Bitcoin Forum

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Armory is finally Beta!  (v0.86-beta)  (updated screenshots below)

Click here to go to the download page (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/get-armory).

Thanks to everyone who donated back in March!  After 9 months and probably another 1,000 hours of development, Armory is finally BETA.  And it's been getting around, too:  1,500 downloads per month for the last 4 months (even while in "alpha")!  If you were intrigued by this project but didn't want to take the plunge because it was "alpha," now is the time to check out how far Armory has come.  And it has come quite far:

• Still 100% free!
• Armory now works on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows and Linux (no installers/packages yet for OSX, but RedEmerald has made it quite accessible (https://gist.github.com/4200620) with a few terminal commands)
• GPG-signed installers & uninstallers for both Windows and Linux (using the Armory Signing Key (http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?search=Armory))
• Bulk address importing/sweeping
• Insta-load allowing you to manage your wallets while Armory is scanning.
• Export transaction history to .csv file
• System tray icon, with notifications!
• Coin Control (available in "Expert" mode)! Full control of transaction inputs and customizable change output (bolded because of high demand for it)
• Full "bitcoin:" URL handling in both Windows and Linux (and a place to enter the URL manually if clicking the links don't work for some reason)
• Create clickable payment requests to be copied into emails or wepages.
• Export your transaction histories
• Minimize to system tray
• Version checking and notification
• Endless polishing (table sorting, formatting, preferences, filtering, warning windows, action verification checks, tooltips/mouseover text on everything, etc)

And of course, that is only what is new to Armory!  Don't forget that Armory gives you:

• Painless offline wallets (cold storage)! (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/using-offline-wallets-in-armory)
• Multiple-wallet interface
• GPU-resistant wallet encryption
• Deterministic wallets
• Only-one-time-needed-ever backups!  Print one off when you create the wallet, protect it forever!
• Watching-only wallets
• Key importing and sweeping
• Message signing
• And lots more I can't even remember!

And now the things that aren't done yet:

• Still requires Bitcoin-Qt to be running -- this is actually a net benefit despite the inconvenience.  There's a new page describing why this is good (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/armory-and-bitcoin-qt) (essentially, you get the network security of Bitcoin-Qt with the features of Armory).
• Dramatically reduced RAM usage compared to original, but rapid blockchain acceleration has made even that solution RAM-heavy.  If your system has 4+ GB of RAM you probably won't notice.  The next major update will be swapping RAM for HDD space, but I wanted the first release to be a stable version for those that like to keep Armory on portable media.
• No migration of Bitcoin-Qt wallets/addresses (was implemented before, but Bitcoin-Qt started using compressed keys that Armory wallets couldn't support).  A new wallet format is in the works that will not only support Bitcoin-Qt wallets, but also multi-sig!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/ArmoryMainScreen.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/ArmoryNotifyRecv.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/BitcoinImg/screenshot_importsweep.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/BitcoinImg/screenshot_payrequest_2_sm.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/dlgOfflineSelect.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/ArmoryDefaultApp.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/BitcoinImg/screenshot_coinctrl2.png

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Crowdfunding period:  Feb 18 to Mar 19, 2012  (FINISHED)
Total RocketHub Donations (Credit Cards):
$2661
Total Bitcoins Donated
271.4 BTC
BTC Value converted to USD (via MtGox, multiple sell orders):
$1442
Total Funds Raised:
$4103


Update:  I have decided to continue providing rewards/gifts for BTC donations.  I have posted the list of available donation amounts and corresponding gifts on the Donating for Armory Development (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/donating-for-armory-development) page.  All donations are used to replace salary that I am not receiving while working part-time on Armory!

Crowdfunding Wrap-up:

Thanks so much to everyone that donated to this project.  While some have complained that it's a shame I couldn't raise the full amount of funding, I do not consider this a failure in any way.  The amount of money raised is very significant, and much more than colleagues of mine thought was even possible.  Not only did I raise enough to make a difference, but I got to do a lot of networking with a lot of fellow Bitcoiners.  I didn't expect to end up with so many new contacts, all interested in Bitcoin, and Armory!

Maybe $12K was ambitious.  The number was chosen because that's what I'd feel comfortable with to go down to 28 hours/week.  The fact that I raised $4K is no small feat, and still leaves a lot of room to take time off of work, and really focus on Armory.  I should be clear that I really like my job, it's just that Armory has turned out to be so much more interesting and rewarding.  I am looking for any excuse I can to work more on Armory and less at my real job.  I think that I will take a leap and drop to 32 anyway, despite being the condition I laid out for raising $8k.  Screw it, I want to do it.  I live below my means for a reason, and this seems like a rare (and justifiable) opportunity.  It's something I really want to do, and happens to be something lots of other people want me to do :)  

Even though I didn't raise the full amount, I'm still committed to keeping the core, Armory desktop application free.  It will be my primary focus for the rest of year, or until it's "done."  The word, "done", is a way of saying: "everyone can use it, with all the security features, offline wallets, multi-sig interfaces, translations, web-server accessibilities, and can be considered a direct replacement for the Satoshi client".  It's not until that time that I will look for other ways to make money:  perhaps through licensing to other developers,  creating add-ons to integrate services directly into the client, or just renting myself out as a consultant.

Until that time, I'm sure the Satoshi client and other clients will work to integrate many of the same features as Armory.  This is fine with me:  if Armory had any part in spurring competition in the client marketplace and bringing good ideas to the other clients, then I'll consider it another metric of success.  After all, part of my goal is seeing Bitcoin succeed, not just Armory.



Thanks so much for the community support!  I am looking forward to continue working on Armory.
-Alan

 
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Cold Storage for the Average User - Part of Armory!
With the recent, high-profile BTC thefts, it appears that multi-signature transactions and "cold-storage" could close this gaping hole in Bitcoin security (it seems that slush actually saved himself a lot of money by using cold-storage).  But multi-signature transactions are not yet enabled on the network, and most users don't have the patience or skill to manage offline wallets.  Until now!  Armory contains a lot of fantastic features, but the most important one is Armory Offline Wallets (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/using-offline-wallets-in-armory), which gives regular users "cold-storage" capability.  All those other awesome features of Armory are just a bonus (multiple deterministic wallets, one-time paper backups, key import/export, GPU-resistant wallet encryption, etc).  

If you donate $300+ to this crowdfunding campaign, I will be sending you a used laptop and USB key, already prepared for use as an offline wallet manager!  Three laptops have already been claimed!


UPDATE:  Encryption Seminar is Being Distributed
Understanding Encryption:  Using Boring Math for Something Useful
For $10 in credit card donation  (http://www.rockethub.com/projects/6056-armory-bitcoin-development-funding) or BTC donation, get the seminar!  There is no cheaper way to get a thorough introduction to cryptography, with or without a math background!  If you are unsure, see cypherdoc's review (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66394.0) of the seminar!  



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Many of you probably heard about Armory Bitcoin Client.  If not, I recommend you check it at:  http://bitcoinarmory.com (http://bitcoinarmory.com).   I am very excited about the future of this project, and I have received extraordinarily positive feedback and encouragement based on the alpha release I made last week.   I believe this is the beginning of the future for Bitcoin on the desktop!

Armory includes: multiple wallet interface, deterministic wallets, GPU-resistant wallet encryption, one-time paper backup printing, key import/sweep/export (including VanityGen and Casascius physical bitcoins), and different user modes depending on your Bitcoin experience level ("Standard", "Advanced" and "Developer").  And the holy-grail feature of "Armory Offline Wallets," giving you the highest level of Bitcoin wallet security available!  See the following links for more information:

• Main Armory Webpage (http://www.bitcoinarmory.com)
• Armory thread on the Bitcoin forums (with feature list) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56424)
• Download Armory (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/get-armory) or Build it from source (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/building-armory-from-source)
• Tutorial of Armory Offline Wallets (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/using-offline-wallets-in-armory)

Time for crowdfunding!




http://cdn0.rockethub.com/rel-c89988c/images/rockethub-logo.png
 Click here to see the Crowdfunding campaign and donate (http://www.rockethub.com/projects/6056-armory-bitcoin-development-funding)



If I can raise $12,000 from the community, I will drop from 40 hours-per-week to 28 hours-per-week at my regular job, solely to continue development of Armory!    
Please see the RocketHub posting for precise details about project direction, development plans/promised features, cool rewards for donors, and conditions for overfunding or underfunding.

