Bitkey, the self-custody bitcoin wallet built by the Proto team at Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ), has started shipping its first hardware devices to customers’ homes this week and people can now truly own and manage their bitcoin easily and safely. After opening pre-orders, the team has continued working on finishing additional security and recovery features while putting the final touches to the new Bitkey app, which is now available for download in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. People in 90+ countries who want to take control of their bitcoin can now order Bitkey’s hardware device for delivery, which comes with the Bitkey app and a set of recovery tools.
Bitkey’s wallet was built to bring more people to self-custody with an easy-to-use and safe solution. A major focus for the team building Bitkey has always been providing accessible recovery experiences that prioritize both simple and secure paths for customers to control and recover their money if something goes wrong. When moving from custodial to self-custody solutions, customers have historically had to confront complexity: having to remember and store long passwords, and struggling through difficult and unfamiliar setup processes that often leave customers prone to accidental loss of their bitcoin. Bitkey’s recovery design incorporates tools to easily but securely regain access to one’s account in every situation possible.
What’s new: trusted contacts and more security & independence for customers
The beta-tested version came with two features as part of Bitkey’s recovery design: Cloud Backup, for when someone loses access to the mobile key, for example if their phone is lost or stolen – or they get an upgrade; and Delay and Notify, which allows customers to regain access to their funds through a new set of keys if they only have access to one of their two keys (either mobile or hardware).
Now, the Bitkey wallet brings new recovery features that top off the recovery design behind the wallet:
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Trusted Contacts, an optional feature that lets customers set up people they trust who can help them verify recovery requests and recover the their wallets when both the mobile key and the hardware key have been lost; and an
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Emergency Access Kit, which gets automatically stored in the customer’s cloud account and can help them recover if the app is no longer available on the app stores or if they no longer want to use the third key stored by Block.
