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Tag: updates

Envoy version 1.8.6 is now available!

Posted on February 4, 2025 - 8:42 am by

We’re excited to announce that the latest version of Envoy—1.8.6—is now available on all your favorite mobile platforms! To download it, simply visit our download page or check for updates on your platform of choice.

Please note that there can be a significant lag from publishing to general availability due to Apple App Store and Google Play Store review policies and delays.

What’s changed

In Envoy v1.8.6, we’ve focused on small bug fixes to prepare the app for the upcoming Passport Prime integration.

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

New Features

  • After several requests from customers, the “Buy” button is now fully removed from the main view if this option is disabled from settings.

Improvements

  • We updated the Support area of Envoy to remove the link to our now read-only Telegram channel, and included a link to our new community

  • The Bitcoin ATM map will now retrieve the information from OpenStreetMaps, allowing people to add new spots where bitcoin can be bought and see this reflected in Envoy. Open Source is the way!

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue impacting some users where sometimes after deleting a hot wallet or a passport account Envoy could crash and could prevent some users form logging back in.

  • Fixed a rare bug where if the user deleted the Envoy app and reinstalled it later on, the seed could be displayed as “empty” even though the app recovered just fine.

  • Fixed a small bug where if no accounts were ever created nor paired, the Buy button was grayed out but still active.

  • Fixed a rare bug where under certain circumstances the destination address field could show as blank when reviewing a sending transaction.

  • Fixed a minor visual bug where one specific button under a niche scenario did not follow our design pattern.

  • Fixed a couple of minor vertical alignment issues in some texts and icons.

  • Smoothened a couple of transitions to make the UX a bit more fluid.

  • Fixed a minor visual issue where sometimes the amount of bitcoin would display as 0.0000000 instead of 0 in the send screen.

  • Fixed a small visual bug where scanning a BIP21 code with a defined amount wouldn’t fill all the trailing zeroes when the sending unit was Bitcoin.

  • Fixed a rare instance where the back arrow could be displayed twice under some menus.

Verifying Envoy on Android

If you’d like to take the optional additional step of verifying Envoy binaries on Android, follow our guide: Verifying Envoy on Android

Backing Open-Source: 2024 Highlights!

Posted on January 9, 2025 - 11:38 am by

Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) is at the heart of innovation. By making source code freely available for anyone to review, modify, and improve, FOSS ensures that progress is driven by collaboration and transparency rather than gatekeeping. At Foundation, this ethos is woven into everything we do. From our earliest products to those on the horizon, our commitment has always been (and always will be) to release all of our work under free open licenses.

But our dedication to FOSS doesn’t end with our own tools. We actively contribute to other Bitcoin & FOSS projects, fix bugs upstream, propose & implement new features, and share improvements that can benefit the entire ecosystem. This collective approach not only strengthens the software we rely on but also helps advance the broader community as a whole. Over the past year, we’ve continued to champion FOSS by enhancing our products and supporting our peers’ efforts.

Below are some of the highlights of our 2024 contributions:

Moved Our Tor Library to an MIT License

We re-licensed our Tor library under MIT to make it more accessible to other wallets. This Rust-based library simplifies Tor implementation, and wallets like Cake Wallet and Stack Wallet are already integrating. We hope to encourage even more projects to adopt privacy-preserving technologies like Tor.

You can learn more here.

Enhancements to BIP329

We proposed and added a new key called spendable to the BIP329 standard to represent “blocked” or “frozen” coins. Multiple wallets, including Envoy and Sparrow, have implemented this enhancement, helping standardize how wallets handle coin states.

PR here.

Bug Fixes for Sparrow Wallet’s Hummingbird UR

We addressed a bug in Sparrow Wallet’s hummingbird Java UR implementation that prevented scans of the latest QR format. This fix also aided Casa in resolving a related issue with Passport, underscoring how upstream contributions can ripple through multiple projects.

PR here.

Major Cleanup in Xous-Core’s Cargo-xtask

We contributed significant bug fixes and cleanup to xous-core‘s cargo-xtask code, addressing clippy warnings and simplifying the code. cargo-xtask allows Rust developers to script various tasks beyond standard cargo commands, improving developer productivity and code quality and is used by Xous to streamline the OS building, running and testing process.

PR here.

Rust-Bitcoin Minimal Version Fix

We fixed a version mismatch in the rust-bitcoin ecosystem that caused compilation failures when using cargo build -Z minimal-versions. Ensuring compatibility with minimal-versions helps maintain a healthy and robust library dependency chain.

PR here.

Upstream Bug Fix in ‘ffi.rs’

Fixed a bug in the Xous version of Rust stdlib ffi.rs, a thin layer for making Xous system calls from the rust standard library.

PR here.

Compilation Fixes for ‘nrf-softdevice’

Fixed a compilation error for nrf52805  in the nrf-softdevice repository for embassy-rs. This library allows to access Nordic’s SoftDevice library with C API from Rust.

