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Announcing Envoy Wallet: Bitcoin Simplified

We’re thrilled to announce a groundbreaking release of Envoy, our mobile companion app for Passport. This new update transforms Envoy into a standalone Bitcoin mobile wallet with powerful account management and privacy features.

Envoy makes financial sovereignty more accessible than ever before and radically lowers the barriers to Bitcoin self custody.

Notably, Envoy Magic Backups take the pain and worry out of setting up and backing up a mobile wallet, allowing you to get up and running in 60 seconds and restore your wallet anytime, on any device, in just three taps. It’s time you experienced Bitcoin, simplified.

Read below to learn more, or dive right in and download Envoy now!

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

With mobile wallet support in Envoy, the combination of Envoy + Passport empowers you to store your wealth in an ultra secure, intuitive hardware wallet while also spending Bitcoin on the go in just a few taps. Move funds back and forth between Envoy and Passport, make airgapped transactions, and access your spending and saving balances from anywhere – all in a single app!

Not a Passport owner? This update introduces full Bitcoin wallet functionality on your iOS or Android phone. Use Envoy to store and spend your Bitcoin with strong security, privacy via Tor, and a streamlined setup experience.

We are excited to bring our best-in-class design, intuitive and approachable user experience, and peace of mind to smartphone users across the globe – no Passport required.

WHAT IS A “MOBILE WALLET?”

In Bitcoin, the term “mobile wallet” refers to any wallet that keeps your keys on an internet-connected smartphone for easier spending and receiving of funds. While you should not keep your life savings in a mobile wallet, it provides easier access to a small amount of Bitcoin for spending, withdrawing from an exchange, and onboarding new users.

Envoy has traditionally been a “watch-only wallet” that connects to Passport, allowing you to view your balance and create transactions, but providing limited functionality when you are away from your hardware wallet. Now you can enjoy Envoy as a full-featured Bitcoin wallet on the go.

EXPERIENCE MAGIC BACKUPS

Envoy introduces a new seed-less onboarding experience called Magic Backups. While Envoy users can of course manually handle seed words if desired, we aimed to engineer a solution that enables 60-second onboarding and automatic encrypted backups of Envoy’s private key and application data (such as settings and labels), with a full restore taking just three taps.

Additionally, we wanted to ensure that Envoy does this without collecting any user data – no email address, no passwords, no IP address (when Tor is enabled) – no friction!

We expect Envoy Magic Backups will lead to a massive increase in self custody, with easier onboarding than you’d find at any Bitcoin exchange or custodian.

HERE’S HOW ENVOY MAGIC BACKUPS WORK

  1. Envoy generates a seed and stores it on your phone’s secure element.
  2. Since most users have iCloud Keychain or Android Auto Backup enabled, the seed is automatically synced to your other iOS or Android devices – fully end-to-end encrypted, without needing to give Envoy permission to access your iCloud or Google account. This encryption means that only you can access this data, not even Apple or Google.
    • Learn more about iCloud Keychain.
      • “iCloud protects your information with end-to-end encryption, which provides the highest level of data security. Your data is protected with a key that’s made from information unique to your device, and combined with your device passcode, which only you know. No one else can access or read this data, either in transit or storage.”
    • Learn more about Android Auto Backup.
      • “Android preserves app data by uploading it to the user’s Google Drive—where it’s protected by the user’s Google account credentials. The backup is end-to-end encrypted on devices running Android 9 or higher using the device’s pin, pattern, or password.”
  3. Envoy then creates a backup file containing your app settings, account labels, and other non-sensitive app data, so that Envoy can be restored to its exact previous state. This folder is end-to-end encrypted with your seed so that Foundation can never see the contents. We call this the Envoy Backup.
  4. The fully encrypted Envoy Backup is uploaded to Foundation’s servers, alongside a hash of the seed (a cryptographic representation of the seed that proves your knowledge of the seed, not the seed itself!) so that we can ensure no one else can attempt to download your backup without proving knowledge of your seed phrase.
  5. There is no Foundation user account, no email, no password – all you need is access to your iCloud or Google account.

RESTORING FROM MAGIC BACKUPS

If you lose your phone or delete the Envoy app, restoring your wallet takes only a few seconds with Magic Backups.

