Apple has long been held as the promised land as far as many cryptocurrency enthusiasts are concerned. Samsung announcing a crypto wallet in their new Galaxy S10 was one thing, but the theory goes that if Apple announces a crypto wallet in a new phone then cryptocurrency will finally have gone mainstream. We might not be at that stage yet, but some think the seeds have been sewn after Apple yesterday announced its Cryptokit (no, not cryptokitties), a toolkit that will allow developers to perform cryptographic operations securely and efficiently using the Secure Enclave that other smartphone makers have used for their crypto wallets.
Cryptokit to Allow “Common Cryptographic Operations”
Apple didn’t make a big splash of the development, offering a few details on their website which stated that developers could use Cryptokit to “perform common cryptographic operations”, including:
- Compute and compare cryptographically secure digests.
- Use public-key cryptography to create and evaluate digital signatures, and to perform key exchange. In addition to working with keys stored in memory, you can also use private keys stored in and managed by the Secure Enclave.
- Generate symmetric keys, and use them in operations like message authentication and encryption.
The mention of private keys being stored and managed in the Secure Enclave will be of most interest. This is how Samsung described their crypto wallet upon the launch of the S10, before they came out the following day and clarified that the enclave would be utilized for a full-on crypto wallet.
Not All as It Seems
It didn’t take long for the news to do the rounds and whip up excitement within the community, with many feeling that the next generation of Apple phone will be the first that can be used as a crypto hardware wallet. Others were quick to pour water on those claims however, suggesting that while the Cryptokit was related to cryptography, it was not necessarily going to allow for cryptocurrency storage.
The Ethereum community seems to stoked about a new Apple framework called CryptoKit. There are a few misconceptions I’d like to clear up. (Thread)
— Ronald Mannak (@ronaldmannak) June 4, 2019
With the Cryptokit being brand new it’s not yet known exactly what the toolkit’s full capabilities are, but once developers have had some time with it we should know whether we can expect our iPhones to be hardware wallets or if we’ll have to wait a little longer.