I have proven my skill and commitment to the Bitcoin community with over 1,000 hours of development to produce this working prototype of Armory -- and without any financial motive so far.  The donations will help me cover living expenses and the extra time will let me pay a little more attention to my girlfriend whom has been heavily neglected the last 8 months.   In exchange, I guarantee that Armory will receive 100% of my focus, and be maintained as a free and open-source project, with all the most powerful features available.  

Plus, there are some pretty awesome rewards for those that donate a lot.  Get a custom USB key for offline transactions, Casascius physical bitcoins, tshirts, and even a used laptop/netbook, already prepared for use as an offline wallet manager!  To donate with a credit card, you only create a login, and you will be taken straight to a credit-card donation page.  It may be annoying to create a login, but I do need the personal information to communicate with donors and send rewards!




Donate BTC to this campaign using:  1Rocketc8FRo18MyJSc3sjNEs2W2R8api

All BTC donors will receive the same rewards as credit card donors, at the market price of BTC at the time of the donation.  In order to receive your rewards, you must email me immediately after you send the Bitcoins, to etotheipi@gmail.com, to provide me with your email address and a mailing address (if you donate $25 or more).  If you can include a Tx ID that is preferable, but not required. If there is any question about who donated, I may request proof that you own the donor address, either with the upcoming 0.6.0 Satoshi client, or a similar feature in the Armory interface.

The above Bitcoin address has been specifically designated (by me) for such donations, and can be tracked using blockexplorer or blockchain.info (http://blockchain.info/address/04b0e581fdc44dc14e8c81cad42e3c4009241361).  

If you have a choice, I request that you donate through RocketHub.  It is easier for me to track donors, and I want to make sure RocketHub gets their share, for helping me out.  But please don't let that discourage you from donating in Bitcoins if that's your preferred method (this is the Bitcoin forums, after all!).


The reason I picked RocketHub is that I keep donations even if I don't complete the funding goal -- this is critical because I expect a lot of people will actually donate in BTC, outside of the RocketHub page.  If I only raise $7k in cash, and $5k in BTC, I technically met my goal but wouldn't receive the $7k if this was an all-or-nothing website like Kickstarter.
(Actually, I would've preferred all-or-nothing funding, because it comes with a lot less gray-area outcomes and more donor motivation, but I have laid out exactly how I will handle underfunding and overfunding on the RocketHub page).


Finally, please share this link with anyone else who might be willing to donate!


A special thanks to Paul Martello and Jim Nguyen for donating higher amounts than I thought anyone would.  You guys are amazing!  I am so grateful for your generosity!  Also Mr. Jere Jones who donated $100... that's nothing to sneeze at!  
And trust me, I appreciate all the other donors, too.  You are all making my day.  Thanks so much for your support!  (please PM or email me after you donate if you don't want public recognition for your donation).

Sounds exciting. Definitely watching.

>$12,000

Sadly, Bitcoin development is this expensive at the moment. You couldn't get Russian coders to build this cheaper than that.

I mean, you could but you would need to log their every move and yell at them over Skype constantly; that would be a lot of sweat and tears.

well then, consider it a bargain.  there aren't too many ppl around here as brilliant as eto and this product has incredible potential. 

After fees and rewards (and god, probably taxes, too), this will be like $8,000.  At 30% of my time, this is like having a salary of $24,000-$30,000.  Most people who do this kind of work get paid 2x to 4x that in salary before benefits.  Not to mention, that calculation is for 12 hours per week, and I will actually be spending 30-40 hours a week on this.  I think the community is actually getting a great deal, here! :)

I won't reveal my actual salary, but this definitely doesn't cover 30% of it.  It doesn't cover half of that.  But, I already live below my financial ceiling, and this project is much more rewarding than my regular job.  And, I get to work from home!  (though my regular job is pretty cool, too, so I can't complain too much).  

qft!

i think if you had to put a number to the value of current armory codebase its probably somewhere in the range between 100k-500k usd. for example it has 23k lines of code according to etotheipi. if you put something like 10k logical lines of code (just an estimate) into the cocomo model you end put with an estimated production cost of 270k usd and 27 months of work. of course that doesnt say anything about the actual code quality, the amount of original and innovative work he has done (alot imho), how well its documented and so forth. but i think it still gives some indication of the actual value his work would have as contract work.
due to the amount of innovation armory contains the value for bitcoin as a whole will likely be much higher in the end.

Btw, it's been a while since I added it up, so I just re-ran "wc" across all the files I created myself:  

• 20,000 lines in .py files (including unit tests)
• 11,000 lines in .h and .cpp files

That's 31,000 lines, including empty lines and comments.  And I do have tons of comments.  But, I've always been taught if you spend a lot of time writing comments, you deserve to have those lines counted in your favor :)

Yup anyone that has had an even slightly complex custom program or app coded in or for an enterprise environment would know that 12k is nothing.

Haven't checked this out yet but it sounds good.  Thanks for the work so far eto.

Alan Reiner works at a physics lab in Maryland.

I used to do undergraduate research here:

http://www.ireap.umd.edu/

Curious where Alan works.

I would bet cash money the work he's doing on Armory will benefit the world way more than any government funded research he's doing for a living.

I hope he/you get your donations so that you can do it full-time!

I will be donating. Out of town now but will come up with a figure soon.

Bumping. I'm poor but I made a token 0.05 BTC donation. Figured every little helps (and you get a bump if nothing else). Want to encourage those who are on the fence to make small donations too: this is where accepting BTC really pays off hopefully.

This looks really interesting, I have never tested it thought. Maybe put a easy to download and install file up when you have a "stable" release? I have no clue thought.
I am still running bitcoin client 0.3.23-beta ..I want to download your armory client but don't want to update too often.
Donating one btc thought to help a little bit :)

Can I save my Armory wallet in a standard wallet.dat format readable by the Satoshi client? Will it work both for versions < 0.5.0 and > 0.5.0?

Good luck with your crowdfunding campaign etotheipi !

Half a dozen BTC is winging its way to you as I type.

:-)

no.
armory wallet files are fundamentally different from those of the original client. all addresses are generated from an initial seed value. that way the wallet file doesnt have to include the actual addresses. it stays small and backups automatically include all future addresses you use.
you could still fake a conversion to a standard wallet.dat, but this copy would always include only a finite number of addresses. plus you cant convert it back.
the implementation is also different since armory doesnt use berkely db. i guess its still possible but might be a lot of work. i think there is quite a lot of stuff to work on thats more important than that.

I sent a small donation, hope that you succeed.

Honestly, I really think that this kind of development is kind of waste of time. The "bitcoin wallet" software is pretty well solved problem. There exist numerous other bitcoin related projects & ideas, which could be much more important to the bitcoin project in general. Some of those projects could be even profitable businesses in the near future.

However, I appreciate every developer there is in the bitcoin project, and wish you a good luck :)

The bitcoin software is really two different things the

o  network handling.
o  bitcoin wallet.

Gavin is making changes to the network side, but not necessarily the User Interaction side.

there are numerous enhancements that can be made to the client -

tx fees as transactions,
tx fees as separate column.

NOT one of the clients I've tested show tx fees as an integral part of the interface. How can you be expected to account properly?
maybe not everyone does or will care, but when the ui says a tx fee should be 0.01 (0.6rc1->settings|options ) what are new users supposed to do? why isn't there a network message from each miner saying that minimum tx should be 0.0005, or whatever the minimum they will accept?

<disclaimer: I've not tested all clients, and not tested all functions>

QIF/OFX import/export
gnucash integration

mining pool integration (e.g. I can expect xx.yyBTC in z blocks time from )

folders for addresses (eg. keep all my onetime deposits to bitcoin-kamikaze in one folder, my deposits to intersango/cryptoxchange/mtgox/tradehill/bitcoinica in another.)

hide addresses

multiple private key import, qr codes

coderr's patch for anonymity which allows address selection

electrum doesn't show the max available balance that can be sent along with fee, so you have to chop your way to an answer, neither does bitcoin client 0.6rc.

bitcoin client uses berkeley db which has no native tools for repairs (cygwin has 4.5, but bitcoin client is 4.8 or 4.7), the python environment to run pywallet/walletco/bitcointools is DISASTROUS for anyone inexperienced.

sorting on addresses/dates

electrum doesn't allow address book selection from the send page - has to be from the contacts page.



marked

I hardly see how bringing extra security and a world of new functionality to the desktop is a waste of time.  

