Secure Element vs General-Purpose Chip in Wallets
Compare Secure Elements and microcontrollers in hardware wallets: physical attack resistance, open-source firmware trade-offs, and dual-chip designs.
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Contents
- Silicon Architecture and Physical Attack Surfaces
- The Transparency and Open-Source Dilemma
- Architectural Trade-Offs
- Dual-Chip Architectures: Combining MCUs and Secure Elements
- FAQ
- Sources
- Example sequences from the BIP39 wordlist
- Reading a BIP39 phrase
- See also
- Keywords:
- secure element · microcontroller · hardware wallet · physical attack · common criteria
Guides on the same subject
- What Is a Hardware Wallet and How Does It Work? (Ledger, Trezor)
A hardware wallet keeps your private keys on a small device and signs each transaction after you confirm it on its screen. How it works and what it can't stop.
- Hardware Wallets Compared: Ledger, Trezor, Keystone and More
Ledger, Trezor, Keystone, COLDCARD, BitBox, Jade, Passport and Tangem compared: key chips, open firmware, screens, backups and coins, from makers' own specs.
- 12 vs 24 Word Seed Phrase: Which Is More Secure?
A 24-word seed phrase has 256 bits of entropy and a 12-word one 128, but both are beyond brute force; 24 words help mainly when part of a backup is exposed.
One of the documents in the Seed Phrase PDF Archive, listed on archive page 9.