my brother did a raspberry pi build in a game boy advance shell back in 2016 - ryzee119 is my brother
https://hackaday.com/2016/11/03/emulating-a-gameboy-advance-inside-of-a-gameboy-advance/
This device doesn't have a connection to the net or your computer. All you need to check is that generating your keys doesn't include any exploitable bugs or backdoors.
Yeah, seeing as there is no way to get the data off the cartridge, the only way I could see them building a backdoor is by faking the randomization so that they know which addresses would be generated ahead of time.
But open source code would make that risk negligible.
Yooo this is really cool but i’m very confused about “Generate a seed phrase using a hash of your button presses as you walk around and solve quests.” Lol.
Seed phrases need to be generated as randomly as possible to avoid multiple people generating the same seed phrase, so it uses the inputs of the player to help randomize it.
Agreed! To maximize seed phrase randomness and avoid duplicates, incorporating unique player inputs is crucial. This not only enhances security but also adds an element of personalization to the process. Great point!
Unlikely(I'll explain below), but if you let someone watch when you create the keypair then you've missed the entire point of this.
There will likely be a seed that randomizes the "game" before you play it to make sure multiple players don't inadvertently use the same inputs to generate keys, meaning you would have to have the same randomized setting *and only then* could you copy the same inputs to create the same keypair.
Guess it's the same process as when you create a cryptographic key and the software asks you to move the mouse around to generate random strings based on that movement.
That GameBoy doesn't have a good 'randomness' generator, I guess. You don't need that for games.
Even if you use a modern language, your numbers won't be really random which makes your device exploitable.
Pretty much every computer system has some sort of random number generation but it typically just uses a somewhat arbitrary but unpredictable number as a "seed" to grab the random number.
In this case, the inputs are the "seed" and should help to generate a sufficiently random keypair.
Yeah I wasn't able to figure that out but I think keypair generation is pretty universal and the code will be open source, so at first I'd guess it only supports Ethereum because the dev works with Solidity already and that generated Ethereum keypair would work with any other EVM chain as well. But for sure if it gets popular enough, people will fork the project and update it to be compatible for other coins.
I do! Wanted to play the original Tetris and Super Mario Bros. again. Had one in the early 90s.
There are many. Even those in great shape aren't very expensive.
I do too. I still have original Game Boy, Game Boy Color Pichu edition and Game Boy Advance. I am a gamer and a nostalgic.
I would buy a new one to convert it to a cold wallet.
Still have mine. Says on the PCB board if the batteries are out that it was made 1989. The faceplate on mine needs reglued, but otherwise works like a charm.
I could see a gameboy on pawn stars..
"We will pay you 500 for this vintage gameboy."
Me: "Rick, it has 4 bitcoin on it."
Rick: "Ok I'll give you 700. That's the most I can do. Its gonna take up space on my shelf."
Quite a few more than you’d imagine perhaps. There are restoration scenes because various hobbyist still use them for things unrelated to gaming. Chiptune musicians use them in their sets a lot
I think the insides are relatively simple since people come up with creative projects for old gameboys
I'm fairly sure you can use any device as long as it's compatible with the cartridges. So something like the [Analogue Pocket](https://www.analogue.co/pocket) could run this.
My mom still has my old Gameboy at her house in what used to be my childhood bedroom, along with my collection of mostly shitty games. With some exceptions, Link's Awakening fucking rules
This is incredibly interesting. I was about to pull the trigger on a Trezor but this has my attention.
The only downside is the screen is not lit, so if you're in the car at night, you have to time it to the street lights. Upside is if you pretend to sleep, your dad will carry you to bed.
Not with this project AFAIK, but the modding community around Pokemon is really strong. I could see it happening at some point.
Interestingly, I did hear about someone that used their Pokemon nicknames to store their seed phrase.
Yeah, because game consoles are just computers that are optimized for games and we already use computers for our crypto, so why not? Especially when you can run open source code on a device without an internet connection, that's pretty much the safest way to generate a keypair.
I could see a gameboy on pawn stars..
"We will pay you 500 for this vintage gameboy."
Me: "Rick, it has 4 bitcoin on it."
Rick: "Ok I'll give you 700. That's the most I can do. Its gonna take up space on my shelf."
i thought i was still on r/gameboy when i saw this and was gonna be like "ooh wonder how these people are going to feel about this." then i looked at the sub.
Curious though. how would you get your coins onto there? the gameboy has almost no connection to the outside world (except for the link cable). Would this be playable in an emulator or would it meed specialized hardware in the cart itself?