  1. Envoy checks the secure element on your phone and looks for the seed.
    • If it discovers a seed on the secure element, Envoy hashes the seed and sends the hash to our server.
      • This merely proves your knowledge of the seed and does not reveal your seed to Foundation in any way!
    • If it does not discover a seed, it accesses the encrypted backup from iCloud Keychain or Android Auto Backup and restores the seed to the secure element. Then Envoy hashes the seed and sends the hash to our server.
  2. Envoy then downloads the encrypted Envoy Backup from our servers.
  3. Envoy uses the seed to decrypt the Envoy Backup file locally (on your phone!) and restores all user settings, account labels, and other app data – so it’s like you never left.

OTHER NOTABLE CHANGES

We’ve also added the following features and improvements in this release:

  • Biometric/PIN authentication. Now you can protect your mobile wallet or Passport balances from prying eyes
  • Ability to swipe on accounts to hide balances while you’re on the go. For example, you can display your mobile wallet balance but hide your hardware wallet balance.

TRY ENVOY TODAY

We’ve released this new version of Envoy to all major platforms, so you can choose the method that suits you best below:

  1. If you’re on iOS, you can install Envoy from the App Store using the following link:
  2. For those on Android, you can either find Envoy in the Play Store, install via F-Droid, or download the app directly from Github (Envoy is fully open source!):
    • Play Store
    • F-Droid
    • GitHub
      • Download the APK titled “envoy-apk-1.1.3.apk” directly from the above link and install
      • As this APK is signed with our own keys instead of Google’s keys via the Play Store, if you’re using the Play Store version you’ll have to uninstall Envoy first before installing the public beta

HOW CAN I GIVE FEEDBACK OR GET SUPPORT?

As you use Envoy as a mobile wallet, we’d love to hear from you – every issue, bug, or favorite feature! There are three main places you can go to give us feedback or get help with Envoy:

  1. We have a standalone Telegram channel for our community that you can join and give feedback or get support
  2. You can email us
  3. You can direct message us on Twitter

WHAT’S NEXT

The release of Envoy as a mobile wallet paves the way for a range of roadmap items we’ve been planning for some time, and we can’t wait to build on this strong foundation of simplified Bitcoin usage. Next you’ll be able to jump in the ???? with thousands of other Bitcoiners, become a ????, or ⚡ your way to a cup of coffee — all within Envoy!

We’re excited to release the next piece of your financial sovereignty toolkit to the masses and onboard a wave of Bitcoiners to self-custody, privacy, and financial sovereignty sat by sat.

Now back to building.

Announcing Envoy Wallet

We at Foundation are thrilled to launch a major update to our Envoy mobile app for iOS and Android, transforming Envoy into a standalone mobile Bitcoin wallet with a magical setup experience. For more details, read the official press release below.

FOUNDATION LAUNCHES ENVOY WALLET WITH MAGIC BACKUPS, LOWERING THE BARRIERS TO BITCOIN SELF CUSTODY

Updates to Envoy and Passport hardware wallet mark significant advancements in the company’s mission to empower individuals to reclaim their digital sovereignty.

Foundation Devices (“Foundation”), a leader in the development of Bitcoin-centric tools, today announced a major update to its Envoy mobile app, transforming it into a standalone Bitcoin mobile wallet with powerful account management and privacy features. This update is a significant step in Foundation’s mission to make digital sovereignty more accessible and to lower the barriers to Bitcoin self-custody.

The new Envoy update introduces Envoy Magic Backups, a feature that simplifies the setup and backup process for a mobile wallet. Users can now get started in 60 seconds – without seed words – and restore their wallet anytime, on any device, in just two taps. This update empowers users to store and spend their Bitcoin with strong security, privacy via Tor, and a streamlined setup experience.

“With this update, we are excited to bring our best-in-class design, intuitive and approachable user experience, and peace of mind to smartphone users across the globe – no Passport required,” said Zach Herbert, Co-Founder and CEO of Foundation.

In addition to the Envoy update, Foundation announced a price reduction to $199 for its highly rated Passport hardware wallet. Customers who ordered in the last 90 days will be eligible to claim a $50 gift card for the Foundation store.