• The simple addition of "deterministic wallets" requiring only a single backup at creation time, solves a tremendously frustrating problem with other clients (with the Satoshi client, you have to re-backup your wallet every 100 transactions).  Being able to print the backup makes it even more robust (visually verifiable, easier to store).
• The multiple-wallet interface is an extremely high-demand feature from users all over the forum.  And it is especially useful for businesses that want to segregate their books/funds.
• Key import & sweep is a feature that had a $500 bounty from Casascius on the D&TD forums, because of how useful it is (and Armory is the first application to do it).
• Watching-only wallets enabling you to separate private and public keys gives a level security that is unmatched, both for users and businesses.  Maybe you're not concerned about security, but other users are.  Especially businesses, which can now give employees watching-only wallets for collecting and verifying payments, but the employer with the full wallet is the only person that can spend the funds.
• Multi-signature transactions, with contracts, are going to be a critical addition to the Bitcoin network.  It will enable a new world of functionality for parties to do business with one another.  But it's also very complicated, and going to require a very innovative interface to bring that capability to the users.

On top of that, Armory is not strictly focused on the desktop.  It may be right now, while I get the core functionality implemented.  But my intention has always been to make smartphone apps, too.  But that needs the features I built into the desktop:  two-factor authentication w/ smartphone will require deterministic, watching-only wallets, and that just doesn't exist anywhere else.

I hope you will change your opinion of it.  Either way, thanks for your donation.  I am impressed that you donate despite your opinion of the effort.

I'd like to give Alan a huge endorsement for the incredible client he is building. I've had the privilege of chatting with Alan frequently, and his character, kindness, and intelligence is inspirational.

Alan deserves any possible donation than anyone can toss his way. He's building a magnificent thing. Armory is serious quality.

thank you for your efforts i am very impressed with this and am pleased to have become a supporter. Making a donation helps me to contribute to the community without having the necessary skills to contribute in other areas. Thank you for this opportunity .   

Just sent my donation.

Looking forward to the coming development! Great job so far

Alan, let me tone down the pretentious dick breath and try this again..

As a hero in the making, have you ever explored honest and honorable means to monetize other than just donations?

You still come across as pretentious to me. I have sent you pre-production payment for your magazine and you asking for that is no more (or less) "honest and honorable" than what Alan is doing - well, yours is maybe a little less honorable :)

Alan does not seem to be misleading in any way. Please leave him alone and just don't contribute if you don't appreciate what he is doing. I, for one, am glad that he is keeping it all open source.

Sent a little .. all counts hey  ;)
Keep at it bud

Receiving fees for a tangeable item is not honorable? Lawl.

Anyway, I love Armory and hope it completely replaces all uses of the normal client and I love anything that plans on incorporating OT. Where my attitude comes from is not related to this project or OP at all-- it's that I am bias against e-begging. Call it one-dimensional (as my pro-crowdfunding marketing director Mihai Alisoe calls it) but I really think he can be making much more and bringing in more resources through other monetary means than crowdfunding alone. If he's already researching other ways, then I'll gladly find a way to remove my foot from my mouth.

@OP: I really want to do something for you with the magazine  that can help you, but I haven't had time to think up something awesome and mutually beneficial. Any ideas guys?

P.S. I know its hard to tell with me sometimes but calling him a hero wasn't sarcasm. I love this project more than I can describe in words, I am just a HUGE hater of crowdfunding for software-only initiatives. Crowdsourcing on the other hand...

It's easy to hate what you don't understand. The business mentality doesn't understand sharing, helping others, donations, generosity, kindness or being socially responsible.

Yeah, the logic of the two marketplaces is completely different.

In the commercial marketplace, you would not work for free. Nobody would work at Walmart helping customers or stack shelves for free. You'd be a chump! The logic is that you do stuff for money.

Yet you get all these people on Wikipedia. Volunteers. Who do sometimes insanely tedious work. Why? No one knows. But that's the norms of the community marketplace. The logic of this space, is that of the community. A love of what you do.

Welcome to the new age of peer production.

I totally agree most of my hatred for it is out of lack of understanding. I see the good that comes from it, but I count the good as "dumb luck". Business is about making money regardless of what happens. I don't rely on donations to publish the magazine for example, I do so based on a very calculated effort of costs, fees, public interest, and I constantly move for more adoption and interest wherever possible. This might not apply to a software application like Armory, but it actually might too. I won't pretend to know, but I will ask the question-- anything other than crowdfunding on the menu?

EDIT: It's not going to happen, but what if MtGox paid him $100 a day to have MtGox trading options embedded (optional of course) into the client. For people who don't use MtGox, it would help them to learn about MtGox (good for MtGox), for those who do use MtGox it would simplify their process of buying bitcoins etc, and for those who are not too fond of MtGox *cough*me*cough* it would be easily ignored as it's just a feature. This is a highly exaggerated example for so early in the game, but it's not an impossible one.

O shut up. Let us geek out over this cool little funding drive. He's doing alright so far. More than 1k in 2 days is far from fail. If he can raise funds without selling himself out or sacrificing quality, why then that's awesome.

When I first heard about this on IRC, it sounded cool and full of fail at the same time. At that point, EVERYTHING including the blockchain was stored in RAM. This made the app incredibly fast, but it also needed like 4 GB of RAM. I am assuming this minor kink has been worked out by now? ;)

I like that it doesn't use the stock bitcoind as a backend like so many other applications, and that it supports multiple wallets and so on and so forth. It seems to have the most features of any other single client.

rjk,

Unfortunately, it hasn't reached that stage yet.  It still requires the blockchain in memory, though I have made a lot of progress switching to a non-full-RAM implementation.  It was an early design decision due to it being a creative, experimental tool, not a wide-user-base client.  I'm paying for that now, by having to overhaul pieces of the C++ code run like a "normal" application.   Unfortunately, it's a lot of work, and will need a lot of testing when it's done.

And, Armory still requires the Satoshi (regular) Bitcoin client to be running -- Armory connects to it as a single peer and uses it to receive not-in-the-blockchain transactions yet, and to send tx to be broadcast.  This gives Armory the security of having all the most advanced networking security behaviors in the regular client, as well as full-validation behaviors, but does make Armory even more burdensome to use.

THIS is why Armory is still alpha.  It's very usable if you have 4GB of RAM and don't mind running the regular client, too.  But it's going to take quite a bit of work just to support everyone else. 

Matt,

I think the misunderstanding comes from a perception that somehow Armory is "Done."  I will make all kinds of plugins and extras for it, Android apps, whatever, but only when it's actually done.  That includes:

• Getting it to run on systems with less than 4GB of RAM
• Running it without the Satoshi client in the background
• Being able to make Windows, Linux and OSX binaries, installable like an actual program
• Complete multi-signature interface with everything I've already listed (multi-sig, two-factor-auth, buyer-seller-escrow)
• JSON-RPC interface
• etc

There's a good reason it is "alpha," and many more months of work to get it to a final release with everything I think it should have.  Perhaps, at that time, I will contact you for advice/help on how to monetize future efforts.  But until then, I don't want corrupt it with ads, obligate myself to some big core donors, or stifle momentum to work on business-specific add-ons, just because I could use a few bucks now.  I want it to have everything imaginable, and also be free.  That sounds like a good crowdfunding platform :)

Great job so far !  Just sent my donation and good luck.

Whoopsie, OK, I haven't been on IRC for a while so I haven't kept up. However, this might be good to remotely manage a different bitcoind, no? I have a server with the bitcoind on it running as a service, and having a remote GUI would be cool.

Understood and the best of luck to you man. We're all routing for you!

its really not a problem.  the speed factor overwhelms the need to have the Satoshi client open and the 4GB should be no problem for most modern computers.  i happened to have 8GB in mine and its over a year old.

I agree with you 20%.  The first issue is that I want Armory to be to a "global" application.  Right now it's feeding the niche crowd of users willing to set everything up and who have the computing resources to use it.  In other words:  Geeks.  But if this is going to make impact for the greater community, it needs to be usable by anyone.  It's a lot of work, but it would easily improve exposure of Armory 10-fold. 