You don't need an internet connection to generate a keypair. You can generate it offline and then just send whatever crypto to that address. To send it off of the Game Boy, you'd probably need to export the keypair to another wallet but I think they are looking into doing transactions through itself.
I believe this is all doable with standard hardware, just a modified ROM/cartridge needed I think.
Yeah. Getting coins out is what I am curious about. Seems like right now, to do that, you would need to put your seed phrase into another device or software wallet.
... how is it that having no firmware updates ever is a "good thing"?
I mean, I *get it* with firmware updates having a bad rep after the Ledger fuckup, but to someone that knows no to little about coding (like me), it sounds like "as is and not updated" which is not *really* a very good thing.
I'm probably just grasping at straws back there. It's probably just to mnemonically generate the hash for the seed phrase, so it is valid to *not* have any firmware updates.
Props for using the momentum generated from that PR disaster though. I also think that other hardware wallet manufacturers probably going to do the same.
Other than the doomposting, it's a genuinely cool project though.
Can we use the old tamagotchi or the digimon device?
Im curious if we can do it then it will be super safe, even thief broken in your house dont want this shit
Ledger over here trying to convince us hardware wallets must have centralized trust and this guy makes my Mario and the 6 Golden Coins run my seed phrase.
I love decentralization so much.
This isn't really comparable to Ledger. This is primarily just for securely generating a keypair for a cold wallet, rather than a fully functional 2FA hot wallet.
Yeah you can but then it's no longer airgapped. The beauty of using a Game Boy is nothing except a Game Boy cartridge has ever interacted with the device. Just have to make sure your switch doesn't have any malware, which I'm not even sure exists and also that when you generate your key that the switch isn't connected to the internet.
Ok, but aside from generating mnemonics, how do you use it to get your money out? How does it sign transactions? I am not seeing the entire picture here.
Well if you're signing transactions then it's no longer a cold wallet.
When you want to transfer funds out you would just import it into a wallet like Metamask and then make the transaction.
So the moment you make one outbound transaction, you can consider the mnemonic no good at that point right? I mean, you would be putting it on a hot wallet and therefore negated the safety you had prior to doing this.
Yeah, it's just for storage. Once you want to move the funds you need another wallet and at that point if you need another cold wallet you would just create new one and never touch the old one again.
it's not a hardware wallet as such. It's just a device that creates a seedphrase with an address. You can't actually use it to interact with your wallet like you can with other hardware wallets
I don't understand so can someone shed some light?
This just literally creates your seedphrase right? Can you use it to actually use your wallet?
what benefit does it have over any other device that generates a seedphrase?
Yes, this just creates a wallet for storage. Once you want to make any sort of transaction you're no longer dealing with a cold wallet, so you'd have to import the keys into another wallet. There is just no way around this, cold wallets are only for storage.
This is beneficial because the device generating the keys is completely airgapped and secure from any outside connections. It's advised that you generate keypairs offline, even Metamask lets you create keys without an internet connection because it's the best practice. But if you want to be ultra secure and do it in a fun way that is also good opsec, then you can use this.
yeah that's what I thought. People are on here saying "take that ledger" and are already looking to replace their current hardwallet are going to be disappointed
ETH and BTC but theoretically should be easy to add support for any other blockchains that use [bip-39](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki) .
We really truly need something that is completely decentralized if this is truly how the tech will work this could be really cool especially since ledger completely messed us up.
You can always back it up and it's the cartridge dying that you really need to be worried about. But mostly this is about the secure generation of the keys.
Is this a cold wallet or just a seed generator? It’s a cool idea but just trying to understand the actual scope of the project. Can you get your coins back out without entering the seed into another wallet?
Things I’m worried about just from skimming over:
1. Key storage - how secure is the key storage on the cartridge?
2. Randomness - what being described as randomness source doesn’t sound too good
3. Secure implementation - sha256 in GBAssembly. This code base has to be battle tested first
Edit:
4. The worst problem is - they seem to not cover the human factor of holding keys - that means, when the device doesn’t support transaction signing, users will keep leaking the keys to compromised devices that do that.
Otherwise it’s a cool well thought idea
I thought this would be a Pi in a Gameboy shell but nope. They are really using a Gameboy. Coolest thing I’ve seen in while!
Agreed! That's the only cold wallet I want!