PR here.

ARM-v7A CRC Intrinsics in ‘stdarch’

Added missing ARM-v7A CRC intrinsics to the stdarch library of rust-lang. This now allows access to some of the SIMD instructions from the Rust code, without using inline assembly.

PR here.

Corrections to ‘rust-fatfs’

Fixed an issue with the rust-fatfs library, that was effectively creating malformed filesystem images. rust-fatfs is a library that can parse, read and write FAT32 filesystem images.

PR here.

Feature Requests and Issues Opened

  • Sparrow Wallet: We opened an issue that led to adding SD card message signing support. This feature was crucial for our own Passport hardware wallet but will also benefit other Sparrow users.
  • BTCPayServer: We identified a bug in the PSBT implementation for taproot addresses, which the BTCPay team promptly fixed. Their update ensures smoother compatibility for hardware wallets using Taproot and the PSBT standard.

Contributions to GNU Guix

Several contributions were made to the GNU Guix Linux distribution and package manager. This software emphasizes reproducibility and is built to ensure that any given package matches its definition and source code at all times. It is completely free software (as in freedom), so it doesn’t contain any binary blobs. Bitcoin Core uses GNU Guix for reproducible builds, and the Foundation is exploring it for reproducible firmware builds by creating a complete reproducible toolchain for embedded software development.

This year we:

  • Refactored the GNU Guix code base to make xtensa-ath9k-elf an official target, which is used to build the firmware for ath9k Wi-Fi adapters. See here.
  • Refactored GNU Guix to add the or1k-elf-embedded target to build the firmware of some Allwinner Sunix SoCs. See here. These refactorings are in preparation to add a complete arm-none-eabi with newlib toolchain in the future for embedded development. See here.
  • Applied a fix for the compilation of cross-compiler packages, part of the ongoing work to improve embedded firmware development in GNU Guix. See here.
  • Some modules from arguments were removed as a result of the addition of the AVR target to GNU Guix. See here.
  • Fixed the podman and distrobox packages for GNU Guix. These are packages we use to create reproducible environments for Passport firmware compilation. Distrobox allows us to create the same development environment used in Docker and Podman. See here and here.
  • Added a patch set that improves the reliability of Rust crates in GNU Guix by compiling and testing some of the crates. See here.
  • Applied a small fix to make a package visible in GNU Guix, as part of the refactoring for embedded development. See here.
  • Applied a small patch to fix the compilation of python-pyside-2, the Python Qt library. We don’t directly use this, but another program we were using was not compiling because of this failure, so we fixed it upstream. See here.
  • Added the latest version of ocaml-sedlex to GNU Guix and removed some bundled unicode files to use the distribution provided ones. See here.

We also updated multiple libraries multiple times. Most notably:

Partnership with Slint

We teamed up with the Slint UI team to implement 9-slice image support for their Image element, a feature we needed for our Passport Prime UI. Even though we funded this effort, we chose to open-source it, benefiting the broader Slint community and developers who rely on this powerful UI toolkit. So, it was released in Slint version 1.5.

Partnership with Blockchain Commons

Foundation is an ongoing sponsor of Blockchain Commons, an organization that works with developer communities to design, build, and maintain secure & compassionate decentralized architectures & tools for digital assets & digital identity.

We’ve been working with them for several years now, and we have actively contributed to the adoption of standards such as the Uniform Resources (animated QR codes) standard.

In addition to our ongoing support, we funded some important work on the Gordian Sealed Transport Protocol (GSTP). This is the protocol on which our QuantumLink secure Bluetooth technology is based. We are planning a separate blog post on this topic, where we will dive into the technical details of how this protocol works, and more about the Blockchain Commons team, so stay tuned for that.

Conclusion

As we close out 2024, we’re incredibly proud of all the hard work our team has poured into these FOSS initiatives. From fixing bugs and upstreaming improvements to actively collaborating on new features, we’ve shown that our commitment to free and open-source software goes far beyond our own products. It’s a pledge to support the broader ecosystem, the developers, projects, and communities that power it.

Our focus remains the same as we step into the future: keep every product and tool we create fully open source, contribute wherever we can, and champion the ideals of transparency, security, and collaboration that FOSS embodies. Thank you for following along on our journey. We’ll continue making open-source innovation a reality for everyone.

Foundation Updates: 2024 Recap

Posted on January 6, 2025 - 12:42 pm by

Welcome to our December edition of Foundation Updates! As we wrap up 2024, we’re celebrating a remarkable year full of exciting milestones, major announcements, and incredible growth, all made possible by your unwavering support. We want to thank our amazing community for making 2024 one for the books. Here’s a recap of some key highlights.

February: Passport & Envoy Upgrades

In February, we introduced support for Taproot transactions and added the option to export Passport’s master seed via SeedQR, giving you more flexibility in managing your keys.