Second of all, it may be runnable with 4GB of RAM right now, but it won't be in a year.  The blockchain size is increasing in size much faster than modern computers are increasing in available RAM.  There is no way around it:  the current paradigm is unsustainable.  In fact, the blockchain has almost doubled in size since I started this project 8 months ago... and that's when I made the decision to just hold everything in memory.  I didn't anticipate it to get out of hand so quickly...

Excellent project! I want to give you free ads on my website Dailybitcoins.org

Awww, c'mon!  1,800 page views, but less than 18 donations so far (1%).  Nothing in the last 24 hours.  If it wasn't for the awesomeness of a few key donors, I'd be really disappointed right now :(  

If even 10% of you donated between $25 and $50, I would pretty much a full-time Armory developer!   And I would get some nice bulk discounts on USB keys and Tshirts (that helps even more!)


If anyone would like to suggest better ways to find people willing to contribute, I'm open!   It's probably not a matter of "spin", but RocketHub did suggest the following interpretation:   Do not think of these as donations.  Consider it a marketplace to buy the overpriced rewards I have posted, knowing that the extra money is going to a good cause!  Even I feel better promoting it when I think of it that way (I guess that's what fundraisers are, aren't they?)

Giantdragon, maybe I'll take you up on your free advertising!  Thanks for the offer, I'll contact you soon.

P.S. - I added a screenshot of Armory to the top post, I hope that will get people's attention better.

I'll be donating (again), just deciding how much. Keep up the good work!

Port Armory to Javascript and I'll donate $100 in Bitcoins.

I don't think "port" is what you want.

However, there will eventually be support for a JSON-RPC.  You should be able to build whatever you want with javascript once that exists.

I don't think you'd want to move something that uses up 4GB of RAM to Javascript-- ever.

The client should only have to download the most recent blocks in the chain. This whole issue disappears once that happens.

Oh yea, good point. So then the next time you close your browser and open it ag--- ohhh wait..

 ::)

I have plans in the far future to allow for a headers-based implementation.  As long as you have the headers, you wouldn't need the whole blockchain (after all, that's kind of what the headers are for).  Thus, if you just created your wallet, you wouldn't need to download the old blocks.

But that's a non-negligible paradigm shift for Armory.  Until then, I'll just focus on not loading the whole blockchain into RAM.  While that's a significant paradigm shift, my upcoming solution will work on systems <1 GB of RAM and not run off to infinity with the size of the blockchain...

(P.S. - I'm talking about available system RAM -- Armory doesn't use 4 GB right now, but you'd have a tough time using it on a Win7 machine with less than 4GB)

What benefit do you see in having the blockchain in javascript?

Build a web app that uses javascript to interact with the armory server's JSON-RPC.  "Easy" web wallet with everything that Armory has.  I say "easy" because it's a lot of work to build a good web wallet even if the logic is mostly in armory.  It also definitely isn't easy for the armory dev.

Oh yeah. The original reason I came to this thread.

I tried to donate with a credit card, but the payment page never loaded :(

I'll donate with bitcoin soon :)

I have a MultiBit twitter feed (MultiBitOrg) for release announcements:
Just tweeted:

Armory (excellent alt Bitcoin client) is crowdfunding. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64449.0;all #bitcoin



Let's get those BTC flowing into etotheipi's rocket address and get him working on Bitcoin fulltime!

Jim,

If you didn't just donate 5 BTC to me, I'd be donating 5 BTC to you!  I hope you accept my raw appreciation instead of a returned donation :)
Thanks!

Just tweeted the same thing from the bitcoin horn.

And added Armory donation thread to my sig.

10 BTC sent your way.

No rewards, thanks. I'd rather see all of it go to the actual goal.

Hi etotheipi,

Send you a small donation to your BTC address.  It's not much, but it's also not nothing ;)  (it was all I had in my bitcoinspinner wallet on my phone, I'll send a "proper" donation when I get back to my main PC)

Looking forward to a compiled version for windows to get around the 64/32bit python issues :)

Sent you 5BTC.
Keep up the good work ;)

Looks like a bit of an influx of BTC donations today, so that's nice.   It was at 15BTC this morning, now it's at 50.

EDIT:  Actually, it's more likely that blockexplorer is crapping out again and it just wasn't refreshing properly earlier ;)

Nice job, looks great!

I hope you don't mind if we borrow some good ideas for the satoshi client :)

I just sent 50BTC. I see them as a great investment in the future of bitcoin.
You have some really excellent features likes "Deterministic wallets " and "Read-only wallets".
Keep up with the good work.

John,

I'd be thrilled if I was responsible for encouraging some new features in the Satoshi client!  Of course, I'd like to take credit for having done it first (like crowdfunding based on those features before anyone else has them :)), but I really think the Satoshi client needs some goodies beyond security upgrades.  Security is great and all, but the Satoshi client is both the security and the face of Bitcoin, and I think the face is starting to look kind of boring...


sirk390,

You are awesome!  Thanks so much!  Please email or PM me your email address and/or mailing address, if you'd like your rewards.  I insist that everyone who deserves a USB key and/or Tshirt should get one... the bulk discounts I get for 50+ and 100+ are pretty substantial :)


On that note:  I haven't gotten the shirts made yet.  I was planning on doing something very simple like
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/armory_shirt_reduced.png
(btw, that's not me... I'm much paler than that :))

My girlfriend says I should include the full logo on there, but I have a few arguments against it.  I'm looking for feedback about it:
(1) I am really happy with my logo/icon, and I think it looks great without needing to identify the brand behind it.
(2) I think that identifying the brand is largely unnecessary:  the Bitcoin community is small enough that if someone else is not part of the community, they won't care what brand is behind it (in fact, advertising a brand explicitly may be undesirable for some of us geeks).   If they are part of the community, they will probably recognize it and it won't matter whether the "ARMORY" is there. 

For instance, I own one of these XKCD shirts (http://imgs.xkcd.com/store/imgs/raptor_shirt_store_1.jpg).  I get all sorts of positive reactions to it regardless of whether the person knows what XKCD is.  But, I know my logo isn't as cool as a velociraptor (I mean, what is cooler than a velociraptor?).  Recommendations are accepted.

Well, to be honest I created bitcoin-qt in the hope (beyond adding new features) that it would accelerate bitcoin UI development by making it more accessible. The code is set up to be readable and maintainable[1].

It has partially succeeded. There are more UI pull requests than ever before with the Wx UI. Still, things are going pretty slow. Maybe we should set up a crowdfunding too. Though I really prefer code, not cash... (unless it's enough to make it my day job then I could spend a lot of time on it)

[1] Sure, major functionality changes also require changes to Satoshi's code, which is as impenetrable as ever, though it is slowly being cleaned up and reorganized.

Unfortunately, I'm new to Qt, so my UI code is probably "suboptimal".  On the other hand, this is mostly Python, so it should be uniformly more pleasant to deal with :)   I'm hoping to kind of lock-down the C++ stuff, and then users can fork and modify the code-base strictly with python (and PyQt is delightful!)



I'm only motivated by money if it's enough to cut down my hours or pay off a significant portion of my house.  So, I decided to see if I could pull off the first one with crowdfunding in exchange for keeping my software awesome and open source.  I'll let you know how it goes :)

I'm only motivated by money if it's enough to cut down my hours or pay off a significant portion of my house.  So, I decided to see if I could pull off the first one with crowdfunding in exchange for keeping my software awesome and open source.  I'll let you know how it goes :)


[/quote]

So....................... How is it going?

Update:  I'm distributing the encryption seminar, finally!   It is titled:  Understanding Encryption:  Using Boring Math for Something Useful
The presentation has a good mix of math and concepts, so there should be something for everyone.  If you don't know any math, feel free to skip the math slides and just try to absorb the concepts.  I think everyone can get something out of it!

I have already sent it to everyone who donated >=$10 already and whose email address I have.  If you have donated but have not received the seminar, please email me at etotheipi@gmail.com (http://etotheipi@gmail.com) and I will attach it to a reply email.  The seminar is available for both MS Office (*.ppt) and OpenOffice/ODF (*.odp).  

If you received a copy, please don't forward it to anyone else -- this is a reward for donating!  In fact, if you want to make your previous donation more effective, tell your friends about how great the seminar is, and send them to my donation page if they want to acquire a copy, too :)  Thanks for your support, and I hope you learn something from it!




