Block launches Bitkey hardware wallet sales

Block, Jack Dorsey’s company, opened pre-orders for the Bitkey hardware Bitcoin wallet in more than 85 countries worldwide. Shipments will begin in 2024.

The device is shaped like a black hexagon. The package includes a mobile app and a set of tools to simplify key recovery.

Bitkey provides multisignatures with two-of-three approvals — any two of them are required to move coins or perform other actions, all three are used to protect assets.

This mechanism allows users not to have to remember long passwords or seed phrases.

Bitkey provides users with two keys. One is in the mobile app, which allows users to easily make Bitcoin transactions, monitor balance and manage security settings.

The second is stored offline in the hardware device. It serves two main purposes:

• provides an additional security layer for co-signing transfers (based on a set limit);
• allows data recovery when users lose their phone.

The third key is on Bitkey’s server and is used only for two tasks: to allow users to transfer bitcoins for transactions they prefer to perform without the hardware device, and to help recover the wallet in case of loss of phone or equipment — or both.

Because there is only one signature, the company does not have access to the client’s coins.

Wallet users will be able to connect to crypto exchanges and payment services, including the Cash App, with the ability to transfer digital assets between platforms.

“We are also looking for other opportunities for synergy,” — заявили the head of the Bitkey development team at Proto, Thomas Templeton.

The specialist noted that the product is intended for “ordinary people who are entering this crypto space”.

Dorsey announced in June 2021 the possibility of creating Block’s hardware wallet. At that time, he noted that the company would be guided by principles of maximum openness, and announced the possibility of merging the product with the Cash App app.

The initiative was framed as a move toward decentralising the network of the first cryptocurrency and increasing accessibility to both secure storage and mining of digital assets.

In July of the same year, the payments company confirmed plans to develop a hardware Bitcoin wallet.

Templeton said in May 2023 that the prototype ASIC chip for mining open-source digital gold had been completed.

Two months earlier, Dorsey’s company announced the launch of a unit to develop the Lightning Network ecosystem Lightning Network. The project was given the concise name — s=.