Envoy also gained full “Replace-by-Fee” (RBF) control, making coin control easier than ever. Check out our coin control YouTube tutorial and RBF tweet thread for a detailed breakdown.

March: New Website & Halving Celebration

March brought the launch of our brand-new website, and your enthusiasm was incredible. Zach (our CEO) tweeted a behind-the-scenes look at how it was built.

We also teamed up with 21 other teams on X to celebrate the Bitcoin Halving, hosting fun giveaways and counting down to this major milestone in Bitcoin’s history. 🎉

June: “Buy Bitcoin” in Envoy

June was all about convenience. We unveiled a new “Buy Bitcoin” button in Envoy, making it simple to purchase Bitcoin directly into self-custody. For more information, read our blog post.

Meanwhile, Passport deepened its compatibility with Theya, Coinbits, and Zeus, giving you more tools to secure and manage your Bitcoin.

July: Nashville Bitcoin Conference

In July, we traveled to Nashville for the Bitcoin Conference, where we were thrilled to meet so many of you in person at our booth. The warm welcome, exciting conversations, and seeing folks pick up a Passport right on the spot made it an event to remember.

August: Vault Concierge & Ambassador Program

August saw the launch of our Vault Concierge Multi-sig service, a hands-on experience that walks you through multi-sig step by step, combining advanced security with guidance from our expert team. Want the full rundown? Head over to our website for all the details.

We also introduced our Ambassador Program and were blown away by the number of you who signed up. Your enthusiasm continues to amaze us. Thank you for spreading the word and representing our community so well. We love rewarding you at the end of each month. Since the Ambassador Program launched, we’ve paid out over $6,000 in rewards, and we can’t wait to see how you’ll continue to help us grow! Not a part of our ambassador team yet? You can sign up here.

September: Ephemeral Seeds & Tor Library Update

In September, Passport received another upgrade: ephemeral seed support. This feature lets you temporarily load seeds in three different ways, giving you even more options for how you interact with your passport. You can learn more here.

We also changed our Tor library license to help developers seamlessly integrate Tor into their apps and build for privacy. Developers, this is for you. Read more here.

October: FREE Self-Custody Email Course

October brought the launch of our free Self-Custody Email Course. This easy-to-follow guide covers everything from the fundamentals of Bitcoin to understanding keys and seeds. We hope it helps you and anyone you share it with get started confidently on their self-custody journey.

November: Community Transition & Passport Prime Teasers

In November, we moved our community from Telegram to a dedicated Discourse-based forum. This move gave us better security features and helps us keep scammers at bay. You can read more about this shift in our blog post.

We also started teasing images of Passport Prime, hinting at the big announcement we’d reveal in December.

December: Satoshi Christmas & Passport Prime

December was packed with holiday spirit as we took part in “Satoshi Christmas” on X with 21 other great Bitcoin teams. We counted down to the holidays and handed out prizes. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

The real showstopper of the year was our official reveal of Passport Prime, our most significant announcement yet. We can’t wait to get it into your hands and see the incredible ways you’ll use it and what you will build. You can watch the full keynote announcement here if you missed it.

What a Year!

We could go on for much longer too! We also launched a new documentation website, hosted self-custody workshops at PubKey, attended the Oslo Freedom Forum to donate Passport to freedom fighters and featured in over 30 podcasts.

2024 was our best year yet, growing in every way imaginable, and we couldn’t have done it without your incredible support. As we spring into 2025, we’re more committed than ever to our ethos of creating products that are simple, secure, and help you improve your sovereignty.

We remain laser-focused on getting Passport Prime into your hands as soon as possible. Your trust and enthusiasm fuel our passion for building better tools and experiences. Get ready for our biggest year yet. Stay tuned for more exciting updates.

Much love, Team Foundation 🧡

Introducing Passport Prime!

Posted on December 18, 2024 - 12:30 pm by

We are beyond excited to introduce the newest member of the Foundation family: Passport Prime, the world’s first Personal Security Platform. Designed to secure not only your Bitcoin but your entire digital life. Passport Prime is more than just a hardware wallet – it’s a Swiss army knife for your personal security.

Need a quick 20-minute rundown of the announcement? Check out the recent keynote from our CEO, Zach, on our website.

Passport Prime empowers you to secure your entire digital life – with one device. We have much to cover, so let’s dive in and see what Prime can do!

FEATURES

Bitcoin Wallet

Passport Prime offers the same robust Bitcoin hardware wallet capabilities as our gen-2 Passport. It supports all of the popular Bitcoin software wallets you have come to know and love. Prime offers a best-in-class multisig experience alongside numerous power-user features like passphrases and temporary seeds.

Multi-Factor Authentication

With its 2FA Codes app, Prime enables you to store your most important 6-digit 2FA codes in a secure, offline environment. For even stronger multi-factor authentication, Passport Prime replaces all of your Yubikeys with the Security Keys app. You can create multiple security keys for use with NFC or USB.