I think it's been pretty successful so far!  I'm at 1/6 of the funding at about 1/4 the funding time.  I'll need a bit of a push to meet my goal, but it's tough to say that it hasn't been successful alread.  I think it's already more money raised than some people would've expected, and I still have 3 weeks left!  I'll be releasing some new features soon, hopefully to generate more interest.  Stay posted!

I Like the Presentation!  It `s quite useful ..I learned somethign thx !

What's your math background like?  I'm curious how much non-math-y people will get out of the presentation.  Since I am a mathematician, it's difficult for me to judge :)

Thanks to Cypherdoc for making an extremely generous donation.  There's another hero in the house!   I am now at 20% of my goal, and three weeks to go!  Thanks so much to everyone who has supported me so far!  I am becoming very optimistic that I can actually make the goal and become an official part-time Bitcoin[-related] developer!

Anyone else have comments about the encryption seminar?

i thought the seminar was excellent altho the math was over my head.  it also clarified several principles of cryptography and quantum computing that i had been confused about.

you have a very clear way of writing and expressing your thoughts which i admire and its coming thru in your implementation of Armory.  i've been experimenting with some of the other wallets compared to yours and its becoming clear to me that this offline wallet feature is truly the ONLY way to 99.99999% secure your wallet (% for illustrative purposes only!).  eto please provide the actual probability of inserting malware into the usb key! ;)

the alternative wallets either are not encrypted or offer a server based solution which quite frankly i'm not comfortable with.  i'm sure the Blockchain.info and Electrum guys are totally honest but what if they get kidnapped or knocked over the head a few times and forced to corrupt their servers?  MultiBit looks good too but even with its USB stick solution one still has to bring their keys into RAM at the point of signing tx's which exposes them to malware in waiting.

this was helpful for me and was written by piuk himself concerning server based solutions:  http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2240/what-are-the-risks-of-using-strongcoin-com-as-an-online-wallet

the various splitting of keys solution also bothers me but i won't get too much into that since i probably don't understand it well.

perhaps i am being unfair to the other wallet services and suffer from a lack of knowledge.  i'm sure their services will satisfy a majority of people. however, personally, i prefer to be in total control with my keys locked away in my safe with no one to blame but myself if i lose some coins. 

the other thing thats very important here is that when one chooses a product one also chooses the person/people behind it.  i have followed eto's writings ever since he's joined the Forums and his knowledge is astounding.  its helpful to watch the discussions between him and other developers and you will get a sense of where he stands.  another very telling sign is when another developer (Jim618) from a competing wallet (Multibit) campaigns for eto to get crowdfunding; that says alot.  the fact that Armory's beta version is already functional and operational w/o any bugs that i can identify is impressive as well.

these 2 posts by eto were instrumental to me in investing further into Bitcoin last year even tho many of the concepts were over my head:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3008.msg565787#msg565787 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=29416.0

tl;dr

short version: eto's one bad boy!

let me make one recommendation that might help in marketing Armory.

add vanitygen.

it may sound simplistic but i think vanitygen is way too sexy of an add on to ignore.  just look at the size of samr's thread.  people like having an identity and when its tied into something as cool and mathematical like a Bitcoin address, that is seductive.  you've added just about every other tool in Armory so why not this?

coding morons like me can't be bothered with command lines and downloading obscure binaries from unknown websites.  

implementing vanitygen into Armory as a point and click would be simply awesome!

edit:  just imagine; 1GoldmanSachs923kmdi39lJtIOL976fRFVHdliwl08d

i went over the seminar a 2nd time, this time in OpenOffice with the Slideshow turned on.

i didn't realize you had transitions built into each slide and it made a huge difference in illustrating what is going on.  this was extremely helpful information and ties the history of cryptography, RSA, symmetric vs asymmetric algorithms, quantum computing, ECDSA, and hashing all together in one place.

when i read Wikipedia on these subjects i continually get lost moving from one page to another thru all the hyperlinks.

1 BTC to the person who can make me a satisfactory and realistic moving gif file of that P, Q line and resulting R value for my avatar using this pic:

https://i.imgur.com/pdN4M.png

Thanks again, Cypherdoc.  Both for the donation and the kind words.  It's great to know that my work can be so inspirational to others! :)


I wish I knew the answer to this question.  However, I have been thinking about how one could avoid USB keys altogether, as they seem to be the weakest link in this process.  Since there is no executable that needs to be run to use offline wallets, any method of transferring ASCII from one computer to another is sufficient (QR codes + Webcams, IR tx/rx streams, etc).  The narrower the channel, the better, it's just that USB keys are very convenient.  

The offline wallets would be 100.00% perfect security (besides physical security) if I just find another device that can help me move 1-3 kB of text back and forth without the autorun risk.  The problem is, something like printing/scanning QR codes could be more trouble than it's worth.  But if you have ludicrous amounts of BTC, it could be worth anything!  (I think the best solution right now for the super-ultra-paranoid is to just setup a webcam on both systems, and I can add functionality to have all the data displayed/read as QR codes)

You are now the 183rd person to suggest this.  So maybe I will do it.  I was resisting because I didn't want to have to try to support someone else's program on the wide variety of platforms out there.  At the very least, I can add it only for Windows and Ubuntu, which should be fairly uniform.  Alternatively, I might just make a PyQt wrapper for it, now that I'm fairly experienced with PyQt...

I don't know if you tried the calculation... but getting 12 specific letters after the '1' is pretty difficult.  In fact if you were searching for '1GoldmanSachs...', it would take you an average of 1,850,000 years with oclvanitygen on one 5870.  No big deal, I have 3 of them!

I guess you missed slide 4 which says "Press F5 Now!"  :)   As you can tell, I put a lot of time into the slide transitions, and creating a "visual language" for the encryption concepts.  You should be able to examine every small detail of each of those complicated slides, and everything matches up.  In fact, let me know if it doesn't!  I'll either fix it, or explain why it actually does :)

Watching, and will probably buy the presentation for, $10 you said?, tomorrow.

Yup 2.1 BTC to the BTC address or $10 through RocketHub for the encryption seminar.  Maybe if I can generate enough interest, I could finish my crowdfunding on that alone  (only need about 900 people to buy in!)

Do you prefer BTC or RocketHub?

I have a very slight preference for RocketHub, but it only matters if you are completely indifferent to sending BTC vs entering CC information.  There's nothing wrong with BTC donations! (in other words, pick whatever you want, and only pick RH if you don't care one way or another)

Finally donated.  It accepted my card this time!

A name change might be prudent. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66587.0)

F*#(@*&##^!!&#@*

Even if I had trademarked the name in relation to Bitcoin, I don't it would've mattered.  They're walking all over the criminal law, they sure as hell aren't going to care about IP/trademark law.  I'm going to have to think about what to do to distinguish my program from that.

Except for that part about US FBI/DEA/ATF agents who want to learn more about "The Armory" and keep ending up at my site, wondering if there's a connection.   It shouldn't matter, but I suspect it's not trivial.

That really sucks.

As a suggestion, based on your logo, perhaps the new name should be "Euler". That might be a tad esoteric for the masses, though.

Maybe "Citadel" or "Aegis" would work better.  At least those match the "Armory" theme relatively well.

I like stability and consistency in my life.  It's not always about just being right.  Dealing with that would be quite a disruption to my development plans.  Unless I can get them to "settle" by donating $10,000 to my crowdfunding campaign :)

its trivial.  don't worry about it.

How about jumping on the onion and kindly ask them to change the name?
After all is not like google is going to show people their site when they look for it.

If they don't do it, and taking into account that bitcoin is their only accepted currency, you should keep the name and just enjoy the free targeted traffic ;)
^^ I wouldn't even ask them for a name change and would just enjoy the free traffic :P

I wouldn't worry too much about the name and certainly don't change yours.

We don't even know if this site will be around in a month.

The confusion is probably bad for you on the whole, but it isn't all bad. As mentioned nearly everyone will end up on your site before finding what they seek.

The authorities are incompetent at keeping us safe and wealthy because they aren't even trying to do that. If they raid you 'mistakenly' it won't actually be a mistake, it'll be an excuse.

I'm not worried about people noticing the similarity in names.  I already expect people will notice both.  I just want to make sure no one mistakenly assumes real association between the two "projects." 

At least that one is called "The Armory" and I am just "Armory." 

TBH, I think Armory is kind of a strange name for this client.  I associate an armory with weapons storage, so coin storage doesn't really follow.

