Japanese financial services giant SBI licenses Sepior’s Threshold Wallet technology for use in their proprietary wallet, to be integrated with the SBI Virtual Currencies exchange platform
Sepior ApS and the SBI Group has announced an agreement to license Sepior’s Threshold-Sig Wallet Security technology and to jointly develop a proprietary wallet to secure the on-line contents and transactions on SBI’s Virtual Currencies exchange platform, VCTRADE. Sepior’s threshold signature approach using multiparty computation (MPC) provides the highest level of encryption key protection available for cryptocurrency wallets, addressing the most salient criteria for achieving on-line wallet and transaction security.
Worldwide interest in cryptocurrencies has surged in recent years; however, major losses from cyberattacks on cryptocurrencies have created legitimate concerns about security measures implemented by cryptocurrency exchanges. More than $1.6 billion in today’s values have been lost from such attacks since 2014, and the vast majority of the events are linked to insufficient key security. SBI is setting new standards for cryptocurrency exchange security, in part through more effective key management and protection using Sepior’s Threshold Wallet technology.
Critical requirements for institutional-grade cryptocurrency exchanges include the ability to provide custodial wallet services with the highest level of security for signing transactions, storing private key components, and minimizing the risk of assets being frozen or moved without the approval of the end-user or custodians. Sepior’s patented Threshold Wallet technology, which enables rapid signing of transactions involving multiple parties is instrumental in helping SBI Virtual Currencies satisfy these requirements. Also critical is the nature of Sepior’s key protection approach, which eliminates the need for any device or entity to possess the entire private key at any time, making it effectively impossible for an attack to result in key theft.
“After extensive investigation, our security research team determined threshold signatures based on multiparty computation (MPC) offered our desired level of security, performance, and scalability needed to manage transactions for our growing SBI Virtual Currencies customer base”, said Yoshitaka Kitao, Representative Director, President & CEO of SBI Holdings. “Sepior is recognized as a market leader in cryptography and threshold MPC. They’ve applied these core competencies to facilitate secure on-line transactions without the classic reliance on a single trusted party.”
“We are absolutely thrilled to be working with the SBI Group”, said Ahmet Tuncay, chief executive officer of Sepior. “SBI Virtual Currencies operates the first bank-backed, government-licensed cryptocurrency exchange in the most active cryptocurrency trade region in the world. SBI Virtual Currencies will set new industry benchmarks for security, performance, scale, and privacy for cryptocurrency exchanges with its institutional-grade custodial services. Sepior is proud to be SBI’s trusted development partner and technology provider in this endeavor.”
More information about the role of Sepior’s Threshold Wallet technology, enabling trust for online transactions with threshold signatures, can be found at: https://sepior.com. Be sure to visit Sepior at Money 20/20, (Booth 1379) and at Blockchain Expo North America (Booth 727).
About Sepior ApS
Founded in 2014, in Aarhus, Denmark, Sepior is enabling trust for online financial transactions and enterprise data protection applications, such as cryptocurrency custodial wallets, public or private blockchains, and cloud-based SaaS offerings, using threshold-based multiparty computation (tMPC). Using patented threshold cryptographic protocols, Sepior’s RSA award-winning team of renowned cryptography experts has revolutionized key protection and management required for online security and privacy. The result is a customer-definable security framework that operates with any hardware, virtual device, or platform, using a distributed-trust model, optimized for current and emerging fintech, cloud, IoT, and distributed ledger applications and services, allowing our customers to transact with trust.
For more information, visit https://sepior.com.
About SBI Holdings
The SBI Group was established in 1999 as a pioneer of Internet-based financial services in Japan. Since then, the SBI Group has formed the world’s first Internet-based financial conglomerate, providing financial services in a broad range of fields including securities, banking and insurance. In addition, the SBI Group provides Asset Management Business, with a prime focus on investment in venture companies – an activity undertaken since before the Group’s founding. In this sphere, the SBI Group has made focused investments in the IT and biotechnology sectors, which are the 21st century growth industries. Currently, the development of new technologies is accelerating within the Fintech, IoT, AI, Big Data and related fields thus attracting global attention. The SBI Group is proactively investing in venture companies within these fields.