Secure File Storage

Passport Prime also replaces your encrypted flash drive. With its 50 GB of included capacity, Prime can secure your most important files. A killer feature in the File Browser app is called Airlock – when you plug Passport Prime into your phone or computer, it will only provide access to the files in your Airlock, ensuring the privacy of your data.

Seed Vault 

Passport Prime helps you organize and bring together all your seed words in one place – the Seed Vault app. You can instantly create new seeds, temporarily load seeds, and even store your existing seeds.

But wait, there’s more…

Those features are just the beginning, thanks to KeyOS, Passport Prime’s custom operating system, the possibilities for what you can achieve with Prime are practically endless.

KEYOS

What is KeyOS?

KeyOS is a next-gen microkernel operating system written in Rust. KeyOS offers a highly modular, yet locked-down environment where apps run side-by-side in their own sandboxes, while the OS manages permissions. This is how we are going to enable third party apps, and grow Passport Prime into a robust developer platform!

Developer Platform

From ~ mid-2025 developers will be able to build third party apps to run on KeyOS! But you won’t have to ask Foundation for permission. KeyOS will offer an open developer platform, meaning developers will be able to list their own apps in our App Catalog.

We are super excited to announce our friends at Cake Wallet will be producing the first ever third-party KeyOS app! Cake is a popular privacy-oriented cryptocurrency wallet with around 500,000 users and has support for Bitcoin, Monero and many others.

 

 

Do you have a favorite app you think could benefit from the extra security Passport Prime can offer? Help us spread the word! We’d love to work with other teams to bring enable your Prime to secure even more of your digital life.

SECURE, YET SIMPLE

Setting up Passport Prime with Envoy could not be easier. You’ll be guided every step of the way. Thanks to Passport Prime’s seamless communications with Envoy via our secure QuantumLink Bluetooth, you can go from zero to a secure digital life in minutes.

NFC Backups

KeyOS uses a 2-of-3 Shamir Secret Sharing configuration to split your seed into three pieces – two stored on cards, and the third stored on your Envoy mobile app. With our optional Magic Backups, your app data and settings are encrypted and sent to the Foundation servers via Envoy. No username, no passwords, no email address and crucially, no seed words ever leaving your device.

If you ever need to replace your Passport Prime, simply connect it to Envoy and tap one of your two KeyCards – that’s it!

QuantamLink Bluetooth

Passport Prime contains a dedicated Bluetooth chip, separate from the security processor running KeyOS. This Bluetooth chip can only send and receive messages that are already encrypted using quantum-resistant tech. Once connected, interactions with Envoy are effortless and happen almost instantly.

 

EXTRA DETAILS

Here’s a quick list of extra info you might be excited to learn:

1. Passport Prime ships in two beautiful colorways, Arctic Copper and Midnight Bronze

2. Passport Prime ships with everything you need in a single box.

3. Passport Prime hardware and software will be open source at launch.

4. Passport Prime is proudly assembled in the USA.

You can learn a lot about Passport Prime on our new product details page.

Envoy version 1.8.5 is now available

Posted on November 27, 2024 - 9:12 am by

The latest version of Envoy – 1.8.5 – is now published on all your favorite mobile platforms! To download it, simply visit our download page or check for updates on your platform of choice.

Please note that there can be a significant lag from publishing to general availability due to Apple App Store and Google Play Store review policies and delays.

What’s changed

Envoy 1.8.5 is a small bug-fix release.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a rare issue where some iOS users weren’t able to see or select any fiat currencies after enabling the fiat toggle

  • Fixed an issue where some users might get stuck in the splash screen after a very specific set of steps were performed

Verifying Envoy on Android

If you’d like to take the optional additional step of verifying Envoy binaries on Android, follow our guide: Verifying Envoy on Android

Foundation Updates: October 2024

Posted on November 1, 2024 - 11:01 am by

Welcome to our October edition of Foundation Updates. This month has been packed with announcements and launches, from the opening of our Ambassador Store and new firmware releases to the launch of our self-custody email course. October was a busy month!

Now, let’s catch up and dive into what’s been happening.

Passport v2.3.5

 

In October we released two firmware updates, v2.3.4 and v2.3.5. In v2.3.4 we worked closely with the @CasaHODL team on several updates to restore full compatibility with their excellent multisig service. We also resolved a number of visual bugs to further enhance the user experience.

v2.3.5 was a hot fix release where we rectified an issue causing a freeze when updating the new firmware that was affecting some customers. If you experience any firmware issues, please contact our support team who can guide you through the simple steps required to fix the problem.

Read more 👉 Full Passport Release Notes v2.3.5 

Envoy v1.8.4

 

In October we made 2 releases for Envoy. v1.8.3 and v1.8.4. Check them out below.

