Hack a Zengo Wallet, Win 10 Bitcoin. AMA!

We’re moving 10 Bitcoin (± $420,000 USD) and a Pudgy Penguin (± $25,000 USD) into a regular Zengo wallet and inviting you to try and steal it. We’re so confident in the robustness of our security model, we’re even sharing some of the 3 wallet recovery factors connected to this wallet.

We built Zengo in 2018 to fix the biggest problem with self-custody: Seed phrases. Zengo is not a hot wallet. Zengo is not a cold wallet. Zengo is a multi-factor MPC wallet: No seed phrase, no single point of failure.

Since 2018, we have over 1,000,000 users and a spotless security record:

• 0 wallets hacked
• 0 wallets taken over
• 0 wallets drained
• 0 wallets phished

We recognize that seed phrase maxis will not be interested in Zengo - but believe that the 99% will.

So no seed phrase: How does Zengo work?

1. Using a 2-of-2 Multi-Party Computation (MPC) framework, each of the two Zengo parties (Zengo app on the user device and Zengo server) independently generate their own “Secret Share” during the wallet creation process. The secret shares are cryptographically locked to prevent MITM attacks.
2. The share randomly generated on the user’s device is called the Personal Share and leverages the device’s hardware-based random number generator (TRNG). Only the Personal share can initialize and sign transactions, all of which are verified by the device’s hardware (Secure Enclave or TEE/Trusted Execution Environment).
3. The share randomly generated on Zengo’s remote server is called the Remote Share and is used to co-sign transactions emerging from the Personal Share.
4. Using MPC, these two Secret Shares are able to compute their corresponding public key securely.

Even if a hacker gains access to one of the two secret shares, it is still useless to them as they cannot spend user funds.

Lose your phone? The 3-factor wallet recovery process is biometrically locked to the user. More info here.

The Challenge: Hack a Zengo Wallet, Win 10 Bitcoin (±$420,000)

This Tuesday (January 9, 2024) we are putting our money where our mouth is. Yes: We argue that Zengo is more secure than a traditional single-factor hardware wallet.

https://preview.redd.it/ie6l9dvkp0bc1.png?2600&format=png&auto=webp&s=c853e0c04da942fc97446643be2112abaf53723d

Here’s what we’re doing:

Over the course of 15 days we will be adding up to 10 Bitcoin inside a Zengo wallet, inviting anyone to try and hack it.

We will also start sharing some of the security factors that protect the wallet.

Follow along on this page with updated information regarding the challenge: https://zengo.com/zengo-wallet-bitcoin-challenge

We are also awarding up to $750 in Bitcoin for those who create high-quality content as they try and hack the wallet, or learn about our model (terms apply, see blog for all details).

We believe that MPC wallets like Zengo will help securely self-custody millions who are stressed about seed phrases - or those who don’t even self-custody today because it’s too hard to do it correctly.

MPC is like AA on steroids, and can protect more than just EVM chains, like Bitcoin. We’ve already launched advanced features like Theft Protection which lock on-chain approvals to your Biometrics - and you can bet we’re activating it for this challenge!

Happy to answer questions about our approach to MPC, the #ZengoWalletChallenge, advanced features MPC enables (like theft protection, our on-chain no-kyc asset inheritance-style feature, or anything else).

AMA with the Zengo team will go from 10AM EST -12PM EST on Monday, Jan 8th. Until then feel free to start posting questions ????

AMA