Bitspark Goes Passwordless, Announces Clef Support
Today Bitspark announced an integration with Clef to provide secure, passwordless logins for all of their users. Over the past three months, Clef has been spreading quickly through the Bitcoin ecosystem and is already overtaking some of the more entrenched incumbents. Bitspark is a Hong Kong-based exchange and remittance platform that announced a new round of funding a few weeks ago. They are the first company in the world to offer end to end Bitcoin remittances and were recently featured in Goldman Sachs’ The Future of Finance.
Security is absolutely critical to Bitcoin applications, but older, more difficult forms of two-factor have been too difficult for mainstream users. As more applications target less technical customers, solutions like Clef are vital to keeping those users safe. Bitspark has built a tool that can have a huge impact on the lives of people sending money home, an audience that has remained largely unexposed to Bitcoin up to now.
Bitspark offers two major services -- an exchange and a remittance service. The exchange supports 18 currency pairs and 5 fiat currencies and the remittance service works for Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia. Backed by the Hong Kong government incubator Cyberport, Bitspark has focused on making strong security really simple for their users. They’ve partnered with BitGo to provide multi-signature wallets to all of their customers, their exchange is based on audited, open source code, and they keep real time proof of their reserves.
“When we think about the next generation of Bitcoin technology, Bitspark is exactly the kind of product that gets us excited,” said Brennen Byrne, CEO of Clef. “It is absolutely critical that we find ways to make Bitcoin useful to more people, and I’m excited that Clef can help make that happen.”
Bitspark chose Clef because of how easy it is to use. Typically, sites that offer two-factor authentication see fewer than 1% of users opt in to protect their accounts, but sites that use Clef have seen more than 50% of their users opt in to the safer login. To make the login seamless, Clef recognizes a user’s phone instead of anything they need to remember or type.
“From the first time I saw someone log in with Clef, I knew that this was the future,” said George Harrap, CEO of Bitspark. “Our whole team got excited about the technology and the integration was really quick.”
A customer can log into Bitspark on any computer in the world by holding their phone up to the computer screen. Using the phone’s camera and an animation called the Clef Wave, the phone seamlessly syncs with the computer and logs the user in. The process already protects almost 50,000 sites and is backed by public key cryptography that is much stronger than any password. Clef works on any iOS or Android device, and is available for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
About Clef
Clef is an Oakland startup building the two-factor of the future. By taking advantage of the rapid spread of mobile devices, Clef has built technology that is not only much more secure than traditional logins, but also much easier to use. Since 2013, Clef has spread to more than 46,000 sites and received accolades from The New York Times,Inc. Magazine,and The Economist.Clef is funded by Morado Ventures and angels from a broad variety of product and security backgrounds.
For more information on Clef, visit http://getclef.com/
About Bitspark
Bitspark is a leading crypto-financial services provider based in Cyberport, Hong Kong, and pioneer of the world’s first end-to-end cash-in cash-out Bitcoin-powered remittance service. The Company is also Asia’s foremost multi-currency, auditable, open-source crypto-currency exchange. Bitspark is led by a core team of Bitcoin and crypto-currency enthusiasts from a number of backgrounds - ranging from hardware and software engineering to marketing and management experience. Bitspark has a suite of innovative products targeting the crypto-currency space and is focused on scaling Bitcoin applications to reach the emerging markets of Asia.
For more information on Bitspark , visit https://bitspark.io/
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