Company Name Foundation Devices
Founders: Zach Herbert with Ken Carpenter, Jacob Johnston
Date founded: March 2020
Headquarter Location: Boston, MA (and remote areas)
The amount of Bitcoin held in Treasury Foundation has bitcoins but doesn’t reveal the value
The number of employees: 24 full-time employees
Website: https://foundation.xyz/
Public or private? You can also contact us by email.
Zach Herbert wants everyone to have access to bitcoins.
The co-founder of the CEO and Foundation DevicesIn the past four years,, which makes Bitcoin software and hardware wallets, spent a lot of time developing Bitcoin technology. It’s open, secure, and free.source but also as usable as products made by Apple, a brand that Herbet loves (or at least loved — read on).
Foundation’s flagship product is a hardware wallet named the PassportThe competition has a. “combination of design and user experience,” Herbert spoke to Bitcoin Magazine.
The Foundation is also a concern, he said. “very strong principles we try to uphold around open-source, privacy and freedom.”
The strength of Foundation lies in its ability to balance staying true to their principles with creating products that newcomers to Bitcoin are able to use relatively easily.
“I think you just have to have those principles defined from day one and you have to really know why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Herbert spoke about how he, and his team, achieve such an equilibrium.
“I don’t think it conflicts at all with the idea of wanting to build the best designed devices or products possible,” He added.
Foundations’ Products
Foundation’s hardware wallet is the Passport, which was mentioned earlier.
This device is a upscaled version of the feature phone but has a much higher resolution screen.
Airgapped is one of Passport’s main selling points. This means that the device does not need to be connected to the internet, and therefore, the private keys are protected.
Foundation created an easier way of backing up private keys than the old-fashioned method, which was to write them down. Users can store their seed phrase onto the included industrial-grade microSD card with Passport.
“We think that not having to go write down those 12 or 24 words helps you get onboarded faster,” Herbert said.
The Passport makes signing transactions a lot easier than with other devices. This can be done by scanning QR codes with your Passport or mobile device.
When used with Foundation, the Passport is most convenient Envoy App that can also be used as a standalone hot wallet.
Herbert and his Foundation team have created another system to help onboard new users. This allows users to start the app securely almost instantly.
“We created something we call Magic Backups where we actually store the seed to your iCloud keychain or Android equivalent, which is only for the hot wallet on your phone,” Explain Herbert.
“What’s amazing about Magic Backups is that you’re onboarded within 60 seconds of downloading the app for the first time, and so you can always go and import your own seed if you want to, or create and save your own seed instead,” He added.
“We try to obfuscate things that might be complicated, but we do things based on the industry standards.”
He acknowledged that this surely isn’t as secure as recording your seed phrase to a microSD card or writing it down because saving your seed phrase offline is safer than storing it online, and he shared that the hot wallet is only for minimal amounts of funds — the same dollar amounts you’d hold in your physical wallet in cash.
Envoy also allows you to purchase Bitcoin via KYCYou can access free P2P platforms like Hodl Hodl, Bisq or other similar sites within your app. Then you can send these purchases to either hot or cold storage.
🎬 Start your Bitcoin journey right!
P2P Bitcoin platforms allow you to avoid KYC and gain control.
Envoy is the most powerful P2P platform to achieve your sovereign goals.
We're building to support your journey every step of the way 🧡 pic.twitter.com/hbCeAOCWZl
— FOUNDATION (@FOUNDATIONdvcs) July 8, 2024
Foundation built the Passport and Envoy to satisfy all bitcoin holders.
“We’re trying to make the products that the hardcore user will use and love but then will also feel comfortable recommending to their friends and family,” Explain Herbert.
Why Do We Need Wallets
Herbert entered the Bitcoin space in 2013 — in the early days of hardware wallets.
“When I first got into Bitcoin, the hardware wallets were only just beginning to be a thing,” recounted Herbert.
The software wallet he used was called Armory. challenging to use To say the least, it is not a good idea.
“The recommendation was to have Armory installed on an airgapped computer that you would ideally remove the Wi-Fi card from and purely use to run Armory,” Herbert. “In essence, in this case the computer has become the hardware wallet,” said Herbert.
Herbert said that back in the day, there weren’t any seed phrases and you would have had to print your private key out on various pieces of paper. This was a kind of physical version of an Shamir backup system.