Here’s what’s new in v1.8.3

  • Buy Bitcoin Available in All US States: Our Buy Bitcoin feature can now be used to purchase Bitcoin in all 50 US states. Including some of the most legally challenging ones like New York, Louisiana, and Hawaii.
  • Enhanced Tor Connection: Enjoy improved privacy and security with our upgraded Tor integration, ensuring a smoother connection.
  • User Interface Improvements: we’ve made a wide range of visual improvements across the app.

v1.8.4 saw a fix for some people who had an issue with sending to legacy address types.

Read more 👉 Full Envoy Release Notes v1.8.4

If you haven’t experienced Envoy yet, now’s the perfect time. Check it out below Bitcoin, simplified!

Download Envoy: https://foundation.xyz/envoy/

Ambassador Store 🌟

 

In case you missed it, in October we launched our Ambassador Store. This exciting addition allows you to redeem your referral rewards for exclusive items, including hardware, merch, and Bitcoin vouchers. To help you navigate the store and learn how to redeem your rewards, we’ve written a helpful blog post here.

A huge thank you to our community for your support. If you’re not already an Ambassador, you can sign up here to start earning rewards and enjoy all the perks of our exclusive program. It’s free and easy to get involved, we look forward to rewarding our customers as a way to say thank you.

EU Shipping got Better 🚀

 

Starting October 2024, we were thrilled to announce that orders placed from within the European Union (EU) will be fulfilled from our dedicated distribution center, Bitcoin Brabhant. This change means faster delivery times, lower shipping costs, and reduced customs delays for our EU customers. Plus, all import taxes and duties will be calculated and paid at checkout, ensuring a hassle-free shopping experience with no unexpected fees.

You can read all the details about this update in our blog post here.

Self-Custody 101 📧

 

In October, we were very excited to launch our FREE Self-Custody Email Course, designed to help you navigate the journey of self-custody. Packed with helpful tips and guides, this course covers essential topics such as Bitcoin properties, the importance of self-custody, understanding keys and seeds, and getting started with a wallet. We hope it helps you on your self-custody journey, don’t hesitate to share it with anyone you think could benefit!

Ready to take control of your Bitcoin? Sign up for the email course here.

Photo of the Month 📸

 

Each month, we select one of our users’ photos from social media to feature in our newsletter. Your experiences and stories are what keep us building, and we’re grateful for your ongoing support. Keep sharing your moments with us, and you could be the next one in our newsletter!

One of our community members, @thebtcrebel, shared an awesome photo on X, saying:

“I’m preparing a new tutorial in Italian on how to use the Bitcoin air-gapped hardware wallet FOUNDATION PASSPORT ⁦”

If you’re Italian, be sure to follow him! We can’t wait to see the tutorial!

What we’re working on 🛠️

 

  • Get ready for an epic Christmas collaboration that will take the X space by storm again. Each year it gets bigger and better, and we can’t wait for you to see the surprises we have lined up for you this year.
  • Speaking of Christmas, we have an incredible surprise lined up for December that we’ve been working on for a long time! Trust us, you won’t want to miss this. Keep an eye on our socials throughout November for some subtle hints.
  • New Releases for Envoy & Passport: We’re preparing to roll out new updates for both Envoy and Passport, more details coming soon.

Company Spotlights 🌐

 

Each month, we’re excited to spotlight two standout companies that resonate with our values and mission. These are the innovators and trailblazers we believe are making a significant impact, and we’re thrilled to share their work with you.

The Bitcoin Way

This month we also want to introduce you to one of our favorite Bitcoin-only businesses, The Bitcoin Way.

With 25 years of cyber-security experience, their expert training ensures you know how to:

  1. Secure your wealth properly in FULL self-custody and develop robust inheritance plans to secure your family’s wealth indefinitely.
  2. Protect your devices from unwanted surveillance, malware, and cyber-security threats.
  3. Secure Plan-B Residency in Bitcoin-friendly jurisdictions so that you can vote with your feet and go where you’re treated best.

Want to become fully self-sovereign and go all the way?

Then you need The Bitcoin Way.

Links:

Website: https://www.thebitcoinway.com/

Twitter: https://x.com/Thebitcoinway_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBitcoinWay

 

Fountain

 

We’re excited to spotlight Fountain this month, a game-changer in the podcasting space and a standout in the Bitcoin community. Fountain has recently gone all in on Nostr, enhancing your podcast experience in a truly innovative way.

With Fountain, you can engage directly, comment on, or Zap Bitcoin to podcasting episodes while staying within the app. Your interactions will be reflected directly in your Nostr timeline, creating a smooth and connected experience. We are blown away with the innovation. As the leading podcasting streaming service in the Bitcoin world. Fountain is redefining how we interact with content. We’re thrilled to highlight their incredible integration and innovative approach.

You can download Fountain here and stream your favorite podcasts.

