Cryptocurrency startup Xapo periodically showing journalists the bunker, which was equipped for maximum safe storage of digital currencies.
However, the amount held in the company’s servers, not connected to external networks, is kept secret. Bloomberg has reported two clients of the company, it is about $10 billion in bitcoins. Another close to the company source confirmed that this assessment is pretty accurate.
Thus, Xapo holds about 7% of all existing bitcoins. At the same time, the size of the deposits of the startup, founded 4 years ago in excess of the sums which are on accounts of 98% of US banks.
“All who do not keep the keys yourself, keep them with Xapo”, — said CEO CoinShares Ryan Radloff transferred for storage in the bunker about $500 million in bitcoin. “You can’t make me translate them into the Bank for money.”
Xapo made a decision to arrange for cold storage of bitcoins in the Swiss mountains, using a former military bunker and providing it with physical protection, and advanced electronic protection.
“They were the first who thought that the functions of storage and security will be key,” said co-founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman, a venture capital company which has provided Xapo $20 million in 2014, approximately 2 years after the Chapter start-up Wences Casares convinced him to buy bitcoin. “He told me about his plan in the morning and in the afternoon I called him with a proposal.”
Getting bitcoins from the vault Xapo takes about two days. First, the company identificeret client and approves the request, then manually sign transactions with private keys stored in different parts of the bunker.
“Every element of their structure is aimed at ensuring security,” said Sean Clark, founder of First Block, adding that the fingerprint scanners in the Xapo vault are equipped with heart rate sensors to exclude the possibility of the use of amputated hands. “Every time we want to make a large transaction, they communicate with us via video conferencing, we use code words. If the transfer is large enough, they will come to check everything personally.”
Source
