Did I pioneer QR code hardware wallets?

Hey everyone, When I first got into crypto, the only hardware wallets around were Ledger and Trezor. Some experienced folks told me that the safest way to keep your crypto was to use a cold machine and USB sticks for signing transactions. But I came up with a different approach. I actually found a Telegram message from September 14, 2020, where I talked about this idea: Now, does anyone know if this method was used before I mentioned it?

You mean what you can use QR code to do? It can be used for making payment. You will use it to scan the bitcoin address if the wallet can generate QR code address and the other device can make use of camera to scan the QR code. Another use is to set up a watch only wallet. The wallet will generate the address or the master public key which the other wallet can scan to set up the watch only wallet. It can be used for what you want it for which is to transfer transactions that are not signed to a signing device. Wallets like Electrum can be used for it on a device that is permanently offline or using it on hardware wallet like Foundation Passport or Keystone.

Electrum wallet has had this feature built-in since version 2.0, released in 2015 if I'm not mistaken, so the method existed at least five years before your message. And if you carefully read the Electrum 2.0 release notes, you can find out that they based that feature on Andreas Schildbach's base43 idea, which is even much older (here are some sources from 2011: [https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoinj/c/oEOtluuyQBo/m/KBven3k9LzEJ]). So, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but no, you are not the "originator" of that idea.

On a side note, i don't think any OS still enable autorun feature these days. So using USB shouldn't be that dangerous, unless you use USB drive vulnerable to BadUSB exposure[1] and specifically targeted by expert criminal. And due to limitation of QR size, you might face problem if you attempt to sign big transaction. [1] https://opensource.srlabs.de/projects/badusb

Hey there FatFork, thank you very much this answers my question! Unfortunately I don’t have any merits to give.