Conclusion

 

That wraps up our October edition of Foundation updates – thank you for joining us, stay tuned for more next month. In the meantime, for daily updates and insightful content, you can:

🐦 Follow us on Twitter

🟣 Follow us on Nostr

🌐 Subscribe to our newsletter

💬 Join our community support group on Telegram

With love from all at Foundation 🧡

Envoy version 1.8.4 is now available

Posted on October 30, 2024 - 6:07 am by

The latest version of Envoy – 1.8.4 – is now published on all your favorite mobile platforms! To download it, simply visit our download page or check for updates on your platform of choice.

Please note that there can be a significant lag from publishing to general availability due to Apple App Store and Google Play Store review policies and delays.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a problem affecting some users related to not being able to send to legacy type addresses

Verifying Envoy on Android

If you’d like to take the optional additional step of verifying Envoy binaries on Android, follow our guide: Verifying Envoy on Android

Foundation Updates: February 2024

Posted on March 1, 2024 - 8:00 am by

Hello Friends: Welcome Back to Our Monthly Updates!

It’s been a while, but we’re back with our monthly newsletter. We’re thrilled to have you join us again. Curious about what’s been going on behind the scenes? We’ve got all the details waiting for you below. So, let’s catch up and dive into what’s been happening at Foundation HQ. 🫡

This month at Foundation

Since our last update we’ve been busy, pushing out a flurry of releases for both Passport and Envoy. Notable additions include features like coin control in Envoy and restore seed QR support on Passport. In case you missed any of the updates, you can swing by our GitHub page for both Passport and Envoy and stay up to date.

Now, let’s see how February treated us in terms of our latest releases. 👇🏻

Product Updates 🔥

Passport v2.3.0

  • Say hello to proper send and receive support for Taproot in Passport 🥕
  • You can now export Passport’s master seed phrase via SeedQR, if desired.
  • Passport now allows the creation of 12 word seed phrases, and defaults to 12 word seed phrases during onboarding.
  • Advanced users can now generate 11 or 23 words offline, import into Passport, and Passport will automatically calculate the checksum 12th or 24th word when importing the new seed.

Read more:

https://foundationdevices.com/2024/02/passport-version-2-3-0-is-now-live/

Envoy v1.6.0 (beta)

We give our community a sneak peak and chance to contribute with beta releases of each version of Passport firmware and Envoy release, but if that sounds scary for you we have an official release planned for next week for Envoy 1.6!

  • Full “replace-by-fee (RBF)” control is here!
  • Drastically improved address and amount display per the Bitcoin Design standards. Sexy and intuitive.
  • When you set a custom name for your Passport, now that name will show up automatically in the Devices tab on Envoy.
  • Envoy translated to Catalan thanks to our friends over at @bcnbitcoinonly! Special thanks to @insatwetrust, in particular!!

Read more 👉 Envoy beta version 1.6.0 is now live!

DID YOU KNOW? We have an exclusive beta program at Foundation, offering you the opportunity to be among the first to test and experience any new releases for Passport or Envoy. Gain access to our Telegram group and be among the first to test-drive any new releases. You’ll have the chance to provide valuable feedback and even earn sats for any bugs you may find.

Learn more here.

Meet the Foundation Team 👥

Discover where our team has been making waves in the public eye this February! We’ve recently joined a few podcasts – take a look below!

Product Review and Photo of the Month

Each month, we’ll be selecting one of our users’ reviews and one photo from social media to feature in our newsletter. Your experiences and stories are what keeps us building, and we’re grateful for your ongoing support. Keep sharing your moments with us, and you could be the next one in our newsletter!

Our first photo is from BitcoinExpert on X:

Our review of the month is from a customer over at Hey Apollo:

What we’re working on

March is just around the corner, and we’re getting ready to kick things off with a bang! We’ve been hard at work on something new for Foundation, and we’re also planning a fantastic community event on X to go alongside the launch. 🤫 We can’t wait for you to see. March is going to be HUGE for our community.

Alongside this our amazing developers are hard at work on your favorite Bitcoin products, Passport and Envoy. Keep the feedback coming no matter how big or small we love it all.

Where can you find us in March? Some of our team will be hitting the scene at the Pub Key event in NYC, Tuesday 5th March, ready to connect, educate, and dive into all things Self Custody.

We’ll also be sponsoring and speaking at the inaugural Finney Forum in Dallas, Texas on March 15-16th, with Seth For Privacy speaking on the dangers of privacy puritanism.

See you all there!

Conclusion

That wraps up our February edition of Foundation Updates – thank you for joining us, stay tuned for more next month. In the meantime, for daily updates and insightful content you can:

🐦Follow us on Twitter

🟣 Follow us on Nostr

🌐 Subscribe to our newsletter

💬 Join our community support group on Telegram

With Love from all at Team Foundation 🧡

This Month in Sovereignty: May 2023

Posted on June 21, 2023 - 1:43 pm by

While we already had a lot slated for the month of May, the combination of big releases, the Bitcoin conference in Miami, and the drama around Ledger’s new “Recover” service made for an explosive few weeks! We’ll get you all caught up with the latest at Foundation and in the space in this month’s newsletter ????