Herbert acknowledges that the majority of hardware wallets today are more user-friendly than those he used in 2013. But despite this, Herbert still feels they can be difficult to navigate. Herbert said some manufacturers of hardware wallets seem to take pride in making wallets that are hard to operate, saying that they make products that people find difficult. “rite of passage.”
Herbert Herbert was looking for a technology to make Foundation more effective. “approachable and thoughtful.”
Apple: A love/hate relationship
Herbert’s vision of Foundation is to build more products which sync up like the Passport or Envoy.
“We want to be something like the Apple of the industry,” Herbert said. “[We want to build] hardware, software, and services that are all tightly intertwined and work seamlessly together.”
Herbert announced that Foundation will launch in the near future “potentially a new category of product” By the end of the year
Was it the Bitcoin-centric mobile phone he asked about on X to his followers?
What are the features you would want on a Bitcoin-focused smartphone? https://t.co/8dIon71apI
— Zach Herbert (@zachherbert) May 18, 2024
Do not hold your breath.
Some things prevent such a product from reaching the market. Apple is ironically one of the obstacles.
“A phone is definitely up there,” Herbert spoke of his projects that he would like to undertake work on, “but I just think it’s more of a further into the decade project, because I think we would need to be further along as a company, and I also think that the industry needs to be further along, too.”
Herbet has written a series on this topic called “Falling out of Love with Apple” In 2020,
“[Apple’s] app restrictions are very bad for the [Bitcoin] space,” Herbert said.
“I think that a really basic and simple example is NFC payments on iPhone. There’s a reason why Bitcoin wallets can’t do Tap to Pay with NFC, and that’s because Apple does not allow it. You’re only allowed to use NFC for Apple Pay,” Added he.
Herbert shared with us that Apple hinders even the design of Bitcoin Mobile Wallets. This affects both Apple and Android users.
“More than half of your users are going to be iOS users, and you usually don’t want to ship a completely separate Android experience,” Explain Herbert. “Whatever Apple ends up doing, even if Android enables more, you end up just deciding to go along with the restrictions that Apple sets.”
Foundation must get Apple off its back if it is to succeed in its goal of becoming the Apple to the Bitcoin Industry.
What Next For Foundation
Foundation has other technology in mind besides the mobile phone that is on its distant horizon.
Herbert mentioned that Foundation may be considering incorporating Taproot Multisig Within the next Few Months
“When it gets to the point where there’s actual users that are actively using it, we’ll add support,” Herbert pointed out, too, that Passport offers a great multisig experience.
Foundation has also decided to keep its Samourai Whirlpool Postmix extension Live on Passport allows users of Passport to directly connect with Sparrow Wallet and coinjoin bitcoins into cold storage by clicking a single button.
Whirlpool Postmix will remain on Passport.🌀
When Whirlpool, Samourai and their charges have been dismissed and cleared of all allegations we look forward to seeing them again.#FreeSamourai pic.twitter.com/SltJpDThFv
— FOUNDATION (@FOUNDATIONdvcs) May 9, 2024
Sparrow suspended its service following the terrorist attacks. arrest of the Samourai Wallet developersHerbert and Foundation’s team are confident that once Samourai is cleared, the wallet will restore service.
“We believe that the Samourai team has not broken any laws,” Herbert said. “We donated half a bitcoin to their legal defense.”
Herbert noted also that Foundation had been on the brink of adding Whirlpool to the Envoy app when the news broke of the arrests of Samourai’s developers.
Foundation plans to launch a new initiative in the near future. Lightning To make bitcoin sending and receiving as quick and inexpensive as possible, Envoy has developed a service called Bitcoin Envoy.
“When we have Lightning in Envoy, we can provide the best possible user experience,” Herbert said.
“We can obfuscate a lot of complicated stuff happening behind the scenes and have an easy transfer flow from Lightning to cold storage or from your hot wallet to cold storage. You’ll just be able to tap the transfer button in the app, just like how you would do a transfer from your checking account to savings account in an online banking interface,” He added.
Herbert Foundation and its team are full of ideas, vision, and creativity.
Given how much they’ve delivered since the company’s founding just four years ago, it’s easy to imagine that future iterations of their hardware and software — as well as whatever new products they create — will only get easier to use and more dynamic from here.
“We’ve barely scratched the surface for what Bitcoin wallets can even do,” The conclusion of Herbert “There’s going to be so much rapid progress over the coming years.”
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Source: bitcoinmagazine.com