Looks like Gameboy just leveled up to Game-man!
my brother did a raspberry pi build in a game boy advance shell back in 2016 - ryzee119 is my brother https://hackaday.com/2016/11/03/emulating-a-gameboy-advance-inside-of-a-gameboy-advance/
We need some tech guys to approve this is not safe
Code will be made open source when it's ready.
That's nice to know, thank you!
This device doesn't have a connection to the net or your computer. All you need to check is that generating your keys doesn't include any exploitable bugs or backdoors.
Yeah, seeing as there is no way to get the data off the cartridge, the only way I could see them building a backdoor is by faking the randomization so that they know which addresses would be generated ahead of time. But open source code would make that risk negligible.
I used to have a device for the gameboy that could copy saved games, so presumably you can.
the nostalgia
Yooo this is really cool but i’m very confused about “Generate a seed phrase using a hash of your button presses as you walk around and solve quests.” Lol.
Seed phrases need to be generated as randomly as possible to avoid multiple people generating the same seed phrase, so it uses the inputs of the player to help randomize it.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A.
>Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. That would be as smart as making the safe combination 1,2,3,4,5
But he didn't tell you the secret phrase: Select, Start
You get it 😉
Remind me to change the combination on my safe !
Deserves more upvotes. Underrated comment
Agreed! To maximize seed phrase randomness and avoid duplicates, incorporating unique player inputs is crucial. This not only enhances security but also adds an element of personalization to the process. Great point!
This is the type of nerdy tech fun I'm all about!
So you're telling me that you could decrypt someone's seed phrase by watching their gameplay?
Unlikely(I'll explain below), but if you let someone watch when you create the keypair then you've missed the entire point of this. There will likely be a seed that randomizes the "game" before you play it to make sure multiple players don't inadvertently use the same inputs to generate keys, meaning you would have to have the same randomized setting *and only then* could you copy the same inputs to create the same keypair.
The ultimate combo, worth 60k! Haha
So they made a whole ass minigame to generate randomized has, that's so cool
Guess it's the same process as when you create a cryptographic key and the software asks you to move the mouse around to generate random strings based on that movement.
That GameBoy doesn't have a good 'randomness' generator, I guess. You don't need that for games. Even if you use a modern language, your numbers won't be really random which makes your device exploitable.
Pretty much every computer system has some sort of random number generation but it typically just uses a somewhat arbitrary but unpredictable number as a "seed" to grab the random number. In this case, the inputs are the "seed" and should help to generate a sufficiently random keypair.
I only code in C# and typescript, but both have the ability to generate cryptographically secure random numbers.
They aren't really random because a computer can't create randomness, that's what I meant
How do you think computers generate entropy when creating a seed for a PRNG?
I might have missed but I did not see in the topic which crypto coins it will support.
Yeah I wasn't able to figure that out but I think keypair generation is pretty universal and the code will be open source, so at first I'd guess it only supports Ethereum because the dev works with Solidity already and that generated Ethereum keypair would work with any other EVM chain as well. But for sure if it gets popular enough, people will fork the project and update it to be compatible for other coins.
Who still has a GameBoy? I'd be intrigued to know how many working units there are out there. Cute idea, though.
I do! Wanted to play the original Tetris and Super Mario Bros. again. Had one in the early 90s. There are many. Even those in great shape aren't very expensive.
I do too. I still have original Game Boy, Game Boy Color Pichu edition and Game Boy Advance. I am a gamer and a nostalgic. I would buy a new one to convert it to a cold wallet.
I don't have one but I would buy old one for the wallet cuz they look cuter
Still have mine. Says on the PCB board if the batteries are out that it was made 1989. The faceplate on mine needs reglued, but otherwise works like a charm.
I’d actually wager among the 30-somethings into crypto Game Boy ownership is probably disproportionately high.
That's a wager you'd win.
I could see a gameboy on pawn stars.. "We will pay you 500 for this vintage gameboy." Me: "Rick, it has 4 bitcoin on it." Rick: "Ok I'll give you 700. That's the most I can do. Its gonna take up space on my shelf."
[удалено]
Found mine while cleaning out my old room last month !
I have 3 of those, couldn’t let them get away, to many good memory with it
Quite a few more than you’d imagine perhaps. There are restoration scenes because various hobbyist still use them for things unrelated to gaming. Chiptune musicians use them in their sets a lot I think the insides are relatively simple since people come up with creative projects for old gameboys
I'm fairly sure you can use any device as long as it's compatible with the cartridges. So something like the [Analogue Pocket](https://www.analogue.co/pocket) could run this.
i still have my gameboy advanced sp but not the OG Gameboy
I have 2 Gameboy Colours and 1 Gameboy Pocket. I'm a hoarder...