Armories are usually highly-secured buildings full of weapons and tools.  You could consider the capabilities of Armory as "weapons" or "armor" for dealing with Bitcoin attackers.   Or, the focus is more on the "fortified building" aspect, not the weapons.  

And of course, it's not necessary for names/trademarks to match the exact nature of what they represent.  Just the gist of it (or not all: there's millions of companies that use a name that has no relationship to what it represents:  what about "Microsoft"?).  If I had known an illegal weapons marketplace would open with the same name, I might have considered something different...

how about a cooperation? "bitcoin wallets and submachineguns - offline transactions have never been more secure!"
SCNR  :P
when etotheipi first announced armory i thought "oh thats an interesting name - if i ever write a tool for it i name it 'explosives locker' or something". but i certainly didnt see this one coming...

*sigh*. The issue with the names is public perception. It really isn't going to take someone in the press very long to note the similarity in the names, and with the amount of FUD we've all seen out there regarding Bitcoin it will be short work for someone to make Armory = The Armory to the public and make it stick. Of all the fucktardedly stupid things to do to help derail Bitcoin this has to be one of the best. My understanding is that eto is trying to make this appeal to the mass public at large and hence get widespread adoption of Bitcoin. Having this awesome client even remotely tied to weapons dealing is a good way to kill it with the general public. My advice is to change the name of this project, quickly.

edit: And if you want, you can get the community involved in the renaming part. Make a thread, get the best 5 or 10 ideas, assign them each an address and let people vote with bitcoins. Name that has the most coins wins.

Unfortunately, I agree. Public perception can make or break - and this is a no-brainer for an adversary to exploit.

Well, I will happily take suggestions and go from there.  Perhaps if I get some good recommendations I will consider.  Unfortuantely, I'm leaving town for a week and I have no time to deal with this right now.  And re-branding will be no trivial task.  "Armory" is all over this project :(

I would really not stress about this.

Most sites/companies fail anyway. This doesn't look like anything special and the people running it didn't consider their name very carefully since it's more likely to hurt them than anything.

Someone hears there is a place to get guns for bitcoin and wants to check it out. They end up at your site and realize whoever told them it sold guns was just an idiot.

Maybe when ignorant people complain to me that bitcoin is used to sell weapons I'll take them to your site and show them what bitcoin actually does.

I really hope you don't waste any time dealing with this, but If you do rebrand, stay away from 'flower' ok?

this is a good point.  The Armory may not even be around in 6 mo.  their biz probably borders on illegal altho this is just a guess. 

don't worry about it.  you have way more important things to focus on.

Lol, no shit it's illegal, that's why it's a Tor hidden site run by the same people as Silk Road.

LOL, nice title change!

I don't use Armory yet but I donated $100 since I just got paid today.

I'm looking forward to multisig/contracts in Armory in the future, after P2SH is enabled on the network.  I'm especially hoping it will be possible to implement contracts to enable other "for the good of Bitcoin" crowdfunding projects in the future, such as assurance or dominant assurance contracts.

Guess what I forgot to do for a whole week? (busy busy busy)
http://blockchain.info/tx-index/2949632/fff6a336eed0fa1c28dff3f6c24bf3b64c2102fc60e202567a2f1fa2606ce9f5
Hope that's enough for that seminar :|

O.K. Second donation just sent. I really hope that this project takes off, so I'm happy to bump with a donation.

Thanks Indemnified!

With the recent, high-profile BTC thefts, I have updated this thread to more-directly market Armory as the solution.  It sounds like the only reason Slush didn't lose more money, was because he was using cold-storage for most of his funds.  Multi-signature transactions would help, but they are stalled indefinitely.  And, most users do not have the patience or skill to figure out "cold-storage" on their own, which is where Armory shines!  I guess I should rename Armory Offline Wallets (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/using-offline-wallets-in-armory) to Armory Cold-Storage Solutions! 

So, I am bumping my own thread with a title change, in hope of really highlighting why users should be interested in Armory.  I think even after multi-signature transactions are enabled, offline wallets will be the best way to protect yourself, even against highly-targeted attackers.

Note: I am on vacation until the end of the week, and it appears I have introduced a send-tx bug into Armory just before I left (in version 0.55-alpha)!  Gah!  If you are trying out Armory for the first time and you try to send Bitcoins from your Armory wallet, you will get an error that it was not accepted by the network:  but the transaction did go through!  Just be patient and wait a few blocks (Armory still collects new block information, but it won't acknowledge the transaction until it appears in the blockchain).  When I get back from vacation, I will be fixing the bug! 

Even better now! Nice.

Now if only I could get xubuntu to boot off my USB stick :(

i can't wait until you get this thing locked down and solid.  what a great wallet.

Solid work.

How about supporting Wallet Import Format like the one used in bitwallet.org? that'd be nice to have IMO.

ist this included in armory?  can`t find it ? is this in the default design?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24784.80


thx

Muyuu,

I have intentionally avoided wallet importing because of all sorts of weird and nasty things that can happen when two programs are using the same wallet.  I'd prefer if users starts new wallets and transfer coins to them.  However, that doesnt' mean I'll never allow it, I just want to prevent users from shooting themselves in the foot right now, and I'll work on wallet import (with appropriate built-in precautions), later.


I had plans to do something like that, eventually, but it's low on my priority list.  On the other hand, my code base is setup to pretty easily allow one to quickly see what addresses have money and select or deselect addresses to be used to fund a given transaction.  So, I guess I could bump it up in priority given that I'm well-prepared for it :)  Either way, I gotta fix the RAM issue first, and then I'll think about stuff like this.  



This is actually a different kind of anonymity.  It doesn't include or exclude specific addresses, it only optimizes the coin selection to use(/link) as few input addresses as possible, make the outputs look indistinguishable, and minimize tx fee.  It's already built into the Armory codebase, I just need to set up an options page so that users can specify their preference.  But this wouldn't replace the full-scale anonymity feature.

I understand why, but Armory would be even more useful if it could also manage non-Armory wallets (or just pubkey/privkey pairs). You could distinguish these clearly in the GUI.

The current situation is that you cannot migrate your coins to Armory without using something else other than Armory. Say I had just created an address with a local javascript bitwallet (because that was the only thing available at that point) and now I want to send this to one of my Armory wallets. Simply can't without some other software/trusting some website to have that pubkey for a bit at least (and immediately losing that address as well).

IMO this should be pretty high in your priority list, just give it a thought :)

when you ask for features like that dont forget that are very few people out there that have that problem but any number of people that cant use armory because of the ram requirements or wont use it because it lacks very basic features like an address book.

i am guessing 99,5% of all users lie between those having 50k btc unencrypted on a rented virtual machine and those who woudnt ever connect to the network with their savings wallet. not to mention this is only relevant for people already having an offline solution in place not for those who start using this features with armory for the first time.

The RAM problem looks like a hard one. The address book thing looks simple (not that I need this at all). This other feature looks relatively simple and extremely useful.

Eto will have to make his own prioritisation. I'll try to take some time off to check his code and maybe contribute something... I have a big task list as is already, though.

1+

There are alot of us in this situation with air gapped savings wallets that want to import to armory without connecting to internet and this is because I want to make a paper backup in addition to just digital backups I have on USB sticks.  Not to mention all of armorys other features.

