According to a tweet by Nejc Kodrič, co-founder and CEO of the European Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp, his team is working on adding support for LedgerHQ and BitcoinTrezor. Vasja Zupan, Bitstamp’s Head of Business Development, confirms this information.

Zupan explains to Cointelegraph that it is a pilot program which will be used to test the response of the users of the exchange. It will be expanded by adding other wallets if it turns out to be successful. Both Ledger and Trezor aim at enabling secure cryptocurrencies, particularly for offline transactions.

Why LedgerHQ and BitcoinTrezor?

On why Bitstamp chose to work with the two wallets, Zupan says:

“Because that is the point of Bitcoin - to manage your own bank. Exchanges are constantly targeted by hackers because they hold larger amounts of Bitcoins. These hacks sometimes succeed and leave devastation behind. We have observed increased usage of hardware wallets in combination with our exchange. For that reason, we want to make it a seamless experience for our users to use Bitstamp in combination with their own hardware wallets.”

Zupan adds that the move is not in any way related to either Bitstamp’s current setup, operation, relationship or its implementation of BitGo services, nor is it a way to replace BitGo which has been widely criticized following the Bitfinex hack.

What to expect next

Bitstamp depends highly on its customers’ demands and acceptance of the service to determine what will come next. If the initial request for integration of hardware wallets comes from its customers, the company will have to implement this whenever possible and reasonable.

Zupan says about his company that is celebrating its fifth anniversary this week:

“We have received a very encouraging response from the Bitcoin community after our announcement about the forthcoming integration of hardware wallets with Bitstamp. This further confirms that there is a real need for such a service.”