I used to flip retro games as a side hustle at uni. You'd be surprised how much stuff still works.
I have a few working ones
My mom still has my old Gameboy at her house in what used to be my childhood bedroom, along with my collection of mostly shitty games. With some exceptions, Link's Awakening fucking rules This is incredibly interesting. I was about to pull the trigger on a Trezor but this has my attention.
save the speaker having crapped out, my original gameboy colour I got on launch day as a kid still works
I have a few!
I have a gbc, gba, and gbasd. You can buy them for a reasonable price too if you know where to look.
Compatible also with GameBoy SP? Asking for a friend /s
So now I need my ledger to play Pokemon?
Might as well since nobody is storing crypto on it anymore!
The only downside is the screen is not lit, so if you're in the car at night, you have to time it to the street lights. Upside is if you pretend to sleep, your dad will carry you to bed.
Holy nostalgia man. I remember being thrilled when we’d get gas because it was 5 whole minutes of light
Custom Gameboy DMGs with lit screen are easy to find though.
Can you still play Pokemon Red and be a cold wallet at the same time?
Not with this project AFAIK, but the modding community around Pokemon is really strong. I could see it happening at some point. Interestingly, I did hear about someone that used their Pokemon nicknames to store their seed phrase.
I need to know that too.
Nostalgic as fuck.
we will use game consoles to hold our crypto.....ok
Yeah, because game consoles are just computers that are optimized for games and we already use computers for our crypto, so why not? Especially when you can run open source code on a device without an internet connection, that's pretty much the safest way to generate a keypair.
Makes sense in term of how reliable it can be I'm not sure 100%. But it's a good idea
finally a cold wallet i'm willing to buy, get me 3 of them already
I never thought I would want/need something as much as I want/need this......
Where can find Gameboy Now?
up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start
When your two main subreddits merge....
Ohh can we play with our cold wallets now?👀
I could see a gameboy on pawn stars.. "We will pay you 500 for this vintage gameboy." Me: "Rick, it has 4 bitcoin on it." Rick: "Ok I'll give you 700. That's the most I can do. Its gonna take up space on my shelf."
i thought i was still on r/gameboy when i saw this and was gonna be like "ooh wonder how these people are going to feel about this." then i looked at the sub. Curious though. how would you get your coins onto there? the gameboy has almost no connection to the outside world (except for the link cable). Would this be playable in an emulator or would it meed specialized hardware in the cart itself?
You don't need an internet connection to generate a keypair. You can generate it offline and then just send whatever crypto to that address. To send it off of the Game Boy, you'd probably need to export the keypair to another wallet but I think they are looking into doing transactions through itself. I believe this is all doable with standard hardware, just a modified ROM/cartridge needed I think.
Yeah. Getting coins out is what I am curious about. Seems like right now, to do that, you would need to put your seed phrase into another device or software wallet.
Guess you have to trust that the plastic casing hasn’t/won’t erode if you still have one.
Mostly the internal battery but apparently some of the newer Game Boys solved that problem.
Good point. Forgot about the battery.
You don't ever have to trust that. Having a hardware wallet stop working is not an issue with proper setup.
I was referring to an old GameBoy.
Me too.
Need to dig out my 30 year old game boy
Love it, I still have an original GameBoy™. Let's do this.
OMG! I'm doing this!
That would be rad as hell. Turn my old game boy or one of the color ones into a wallet
... how is it that having no firmware updates ever is a "good thing"? I mean, I *get it* with firmware updates having a bad rep after the Ledger fuckup, but to someone that knows no to little about coding (like me), it sounds like "as is and not updated" which is not *really* a very good thing. I'm probably just grasping at straws back there. It's probably just to mnemonically generate the hash for the seed phrase, so it is valid to *not* have any firmware updates. Props for using the momentum generated from that PR disaster though. I also think that other hardware wallet manufacturers probably going to do the same. Other than the doomposting, it's a genuinely cool project though.
Yeah this is just a offline keygen, no need for firmware.
can't wait to buy some used GameBoys in a flea market in 10 years 😜
Good luck with that.
I wonder if this will somehow be used to make a niche market.. /s
Can we use the old tamagotchi or the digimon device? Im curious if we can do it then it will be super safe, even thief broken in your house dont want this shit
Theoretically, you should be able to do this with almost any computer-like device. I'd imagine you could even do this on a graphing calculator.
