Chalk this one up to sounding both a little crazy and a little brilliant. 10 days ago, a Dutch man had a NFC
chip implanted into each of his hands to serve as storage for the
encrypted key to his Bitcoin cold storage. Keeping one's Bitcoins
offline, and in this case in the body, makes it harder for them to be
hacked and stolen, but
Martijn Wismeijer is already thinking ahead for other uses for his chipped hands.
As an entrepreneur and founder of
Mr. Bitcoin,
a company that installs Bitcoin ATMs in the Netherlands and Belgium,
Wismeijer had a 2 millimeter by 12 millimeter NFC Type 2 compliant
NTAG216 RFID chip injected into the muscle tissue between his index
finger and thumb on each hand. One he uses to store and overwrite
common, everyday data, such as contact details, while the other holds
his encrypted Bitcoin wallet key. Speaking to
ArsTechnica, he jokes, "I use it for cold storage, but it's not cold because it's 37 degrees Celsius inside my body!"
Wismeijer bought the chips for $99 each
from DangerousThings.com,
where they come pre-loaded in a syringe. After his doctor in Amsterdam
understandably refused to perform the procedure, Wismeijer says he
turned to a professional piercing artist to do the deed. He commented
that having the chips put into his body hurt more than a normal
injection, but there wasn't too much pain involved.
The injection hole
on the surface of the skin has healed, so there's no fear of infection,
but the chips are still noticeable in the tissue. Wismeijer adds that
they don't generate any heat, and he feels nothing different when they
are scanned.
The main purpose for putting the NFC chips in his hands was to serve his work, where his private Bitcoin
key, along with those from other colleagues, is used to unlock his
company's master wallet when they need to transfer funds out of cold
storage. They scan the chips either with a USB dongle or a NFC-enabled
phone.
Beyond that, Wismeijer is already planning to use his chips as keys
to NFC-enabled door locks at his home. The founder of
DangerousThings.com, Amal Graafstra, has been doing just that for the
last 10 years or so, thanks to
$200 door locks
from Samsung and chips in the same location on his hands. Graafstra
says all he has to do is put his hand on the doorknob for it to unlock,
and that he stopped noticing the chips after a few months.
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