How possible is it to have the Armoury have its own block chain file? Basically, have one that was pruned as much as possible of old fully spent transactions, so as to keep it small in memory, have other Armory clients only download and share this smaller block chain, and have an option so that if anyone wants to, they can verify their pruned block chain against the full Satoshi client one? This will help with the memory problem, get things started on pruning the block chain, and since all the block chain files are shared by everyone within the Armoury network, just one or two people comparing their data to the "outside" will make sure it's all legit.
It will also help Satoshi client to migrate, since right now there's no way to switch to a pruned block chain (it doesn't exist within Satoshi network), but if pruned Armoury gets established, Satoshi client will be able to give you an option as to which block chain network to hook into.

just discovered this thread so watching & looking forward to trying Armory out, re the name I had heard of The Armory first so also was curious if there was some connection (Re: Armory: Cold Storage for the Average User! - hmm are they offering to cryonicise your AK-47s with you now or what?), having read most of the thread I know that there isn't - well from the OP I know that, but am not surprised that karma or whatever made the match in names as most peep's first word association with an armory is guns, a place to store guns & weapons - the fact that armories are mostly well protected & hopefully secure is very much secondary in people's minds & the fact that body armor or passive defense stuff may be in it even less so, I don't think it's a big deal that a headline grabbing illegal weapons dealing Bitcoin Tor site has chosen almost the same name but more that as someone else pointed out Armory is not really a good name choice for a secure offline wallet for non geeks, it associates too much in peep's minds with guns & ammo, that will put some folks off & confuse others

much better as someone also mentioned, vault - as in the excellent BullionVault (http://www.bullionvault.com/) online service for physical PMs, so how about BitcoinVault if it's available (just checked, the .com (http://bitcoinvault.com/) - it's parked (http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/bitcoinvault.com) so open for offers I expect, I'd have bought it for you if it was unregistered, though I was expecting for sure it wouldn't be free), anyway though it's not crucial I think that a much better name could be found while this project is still relatively early stages (acknowledging the enormous amount of great work that you've already put in to it, but expecting this to really be a long term Bitcoin winner) & also I like the idea of a poll thread for that with suggestions & voting with you picking one or choosing your own after getting that feedback

also could go non proper word as you said, like Bitcoinica does or Mt. Gox, Bicos Wallets say, BItcoin COld Storage Wallets

I didn't see any new donations to the project. Do you have any skin in the game?

Finally hit the $3k mark!  Sure, I don't think I can make the full $12k, but $3k is certainly enough to make a difference here.  And I'll be getting an article on BitcoinMedia soon, so that will hopefully draw in some folks not on the forums :)  If not, I may have to commit to using a large chunk of unpaid leave instead of actually going part-time... nonetheless, any full-day chunks of time I can spend on Armory while the house is empty is when I make the most substantial progress...

So there's a lot to respond to here... amazing what accumulates over the course of one day!

@ Muyuu, Holliday & Cypherdoc,

Armory wallets are completely different than Satoshi-client wallets, and for a very good reason:  the Satoshi-client wallets are terrible.  They require a DB engine, which requires an extra library, and the DB itself is what was responsible for the wallet-not-actually-encrypted bug (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51474.0).  Supporting Satoshi wallets is a step backwards, and a substantial time investment.  Not to mention, there has been some talk recently among the devs of switching away from the current Satoshi wallet format -- so I feel like it's not worth it. 

However, I will support migration.  I will leverage Joric's pywallet tool to help pull all the private keys out and import them into an Armory wallet.  It's the best I can do amidst my priorities.

In the meantime, the thing stopping users from manually doing this, is the lack of a bulk-import feature in Armory.  It was already part of my RAM-upgrade, but that's not going to be done for a while (but will be necessary when it takes 30s per address import).   Until then, I can probably put together a super-quick python script that will simply import a list of private keys in a specified Armory wallet -- then the determined users can use Joric's pywallet to dump the private keys.  Or maybe I will send that script to Joric:  maybe he would be up for making an import tool like this...


@ Rassah

This is something I've thought about, but there are a lot of risks associated with holding a pruned blockchain.  I believe it will have to be done eventually, but that there will also be a network-level accommodation for it:  such as including unspent-tx-out-tree-hashes in the coinbase transactions, so that nodes can verify their pruned blockchains against other nodes.  I am wholly in support of such a scheme if it can be made to work, but I feel like there's going to be a big paradigm shift to make this doable in Armory without it (and maintain a high confidence in the security of the application)

Regardless, I don't see this as a solution to the RAM problem, because I don't want to bank on the pruned blockchain taking up less RAM than some arbitrary system.  One day Armory works, the next day someone creates a ton of unspent outputs and Armory won't load anymore.    I have a solution for the RAM issue (without pruning), that I have already confirmed works in Linux, and I don't see why it wouldn't work in Windows.  I just have to get a solid chunk of time to get it all implemented, debugged, and tested.  It'll be a couple weeks.

@ Otoh

It's easy to say in hindsight I should've picked a different name.  Sure, the word "Armory" has different initial impressions to different people, but in the end it was concise, unique, memorable, and held some meaning related to what I wanted.  Just like "Google" (googol) or "Oracle", one day it just becomes a name, instead of a common word doubling as a name. 

@ Indeminfied

Lol.  Thanks for your actual donation, and bullying others to donate, as well.  Perhaps you can be the official bouncer for this thread :)

Got my BTC 10? :)

Hi Etotheipi, I know roughly how Satoshi wallets work (just peeked in the code) and I know yours are fundamentally different. I didn't ask you to support them, but rather to support using pub/priv key pairs and allow to make transactions with these, outside of full Armory-wallets. The main idea would be sending coins from addresses outside of Armory wallets (to keep it simple, just allow sending anywhere). Your wallets are a lot better, for several reasons.

Instead of importing addresses into an Armory wallet - I reckon these generate keys in a deterministic sequence? - I was actually asking for something in the lines of what you just said. However if it has to be done via scripts that won't work for many people (I will be fine with this personally tho) and it's an important hurdle in the adoption of your client.

Yup, I'll be sending you the encryption seminar shortly.  And please email me with an address if you want a T-shirt or USB key.  I will be getting them made and distributed after the funding period is over.


I totally agree with you on this.  I only proposed the script as a temporary solution for the really-determined folks until I can get something integrated into the UI.  The script is probably 10 lines of python.  But integrating Pywallet and bulk-import into a nice, pleasant, bug-free interface is considerably more lines of code :)

You do, I agree (I had to do the same recently), however they're only online long enough for you to plug in the new Armory address, amount, and hit send, so a minute at the most.   Sure something could be done in that time, but it's not super likely I wouldn't have thought.

Can't hurt asking anyway :)

if you have the private key of course you can import it.  :)
wallet properties -> import private key
copy/paste the key, then select second option "import this address" -> done.

Your best bet is Joric's PyWallet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.msg708668#msg708668).  About a month ago, Joric figured out the Satoshi wallet encryption, and released an update that will extract the keys if you enter the encryption passphrase.  I've used it once or twice, and it's pretty slick.  You can use it as a command-line tool, or you can run it in server mode, and access it via a nice web interface by putting "localhost:8989" into your browser. 

The biggest issue is that you're probably going to get a lot of keys dumped out, so you have to know which one is the right one.  Luckily with the full-RAM Armory, checking the balance of a fresh address takes less than 1 sec!  The copy&paste procedure will be the bottleneck (at least until I get a bulk-import UI).

THANKS A BUNCH FOR THE ANSWERS!

I said that I had only just found out about it & looked forward to trying it out, that was very late last night my time - as yet I haven't tried it but freely offered my opinion on it's name as others have done which was obviously a waste of time - maybe as I hadn't donated anything as yet in the 15 minutes since I first saw it, I'm in no rush to try the wallet out & in even less of a rush to make any donations to it if at all now - congrats on probably bouncing me off the list of potential donators :-\

Otoh,

i know you from the Bitcoinica threads and you're a reasonable guy.

please support eto's very worthwhile project.  you will only benefit.

Fuel'd!  ;D

It was more the OP thanking him for being the thread bouncer that rubbed me up the wrong way, I felt that my participation was maybe unwelcome, btw I am not anti gun as such & I hope that came across in my original comment - I was just saying what I thought others of a non military background may make of the name, it's also no big deal to me what it's called anyway - if there exists a better name then that just helps the project to bring this up for discussion

I will certainly though check it out & also donate if I find it of use which I'm sure that I will, just atm I don't happen to need it so there's no rush - oops as writing my Jessie alarm for $4.90 just went off - perhaps I may need it sooner than I thought that I may

@cypherdoc ~ many thanks :)

I found an old Dell Inspiron and put xubuntu on it.  It's kind of weird to starting it with "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libcryptopp.so python ArmoryQt.py" but it works.

I think I'm going to have to do something similar to get armory compiled in Lion.  I had no luck with the instructions on your site so far :(  It was complaining about not being able to find libcryptopp and then about 64 bit something.  I'll have to try again and post the errors.  I saw someone having the same problem in IRC, but they never got it compiled either.

I'm about to try an offline transaction! :)

Otoh,

You're absolutely right.  I was amused by the comment, without regards to who or why it was said.  It's comforting to me to see folks really sticking up for my project, even if it was inappropriate.  In this case, it was inappropriate -- I have no intention to create a hostile environment,  and I never wanted to suggest that people need to donate to participate.  Sometimes I'm a little tactless... 

