A company called Case introduced a hardware bitcoin wallet yesterday at Day 1 of TechCrunch Disrupt’s two-day Startup Battlefield. The device resembles a black credit card or small calculator, much like Coin.

But is there really a need for a hardware bitcoin wallet for the retail market?

The company looks to solve the problem of securing one’s bitcoins. Co-founder and CEO Melanie Shapiro said she came up with the idea because she had bitcoins stolen from an exchange. Case uses two-factor authentication, biometric security and a private key, to access one’s bitcoins. If the user loses the device, a third key stored in the cloud can be used to access the coins, once the users verifies his identity with Case.

The security looks solid enough, but the idea itself has limited appeal. For one thing, consumer uses of bitcoin are sparse and likely to remain so. Better uses for bitcoin, such as quickly and inexpensively moving money between currencies, do not seem to be part of Case’s feature set, though it may hold other currencies in the future, Shapiro said. The Case device, which also utilizes QR codes, seems primed for use at bitcoin-enabled points of sale, though it can also be used to make bitcoin purchases online. But if you’re really looking to spend your bitcoins to buy books and bicycles, why not have a wallet on your phone that can make in-app purchases?

Which brings up the second problem. Users are not looking to carry more devices around, and smartphones are already equipped to display QR codes, scan fingerprints, and generally verify identity. Asking for users to carry a second device that only does one thing is asking a lot today.

And the device does not seem to be able to secure bitcoins in “cold storage,” meaning offline. Rather, Case is always online, so the friction of using the coins is reduced, but the bitcoins on it are always in some danger of being snatched, however remote.

To top it off, the device costs $199 (0.84 BTC) — not exactly cheap. It may go down if the volume produced goes up. The initial production round is just 1,000.

It will solve a worry for some bitcoin enthusiasts that want safe and easy access to their coins, but it is unlikely to attract new users to bitcoin, which is something the community needs to break free of its bad reputation.