Foundation also released a major new Passport update. The introduction of the Key Manager extension enables two powerful new tools in child seeds and Nostr keys, both of which are derived directly from a user’s seed on Passport and automatically backed up to microSD.

“Foundation is committed to making Bitcoin and decentralized technologies accessible to everyone,” Herbert added. “These updates mark significant advancements in our mission to empower individuals to reclaim their digital sovereignty. We’re excited to continue delivering products that usher in a new era of freedom and prosperity for users worldwide.”

About FoundatioN

Founded in April 2020, Foundation is dedicated to making Bitcoin and decentralized technologies accessible to everyone, enabling users to reclaim their digital sovereignty. The company’s open-source products include Passport, a best-in-class Bitcoin hardware wallet, and Envoy, a mobile Bitcoin wallet.

For more information about Foundation and its products, visit foundationdevices.com.

This Month in Sovereignty: April 2023

Our team has been busy throughout the month of April with major new releases of Envoy and Passport firmware along with preparations for a busy conference season, kicking off with Bitcoin Miami.

Dive into the latest updates below, and be sure to subscribe if you want to stay informed on all things sovereignty moving forward!

This month at Foundation

Updates

In the first week of May we debuted a massive new update to Passport for our fantastic community in Passport’s new firmware, v2.1.1:

  • Passport version 2.1.1 is now live!
  • “In version 2.1, we’ve leveraged all of the background work in recent versions to build out some amazing new features for you, including backporting v2.1 firmware to Founder’s Edition, sending to Taproot addresses, a Key Manager Extension for BIP-85 and Nostr key support and export, and BIP-85 SeedQR exports. Features, features everywhere.”
  • This version of Passport firmware brings a wealth of new features, all securely backed up via encrypted microSD backups. Bringing the ability to manage all of your hot and cold wallets, all of your Nostr keys, and all of your friends and families wallets (if you choose to act as an “Uncle Jim”) under a single encrypted backup or seed phrase is a powerful thing. Peace of mind + powerful features.
  • You can read more about our new Key Manager extension that enables all of these incredible features in our latest blog post, or in our support docs here.

April was also a month filled with major amounts of internal testing and multiple public betas as we continued to test Envoy as a standalone wallet before public release:

  • Envoy Wallet Open Beta
    • With this open beta we’re greatly expanding what Envoy is capable of, making it a feature-rich Bitcoin hot wallet in addition to its existing role as a watch-only wallet and management app for Passport.

Blog posts

April was a quieter month from us on the blog side as we focused heavily on software and firmware releases internally while preparing for a busy season of conferences and big announcements around Bitcoin Miami 2023.

With the release of our latest Passport firmware we debuted two major new features in BIP 85 (or “deterministic child seeds”) and Nostr key support. Because of the changes these bring and the possibilities they open up, we highlighted them in a special blog post:

Last month we published the first edition of “This Month in Sovereignty,” kicking off this outlet to keep up with what we’re doing here at Foundation, what we’re reading, and what we’re following in the space:

Journey to Sovereignty

In April, we walked through what VPNs are and why they’re an immensely valuable tool for Bitcoiners, and then sat down with Ivan from Breez to learn about how they’re building an open-source toolkit to enable easier self-sovereign Lightning apps moving forward.

  • EP #8 – Let’s make (good) VPNs the standard
    • If you’ve heard the term “VPN” from a sketchy ad during a YouTube video or a shadowy super coder, you might have been turned off to the concept. Today we’re going to break down what a VPN is, how one works, and why they’re actually amazing tools for your every-day-carry digital toolkit. Let’s make (good) VPNs the standard.
  • EP #9 – Making self-custodial Lightning easier w/ Ivan from Breez
    • If it’s seemed too daunting to use Lightning without sacrificing custody of your Bitcoin, what Breez is building might be just the solution you need. On this week’s episode we sit down with Ivan from Breez to talk about the future of self-custodial Lightning and how we can beat fiat at it’s own game.

You can follow the podcast on your favorite platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Fountain, a Bitcoin-powered podcast platform where you can support content creators directly with your sats.