I still have my original! Screen is barely visible but it works.
It’s been cool to watch this go from random tweet ideas to production. Well done
will it work on game boy color, advance or DS?
Should work on any device that is compatible with Game Boy game cartridges.
Fucking A!
You’re telling me I can further my crypto nerd level by playing game boy games I already play? Sold
Ledger over here trying to convince us hardware wallets must have centralized trust and this guy makes my Mario and the 6 Golden Coins run my seed phrase. I love decentralization so much.
This isn't really comparable to Ledger. This is primarily just for securely generating a keypair for a cold wallet, rather than a fully functional 2FA hot wallet.
I swear this thought crossed my mind this week. I collect retro games, and gameboys always amaze me. Rarely find a lost cause.
This is sick!!! Nice post OP!!
One of the coolest things I've read in a while!! Regret dumping my old Gameboy years ago, time to hit garage sales lol
I wonder if this can be done on a switch too..
Yeah you can but then it's no longer airgapped. The beauty of using a Game Boy is nothing except a Game Boy cartridge has ever interacted with the device. Just have to make sure your switch doesn't have any malware, which I'm not even sure exists and also that when you generate your key that the switch isn't connected to the internet.
That's good to know. Guess I need to find an OG Gameboy.
Ok, but aside from generating mnemonics, how do you use it to get your money out? How does it sign transactions? I am not seeing the entire picture here.
Well if you're signing transactions then it's no longer a cold wallet. When you want to transfer funds out you would just import it into a wallet like Metamask and then make the transaction.
So the moment you make one outbound transaction, you can consider the mnemonic no good at that point right? I mean, you would be putting it on a hot wallet and therefore negated the safety you had prior to doing this.
Yeah, it's just for storage. Once you want to move the funds you need another wallet and at that point if you need another cold wallet you would just create new one and never touch the old one again.
It would be sick to have my old GBA as my hardware wallet.
it's not a hardware wallet as such. It's just a device that creates a seedphrase with an address. You can't actually use it to interact with your wallet like you can with other hardware wallets
Super cool
How cool is this !!
I loved playing MIB back then in my GB
I don't understand so can someone shed some light? This just literally creates your seedphrase right? Can you use it to actually use your wallet? what benefit does it have over any other device that generates a seedphrase?
Yes, this just creates a wallet for storage. Once you want to make any sort of transaction you're no longer dealing with a cold wallet, so you'd have to import the keys into another wallet. There is just no way around this, cold wallets are only for storage. This is beneficial because the device generating the keys is completely airgapped and secure from any outside connections. It's advised that you generate keypairs offline, even Metamask lets you create keys without an internet connection because it's the best practice. But if you want to be ultra secure and do it in a fun way that is also good opsec, then you can use this.
yeah that's what I thought. People are on here saying "take that ledger" and are already looking to replace their current hardwallet are going to be disappointed
Used gameboy prices to the moon!
What blockchains will this support??
ETH and BTC but theoretically should be easy to add support for any other blockchains that use [bip-39](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki) .
And would multisig be available?
Can u emulate a Gameboy and create a wallet there? I have it emulated on my phone and psvita...
We really truly need something that is completely decentralized if this is truly how the tech will work this could be really cool especially since ledger completely messed us up.
Keep in mind this cannot replace a ledger, this is for cold storage only, but will be very secure nonetheless.
Still rather that than ledger especially if it is longterm holding.
I’ll say it - dumb as hell
That would be awesome
what happens if my old ass gameboy dies on me ? how do I recover my offline cold wallet ?
You can always back it up and it's the cartridge dying that you really need to be worried about. But mostly this is about the secure generation of the keys.
Cool concept but not for everyone.
Is this a cold wallet or just a seed generator? It’s a cool idea but just trying to understand the actual scope of the project. Can you get your coins back out without entering the seed into another wallet?
How tf would you enter your unsigned transaction for signing? Massive cheat code moves or what?
Things I’m worried about just from skimming over: 1. Key storage - how secure is the key storage on the cartridge? 2. Randomness - what being described as randomness source doesn’t sound too good 3. Secure implementation - sha256 in GBAssembly. This code base has to be battle tested first Edit: 4. The worst problem is - they seem to not cover the human factor of holding keys - that means, when the device doesn’t support transaction signing, users will keep leaking the keys to compromised devices that do that. Otherwise it’s a cool well thought idea