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

With the rush to safety in open-source software and hardware in the wake of Ledger’s debacle, we’ve seen an unprecedented month of sales for Passport! As a result we sold out of all of our current stock, but were already ramping up production and have begun shipping pending orders. We’re expecting to have Passport back in stock for new orders in the next 2 weeks, and will keep you all up to date along the way.

Now onto the updates we have for you all this month!

Updates

We announced a groundbreaking release of Envoy, our mobile companion app for Passport, just in time for Bitcoin Miami. This new update transforms Envoy into a standalone Bitcoin mobile wallet with powerful account management and privacy features.

  • Announcing Envoy Wallet: Bitcoin Simplified
  • “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 two taps. It’s time you experienced Bitcoin, simplified.”
    • Learn how Magic Backups work in less than 40 seconds!
  • “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.”
  • Download Envoy today

In the first week of May we debuted a massive new update to Passport to 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 here.

Blog posts

Due to our approach with Envoy as a mobile wallet being so different from other wallets out there, we took the time to walk through every detail of Envoy as a mobile wallet, including the new Magic Backups feature that enables <60s onboarding and 3-tap recovery:

  • Announcing Envoy Wallet: Bitcoin Simplified
  • “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.”

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:

Journey to Sovereignty

In May, we got the chance to sit down with Czino and Steph from Peach Bitcoin and learn what they’ve been building, why P2P Bitcoin exchanges are vital, and much more. We also used the latest episode to unpack all of the happenings at Foundation.

  • EP #10 – Make Bitcoin P2P again w/ Peach Bitcoin
    • If you’ve been hearing the hype around Peach Bitcoin or simply starting to look into acquiring Bitcoin via a P2P exchange, today’s episode is for you! We’ll be diving into why Peach exists, how it’s different from the other P2P exchanges out there, and answering all your questions.
  • EP #11 – Open source is winning
    • It’s been a crazy last few weeks here at Foundation, so we wanted to focus this episode on chatting about all that we’ve launched, how the Ledger Recover fiasco has played out, and what we’re working on next.
    • We cover Passport’s new Key Manager extension, Envoy as a standalone mobile wallet, its new Magic Backups 60s onboarding and 3-tap recovery, and more on this episode of Journey to Sovereignty.

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

If you’ve been following Foundation for any length of time, you’ll surely know that we’re huge fans of decentralized and peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchanges as an immensely valuable tool. This month our Head of Customer Experience, BitcoinQnA, put together a guide on using Robosats on his site, bitcoiner.guide:

In the wake of the Ledger “Recover” fiasco, we’ve compiled some of the best resources on the topic so far to get you up to speed:

This month in digital sovereignty

We were thrilled to see that the Federal court system in the US finally codified protections for those coming into the US when it comes to warrantless phone searches:

A fantastic organization focused on incentivizing and organizing the funding of open-source projects, OpenSats, announced that they received a $10m grant to drive open-source contributions to Bitcoin, Nostr, and more.

  • OpenSats Receives Additional Funding of $10m from #startsmall
  • “We are delighted to announce that OpenSats has received a generous donation of $10 million from Jack Dorsey’s philanthropic initiative, #startsmall, which will be used to support the development of free and open-source software and projects focusing on bitcoin, nostr, and related technologies.”

In the same vein, the Human Rights Foundation donated $450,000 in grants from its Bitcoin Development Fund towards Bitcoin development in May, focusing on “improving Bitcoin scaling, privacy, decentralization, supporting global education, censorship-resistant communication, and building communities worldwide. Areas of focus include Africa and Asia”:

  • HRF Bitcoin Development Fund Grants $455,000 to 12 Projects Worldwide
  • “In 2020, the Human Rights Foundation launched a fund to support software developers who are making the Bitcoin network more private, decentralized, and resilient so that it can better serve as a financial tool for human rights activists, civil society organizations, and journalists around the world.”

This month’s step towards personal privacy and security

Properly securing accounts can lead to much better privacy by reducing the amount of data leaks and hacks you experience as a result of stolen or leaked credentials. Password managers make it extremely simple to manage usernames and passwords across all of the sites and apps you use, without needing to re-use passwords (or username or email!) in order to remember them. This has drastic implications on security, and is a huge step forward in your journey.

Migrating to a password manager is also a great chance to think twice about which accounts you actually need, and close those that you don’t need in the process.

  • Bitwarden
    • Bitwarden has become the gold standard for open-source password managers, as it has rich features, a generous free plan, and excellent clients on all platforms along with fantastic browser extensions.