If you listen and boost Journey to Sovereignty on Fountain, we forward 100% of the sats you send us to other free and open-source projects we love in the Bitcoin space:

What we’re following

Matt Odell released a fantastic and deeply important episode of Citadel Dispatch this month on the shocking use of Chainalysis closed-source data and tooling to prosecute a seemingly innocent person for running the Bitcoin Fog centralized mixer.

One of the best educators in the space, Econoalchemist, put out a detailed review and guide around using Passport this past month in Bitcoin Magazine. He walks through initial setup, comparisons to Founder’s Edition, and how to use Passport to reclaim your privacy in Bitcoin via Sparrow Wallet.

As the Tor network continues to undergo a concerted DDoS attack by an unknown entity, they have narrowed down potential solutions and are focusing on implementing a novel proof-of-work algorithm to the connection flow for Tor users.

This month in digital sovereignty

Our very own BitcoinQnA released a major update and expansion of his open-source educational website and resource, bitcoiner.guide, this month. It now features a beginner, intermediate, and advanced track, a new look, Nostr live chat and lots more content!

Blue Wallet, a fantastic mobile wallet with excellent support for Passport, released a major new update that includes a fixed Payjoin implementation and an initial release of BIP 47 “PayNym” support (receive only for now)

The U.S. government continued their push against encryption and personal privacy this month with three new or renewed bills to restrict our freedom online. The EFF has done a fantastic job covering these new developments below:

This month’s step towards personal privacy and security

As we covered the topic at length in one of this month’s Journey to Sovereignty episodes, we figured it would make sense to focus this month’s actionable step towards personal privacy on using a privacy-preserving and non-logging VPN provider.

While a VPN provider isn’t a perfect solution to network privacy issues, it does allow you to shift the trust from your network provider (home ISP, mobile carrier, etc.) to a 3rd-party you trust more than them (and one that doesn’t have your personal information or address). Once you’re using a VPN, you’re actively preventing the sites, apps, and tools you interact with online from learning your home IP address and connecting all of your activities back to you.

Our team is a big fan and many of us are users of two well-known VPN providers in the space which we’ve linked below for easy reference. Both IVPN and Mullvad accept Bitcoin (on-chain and Lightning) for subscriptions and require no information from you to create an account, not even an email address!

Please note that we have no direct affiliation with either provider and don’t profit off of your use of either, we just love their approaches and use them ourselves.

What we’re working on

In May we’ll be attending Bitcoin Miami with a large portion of our team, and can’t wait to meet some of you all there! We’ll also be selling Passport directly from our booth, making conferences the best way to buy Passport without disclosing any information (even shipping address) to us or anyone else.

We also can’t wait to get Envoy as a standalone wallet out to the general public, and will be releasing it ahead of the conference so keep an eye out for that.

To keep up with what we’re building, you can follow us on Twitter, on Nostr, or subscribe to our newsletter on our website so you can stay in the loop.

All your wallets, one backup

With the release of our latest update for Passport, we’ve empowered you to leverage your Passport for far more than just a cold storage wallet. The introduction of a new “Key Manager” extension enables two powerful new tools in child seeds and Nostr keys, both of which are derived directly from your Bitcoin seed on Passport and automatically backed up to microSD. All of your wallets under one backup.

As both of these features are entirely new to our products, we’ve set out in this blog post to explain how you can use them, detail some real world use-cases, and walk through how all of this is possible from a simple Bitcoin seed phrase.

BIP 85 done right

While the ability to create nearly infinite child wallets from a single master seed phrase has been around for a few years in BIP 85, the complicating factor has always been how to implement in a way that is intuitive and easy to use. In previous attempts at allowing users to generate child keys they’ve required manual index backups, had no ability to name the keys themselves to differentiate them, and have pushed the feature to only the most advanced Bitcoin users.

As one of our goals at Foundation is to bring Bitcoin self-custody down into the real-world and make it more approachable, we spent many hours working with our design team to make Key Manager accessible for even the least technical users. That work has culminated in an extension that takes one click to enable and then guides you through every aspect of key management, regardless of background or expertise.

