Foundation Devices Launches New Bitcoin Hardware Wallet

Foundation also announced Envoy, a companion mobile Bitcoin wallet for the Passport Batch 2.

Foundation Devices, Inc. has unveiled its new Bitcoin hardware wallet, Passport Batch 2, a thinner and cheaper update to its previous Passport Founder’s Edition.

The company also announced a new Bitcoin mobile wallet, Envoy, which serves as a companion app to the Passport enabling a more seamless experience in setting up and updating the hardware wallet.

“In light of recent events across the world, sovereignty and privacy are more important than ever,” said Zach Herbert, Co-Founder and CEO of Foundation, in a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine. “At Foundation, we strive to make sovereignty accessible to each and every individual. I’m thrilled to announce Passport Batch 2 and its companion app, Envoy, which will make Bitcoin sovereignty more attainable than ever before.”

Foundation said in a blog post the Passport Batch 2 features a scratch-resistant, high-resolution IPS color display, a removable standard form factor lithium-ion battery, a power-only USB-C port, meaning it doesn’t transfer any data, a physical power button, and an improved microSD card slot.

While Passport brings a whole new design, its underlying security maintains last year’s mechanisms. Batch 2 Passport uses a fast STM processor, a Microchip 608a secure element, an Omnivision cameracube, and an avalanche noise source for entropy, Foundation said. Passport’s hardware and firmware are “copyleft” open source, meaning derivative works are allowed but required to use the same license as the original work.

Passport’s companion app, Envoy, leverages Spiral’s Bitcoin Development Kit to bring an intuitive user experience, Foundation said. In addition to offering a simple Bitcoin wallet, the app helps the user configure their Passport device more easily, keeps them up-to-date with firmware updates without needing a computer, and provides quick access to support resources. Envoy is also copyleft open source (GPLv3).

However, Envoy will not bring coin control at launch, an important privacy feature that enables the user to select which UTXOs they would like to use in a transaction. Though Foundation said it intends to enable it in the future, Herbert told Bitcoin Magazine the company currently has "no set dates for specific features at this time."

Envoy primarily communicates with Passport in an airgapped fashion through QR codes, while it interfaces with the Bitcoin network and Foundation servers through Tor as a default. The user can configure Envoy to use their own Bitcoin node. The app also downloads necessary firmware updates which can be transferred and installed into Passport via a microSD card.

"We've designed Passport to be fully airgapped, with no wireless communications of any kind. This ensures maximum security," Herbert told Bitcoin Magazine. "We are considering wireless technologies like NFC for future products."

Passport Batch 2 presells at a $199 price tag and ships beginning in April with an industrial-grade microSD card, a removable lithium-ion battery, microSD adapters for iOS and Android and a USB-C charging cable.

UPDATE (Mar 10, 2022 – 3:07 PM CT): Added comments by Foundation CEO.