5bf0 ccf8 27b0 f0bd f8ff 0120 f0b5 0346  [...'...... ...F
1258,1259c1258,1259
< 00004e90: 4ff0 0003 03d0 5bf0 83f8 0120 f4e7 13b0  O.....[.... ....
< 00004ea0: f0bd 00bf f8ff 0120 c078 0708 f8b5 1546  ....... .x.....F
---
> 00004e90: 4ff0 0003 03d0 5bf0 81f8 0120 f4e7 13b0  O.....[.... ....
> 00004ea0: f0bd 00bf f8ff 0120 bc78 0708 f8b5 1546  ....... .x.....F

...

The above diff result is truncated because there are a lot of diffs. We reported this problem in an issue on Github. Sadly at the current state, This firmware is not verifiable.

Update 2022-12-28: The provider sent us a link to claims of this product being open source and reproducible. We have to check this.

OneKey is an open source hardware wallet by Bixin. The primary language for the website is Chinese. OneKey, the company claims to be based in Singapore

Private keys are created offline - ✔️

From the FAQ

Number 5. The private keys of OneKey are all created offline, avoid cyber attacks completely. The physical buttons and display screen can provide complete protection even if the computer or mobile phone is implanted with malicious viruses, the transaction information needs double check on hardware device then signed for release. Software side cannot tamper it， private key is more secure throughout.

Private keys are not shared with OneKeyHQ - ✔️

OneKey claims that the private keys are only controlled by the user

Wallet helpers and seeds created with OneKey are stored locally and encrypted, so only you can decrypt the information, and our servers do not and cannot store any of the user’s private data. No more centralized institutions, you are in full control of your encrypted assets.

Device displays receive address for confirmation - ✔️

Tutorial on how to withdraw coins to OneKey

OneKey has a 1.54 Inch OLED with 128 x 64 pixels.

From the renderings provided on this page, the OneKey hardware wallet has a confirmation button.

However, this is from the official documentation. We were not able to find third-party content such as pictures or videos on social media or blogs that depicts the actual device.

Interface

Activating the wallet starts with the device providing the mnemonics and then securing it with a pin.

The wallet activation tutorial can be found here.

Incorrectly entering the pin code 10 times, resets the wallet.

The wallet can then be connected to the OneKey Desktop client or through a browser plug-in.

Code and Reproducibility

OneKey claims that their software code and firmware codes are open source:

All codes are open source
Transparent, WYSIWYG

Sadly their repository redirects to “OneKeyHQ/wallet-deprecated” which contains no source code and no mention of “firmware”.

There is another repo called OneKeyHQ/firmware (11396 commits) which is a fork of trezor-firmware (10805 commits).

Their OneKey hardware wallet firmware upgrade tutorial looks familiar to how Trezor One    works but with a Bluetooth firmware option. The screenshots and lack of discussion of such a feature imply there is no way of seeing a hash of the about to be installed firmware. Neither could we find the signed binary releases.

We opened an issue in the otherwise empty issue tracker of the most likely candidate for being the source code repository of this product but until confirmation of tis, we have to file this product as closed source as their website doesn’t link to any actual firmware source code. As such the product is not verifiable.

Tests performed by Matthew Lamb, Daniel Andrei R. Garcia, Leo Wandersleb, mohammad

Previous application build tests

28th December 2022  

Do your own research

In addition to reading our analysis, it is important to do your own checks. Before transferring any bitcoin to your wallet, look up reviews for the wallet you want to use. They should be easy to find. If they aren't, that itself is a reason to be extra careful.