Key Manager at a glance

Let’s get to the fun stuff — how does all of this actually play out when using Passport? All you have to do to unlock all of this new functionality in Passport is to enable the Key Manager extension from the settings menu. Just a few presses and you have a new card on your home screen that lets you create and manage BIP 85 child seeds and Nostr keys with a few clicks! View all your keys, distinguish them quickly by unique icons, and manage their names in seconds.

Once you have enabled Key Manager, creating a new key is incredibly straight forward. Simply navigate to the new Key Manager card on your home screen and select “New Key.” Choose how many words you want the seed to be and the new key is automatically saved via encrypted microSD backups. When you need to use the new child seed in another wallet, simply select “Export,” choose whichever format your favorite wallet supports, and import it. It’s that easy.

Using Key Manager in the real world

Still wondering how all of this can help you? Let’s walk through some real-world examples of ways that you can leverage child seeds to simplify and safeguard your Bitcoin journey. Once you’ve secured your Passport backup properly — either by encrypted microSD backups or manual seed backup — you can start creating child seeds for all kinds of uses without the additional headache of needing to back each of them up separately.

One of the most common and immediately useful ways to leverage child seeds is by using a child seed from Passport for your mobile wallet of choice. Simply turn on your Passport, navigate to the Key Manager page, create and name a new key, and then export as a QR or seed words and setup your mobile wallet. In just a few minutes you have a highly secure backup already in place for your new mobile wallet, but can spend easily and freely on the go. This makes pairing Passport with Envoy as a mobile wallet the best of both worlds.

Another common use-case for our more privacy-minded community is to use a child seed from Passport to create a hot wallet for mixing in Samourai Wallet or Sparrow Wallet. You can now easily keep those funds in your mixing wallet while you’re reclaiming your privacy without an additional seed to back up (or potentially lose). You can even leverage Sparrow Wallet to mix from that new child seed directly to Passport using our Postmix extension, bringing privacy to your cold storage without all of the normal headaches. Privacy meets peace of mind.

Lastly, child seeds present an incredible way for those who are more knowledgeable and further along in their Bitcoin journey to help back up funds of close family and friends while they’re learning the ropes. You can generate child seeds for your parents, your kids, or your friends who are new to Bitcoin to help get them started while reducing the risk of them losing precious sats. While this does give you access to their bitcoin, it’s a great temporary tool while they get comfortable using Bitcoin.

But wait, there’s more!

That’s not all that the Key Manager extension enables, though! We’ve also been building out full Nostr key support as a part of the extension, allowing you to leverage the power of child keys to create Nostr keys directly from your Bitcoin seed on Passport. One master backup with Passport and all your Nostr keys are safe and secure.

When you want to create that new Nostr key, it’s as easy as navigating to the new Key Manager card, selecting “New Key,” choosing the “Nostr” option, and then naming it as you see fit. Whenever you want to login to a Nostr client, simply export the new key to QR and scan it from your favorite client (Amethyst currently supports this) or export to microSD as a text file and copy paste if necessary. No more worrying about losing your Nostr key.

While it’s not live in this release, we’ve also been hard at work implementing delegated key signing a la NIP-26 into Passport. This new approach to key management means that you can leverage a child key to sign-in and use Nostr without ever exposing your master Nostr key to the world. This standard and implementation are still in their infancy, but we’re excited to help grow the ways that our users can leverage Passport to empower their freedom in areas outside of Bitcoin alone. We’re thankful for all those working on freedom tech more broadly and we can’t wait to get delegated key signing in your hands shortly.

Driving Nostr forward

Nostr key management is one of the areas where Nostr is very early in development today, so we’ve been working hard as a team to find ways that we can give back to the Nostr ecosystem and help to drive forward mature standards. One of the ways we have worked to improve the ecosystem is by helping expand the standard for Nostr key derivation in NIP-06 to include generating multiple keys properly. We helped to develop and test a derivation method that would allow you to generate practically infinite usable Nostr keys from a single Bitcoin seed and contributed that tested definition to the official repository on Github.

Another key way we have worked to help grow the Nostr key management ecosystem is through funding bounties to implement Nostr key QR login and delegated key use in Amethyst, one of our favorite Nostr clients today. Taking the time to create issues for features you love and drive open bounties incentivizes developers to implement these features and rewards them for their incredible contributions to free and open-source code, something that is absolutely vital to continuing to grow the FOSS movement!