What we’re working on

Our focus this month is around iterating on Envoy as a mobile wallet, building out full Taproot support for Passport, and supporting the Oslo Freedom Forum by donating 15 Passports to activists attending the event.

We’re excited to continue helping bring freedom via Bitcoin to people across the globe, and supporting such a critical event is a key way we can help to do that. Keep an eye out for more on the freedom front, as we’re working on big things behind the scenes!

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.

This Month in Sovereignty: April 2023

Posted on May 11, 2023 - 9:54 am by

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.

This Month in Sovereignty: March 2023

Posted on April 7, 2023 - 2:26 pm by

Welcome to This Month in Sovereignty, a new monthly newsletter from Foundation. 

With all that we have going on here at Foundation, the exciting news among our ecosystem partners, and the rapid pace of innovation around Bitcoin and self-sovereignty tools, we wanted to create a one-stop place for you to keep up with everything happening in the space.

We’ll use this newsletter to highlight development and content at Foundation, give you insight into what we’re loving this month as a team, and help you keep up with the ever evolving world of self-sovereignty, privacy, and Bitcoin. Let’s dive in.

This month at Foundation

Updates

It’s been a very busy month for us as we’ve finished squashing a few key bugs and have been able to focus more on building out new features for Passport and Envoy by the handful. We shipped two firmware updates for Passport, drastically improving QR and transaction signing performance, and shipped a major new open beta for Envoy featuring complete hot wallet support.

  • Passport version 2.0.7 is now live!
    • We focused on rebuilding transaction signing and QR scanning from the ground up, bringing you a faster and more seamless experience when sending Bitcoin using your Passport.
  • 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

Our broad focus on content this month was around equipping you with the tools you need to gain financial sovereignty through Bitcoin privacy, and to approach Nostr in a privacy-preserving way as a new and powerful social media platform.

  • Privacy on Nostr
    • “Nostr has been taking the Bitcoin world by storm over the past few months, and with it comes a chance to correct the mistakes of the current social media paradigm… Nostr takes a novel approach to its network design, and we want to be sure that Nostr users like yourself are well-equipped to use Nostr in a way that preserves your privacy and security from the start.”
    • We believe Nostr is social media as it should be.
    • You can follow us on Nostr here: @Foundation
  • Bitcoin doesn’t need banks
    • We expanded on the concepts discussed on Journey to Sovereignty in our special “Bitcoin doesn’t need banks” in a standalone blog post, walking through our favorite no-KYC P2P exchanges, how they work, and how you can get started.
    • “You just traded fiat for Bitcoin directly with another human without involving any intermediaries, without sacrificing your personal privacy, and without giving up custody of funds to an exchange for a prolonged period of time. P2P exchanges are the future.”

Journey to Sovereignty

We started a new podcast and Twitter Space this year called “Journey to Sovereignty” as a place for us to chat about all things sovereignty, the why and how of reclaiming your digital sovereignty, and to give you all a chance to chime in, ask questions, and join the conversation. We’ve had a great time diving deeply into the concepts of sovereignty, personal privacy, and Bitcoin’s power to provide financial freedom.

In March, we walked through on-chain privacy in Bitcoin, discussed how we can free ourselves from banks and middle-men as we acquire Bitcoin, and how an ongoing attack against Bitcoin nodes works and how you can protect yourself against it.

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


In this segment of the newsletter we share what our team has been loving in the space, be it podcast, blog posts, media, etc. Get to know the Foundation team a bit better and hopefully find some content you’ve been missing!

This month in digital sovereignty

March ended up being an absolutely shocking month of news from every angle, including bank collapses, harsh proposed regulations, and big news in the privacy ecosystem.

This month’s step towards personal privacy and security

Still stuck on Google Chrome or default Firefox but looking to improve your privacy while browsing? Our focus this month is to help you make the jump to a browser that cares about your privacy from the start, providing you a strong base and a jumpstart towards better online privacy.

  • Firefox
    • One of our favorite hardening guides for Firefox is made by an excellent content creator in the privacy space, TechLore. This guide goes step by step with very simple instructions and walks you through the process. Don’t let it scare you! It’s very straightforward, and only needs to be done once per computer.
  • Brave Browser
    • Brave has some excellent defaults, but certainly takes some odd approaches (like cryptocurrency ads all over the place and built-in cryptocurrency wallets which aren’t helpful to most people). This guide will help you harden its defaults, disable all of the Brave cryptocurrency integration, etc.
  • Mullvad Browser
    • Mullvad’s browser was just announced this month, but provides a great entry-point for the more hardcore among you. It takes strong steps towards reducing browser fingerprinting and bundles an excellent set of defaults for you out of the box.

What we’re working on

We’re excited to release a swath of updates for Passport and Envoy in April, including an open beta for Passport v2.1.0 that will include lots of exciting new features that we’ve been building out for you. This might just be our biggest month of software releases ever.

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