If you’re on Nostr today, be sure to follow us below to keep up with the latest things we’re building, writing, and sharing:

What’s next

We’re also working on expanding the Taproot payments support added in this version into full Taproot support to both send and receive, implementing NIP 26 support as mentioned above, and much more. We hope you enjoy the new features in Passport’s latest firmware as much as we do, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback on what uses you find for child seeds, Nostr keys, and so much more!

If you’d like to learn more about the technical details and usage of Key Manager, you can jump right into our detailed support docs below:

Passport version 2.1.2 is now live!

We’re excited to announce that the latest version of Passport firmware – 2.1.2 – is now live! To download it, simply initiate the update from Envoy to be guided through the process.

WHAT’S CHANGED

In version 2.1.2, we’ve leveraged all of the background work in recent versions to build out some amazing new features for you, including backporting v2.1 firmware to Founder’s Edition, sending to Taproot addresses, a Key Manager Extension for BIP 85 and Nostr key support and export, and BIP 85 SeedQR exports. Features, features everywhere.

For more details on each of the changes, keep reading below!

NEW FEATURES

  • Backported our firmware from Batch 2 to Founder’s Edition, bringing firmware parity for all of our early supporters
    • We’re thrilled that those of you running Founder’s Edition devices will now have the latest and greatest features and improvements that we’ve been developing for Passport
    • This backport also means that we will be able to keep Founder’s Edition firmware up to date with Batch 2 as they now use the same base code
  • Added support for sending to Taproot (“P2TR”) addresses
    • Welcome to the world of Taproot, where you can now send transactions to any Taproot address (those starting with “bc1p”)
  • Added a “Key Manager” extension for enabling advanced functionalities
    • To learn more about our newest extension, dive into our support docs
    • You can use Key Manager to generate and export:
      • BIP 85 child seeds, allowing you to backup only Passport’s seed and be able to recover other wallets directly from Passport’s seed
      • Nostr private keys, allowing you to securely generate, easily backup, and recover your Nostr private keys directly from Passport or Passport’s seed
        • Simply display your Nostr key as a QR code and login directly to your favorite app with a single scan. No more copy-pasting private keys.
        • See how fast this can be in our Twitter post with video
        • Thanks to greenart7c3 you can use this today in Amethyst, a fantastic Android Nostr app!
      • …And possibly more in the future! This is a great place for open source tinkerers to add other keys they want to Passport’s firmware
      • Please note that if you export keys as QR codes, you should be careful what you scan them with! Apps like Google Camera will often open the content of the QR code in your default search engine, exposing that key to Google etc.
    • Any keys you set up will be automatically backed up to microSD in an encrypted format, making recovery a breeze
  • Added support for exporting BIP 85 seeds via SeedQR
    • Exports are possible via SeedQR and Compact SeedQR
    • Importing SeedQR is coming soon!
  • Allow users to display their PIN when entering it by pressing the “UP” key during PIN entry
    • Just in case you want to be sure you have it entered correctly, be sure not to do this in a place where it might be seen!

IMPROVEMENTS

  • Cleaned up our C code, optimizing our firmware and giving more space for amazing new features
  • Make “Erase Now” no longer the default selected option when you enter the erase screen, just to be sure an itchy trigger finger won’t accidentally erase your Passport
  • Ensure Founder’s Edition properly communicates its device information to Envoy
  • Passport will now indicate that it’s 30 seconds away from auto-shutdown by dimming its screen
  • Removed support for 18-word seed phrases as they are very, very rarely used

BUG FIXES

  • Fixes a bug where the backups folder was sometimes not created on the microSD. When this occurred Passport would also fail to create the backup file.
  • Improved error handling and prevention in displaying transaction info
  • Better handling of errors caused by other wallets’ multisig config formats
  • Fixed a display issue with the screen brightness icon
  • Fixed an issue that would prevent signing of PSBTs in sub-directories on microSD

VERIFYING AND INSTALLING PASSPORT FIRMWARE

If you’d like to verify and install the latest version of Passport manually, you can follow our guide on the topic here: Firmware Update support page