I am very much interested in seeing discussion about the program, and understand how others are receiving it.  Feedback will help this project tremendously, completely separate from donations, and I do appreciate your comments.  I think it's a little late for me to re-brand the program.  The name was original "Bitcoin Armory" which didn't have quite the same "violent" connotation as an arbitrary "Armory."  By the time I changed the name to just "Armory" I was already desensitized to the underlying meaning of the word.  Assuming no legal troubles related to "The Armory", I expect I will just keep it and hope the same happens to everyone else.  Hindsight is 20/20, but there's worse situations to be in...

I hope you will forgive my tactlessness and consider spending some time with the program itself, and let me know what you think.
 

many thanks for the explanation, understanding & apology which is completely accepted np - an offline cold storage for non geeks is so important imo for Bitcoin adaption in many fields, especially for the uber wealthy 1% of the 1% that the name, though maybe could be tweaked, won't actually affect at all the success of the project & if it succeeds then you can have different named flavors for different consumer demographics, ie for mine: The Secure Offline Newb Wallet which directs to Armory (Newb) login

I shall certainly check it out & give feedback, I'm about to be traveling so it won't be just right now most likely & you never know, perhaps the name will become more appropriate as the project develops, added wallet lasers that eliminate all malware (BTC wallet sniffers) on your comp bundled in  

re tactlessness, lol don't mention it - I'm black belt at that & 50% of my posting is under the influence I expect, most mornings I wake up & think OMG WTF may I have done last night  :-X

For those that aren't part of the Alt-Clients thread, I just posted a tool I created to leverage Joric's PyWallet to migrate your Satoshi wallet to Armory.  You can find it here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56424.msg791695#msg791695

This is a temporary solution until I get something integrated into Armory.  If you don't mind some command line stuff this should work great -- tested on Win 7 64-bit.  Should work on linux if you already have all the packages installed to run Armory, and copy the .so file from Armory into this downloaded directory.

Simply run PyWallet (included in zip-file) to pull your keys out of your Satoshi wallet, then run my tool (ArmoryBulkImport.py) to import them into your Armory wallet.  Because of the keypool size, you are guaranteed to get at least 100 addresses added to your Armory wallet.  This should work fine offline, and then you can create your watching-only copy and put it on your online computer. 

Click the link above for more details.



Did it work?  (besides the send-tx bug that gives an error which I can't fix until next week...)

Home from vacation and a bug-fix release!

I had introduced a nasty bug into Armory just before leaving for a week, probably causing all sorts of confidence issues for first time users.  Those issues have been fixed!

--Sending transactions work as expected (ledger updates immediately with number of confirmations)
--Signing offline transactions no longer fails if there is a blockchain file on the offline system (weird problem, but fixed now)

Thanks for your patience!

Download the updated version 0.56-alpha at:  http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/get-armory

Bumped (with another donation). Any one else ready to do something to get bitcoin mainstream ready?

I got an article in BitcoinMedia!  I think that should help :)

http://bitcoinmedia.com/the-peoples-vault-armory-client/

I like the heading on the Bitcoin Media.  Armory, it's THE PEOPLE'S VAULT!  (I'm the capitalist to the core, no, not a communist, just love the sounding of the name).

Nice Work.

Just donated!  Don't worry about sending me any trinkets.  I want you to save all that time and extra resource for your project.  What you are doing is tremendous.

The price of BTC is going higher these days as well.  Good omen!

:)

Thanks!  Well at least PM me your email address, and I'll send you the encryption seminar.  There's no reason for any of the donors not to get that :)

PM Sent!  Weekend is coming up.  I think a cryptography lecture is in order.  LOL

A lot of you have been waiting for this feature, so please help test it!  Gimme feedback!

Version 0.60-alpha-RC1: Satoshi Wallet Migrate/Import! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56424.msg803507#msg803507)

Finally got a migration tool integrated, and it works with encrypted wallet.dat files!  Import from encrypted or unencrypted Satoshi wallets, with or without the address pool, including address labels, into an encrypted, unencrypted, or new Armory wallet.

A special thanks to Joric for providing me such excellent reference code to get the wallet-decryption working. I donated 5 BTC to Joric for his help!  Now, if all you want to do is pull your private keys out of your wallet.dat, you can use Armory to dump them into a new wallet, and then use "Backup Individual Keys" to create a text file you can print out. 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/dlgMigrateWallet.png


48 hours left in the crowdfunding!
It doesn't look like I'll make the $12k, but I will still be able to take a pretty significant chunk of unpaid leave.  If I make it to $6k, I will cut a full day off my job!   I wish I'd gotten RAM-reduction going by now, but instead I was listening to you and implementing features that I were in high demand (and not major overhauls of the application).  Plus, the RAM-reduction is half-done, and hopefully be implemented in the next couple weeks!

I pledge $49.99+ in btc when it hits beta. I have been on the losing side of up front costs too many times - while this seems like a slam dunk, it is a personal issue for me. I check the armory thread all the time.

OT question about deterministic wallet: If someone were to get a few private keys from a deterministic wallet, can he extrapolate the data to retrieve all the keys?

There is one chain code and an infinite series of private keys.  If an attacker gets one private key and nothing else, that's all he gets.  If he gets PrivKey(i) and the chaincode, then he can calculate PrivKey[i+1], PrivKey[i+2], ..., but not any of the ones before it (i-1, i-2, ...)

Choosing not to do this upfront limits the amount of people that can trial the software. People by nature like to feel it, touch it, taste it prior to making commitments and this factor could have caused some missed donations. From reading user comments and your write ups I was filled with anticipation willing to give it a try when I discovered this fact. O.o My daily user only has 2GB so I couldn't play with Armory. SOAB :sigh:

I also must wait for the ram-reduction overhaul before I can enjoy Armory, as I still use WinXP 32bit. Once I get my hands on a fully functional (not just testnet) Armory, I'll probably be impressed enough to donate.  ;)

I've pledged a 5 BTC bounty for someone to write an open source script for making large wagers on Bitlotto (atm the bets are for 0.25 BTC each so to wage 10 BTC takes 40 tx which is a pain to do manually), if a wallet service enables a 'repeat transaction n times feature ie same amount, from same address (or different ones if that's more practical) to be sent to just 1 receiving address (that month's Bitlotto address) then I would award the bounty to who ever made this first

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34007.msg803814#msg803814

So, one transaction:  one input of 10 BTC from 1 address,  and 40 outputs, each 0.25 BTC each to the exact same address?  That can be done manually in Armory, as you can just add 39 recipients and manually copy&paste the data between the fields.  It will put everything into the same transaction.   Clearly it's not preferable, but it's better than creating 40 different transactions.

I am working on an example script for other reasons, that will also serve your purpose, too:

Input:
  Wallet file
  List of addresses in that wallet (or just one addr)
  List of (recip, amt) pairs
Output:
  Signed Transaction

It will search the blockchain, construct the transaction, calculate the fee, add the appropriate change output and sign it.  It could send it too, if you want (I can add a confirmation message, along with a password prompt in case the wallet is encrypted).

I'll let you know when it's done -- it's part of my effort get developers a jumpstart on leveraging armoryengine since there is no JSON interface yet, and sounds like it would get me 5 BTC from you :)

Just be aware that the more outputs you use, the more the tx will cost.  Each input is about 150 bytes, and each output is about 35 bytes.  Above 3-4 kB, a tx can no longer be free.

many thanks, each of say the 40 tx needs to be sent as a distinct tx on the blockchain because the tx is the lotto ticket, well it's hash is, so all need to be different & not bundled even though they're all going to the same address, so looking for a way to do this with a wallet that wasn't just manually entering 40 different tx, you'll get better feedback on this once the Bitlotto peeps have replied


edit: each tx is for 0.25 BTC with 0.0005 added as miners fee

edit 2: & it would be nice if it was easy to repeat each month to that month's lotto receiving address once that had been manually entered in to the wallet as recipient for another 40 times 0.25 BTC tx

Has no one tried the new wallet migration tool (0.60-alpha-RC1 (https://github.com/etotheipi/BitcoinArmory/downloads))!?!  I know there has been a low SNR on this thread sometimes, but there was a lot of people requesting it!  Even if no one wants it right now ... I have no idea if the interface makes sense, whether it works on all systems, whether there's any problems with decrypting wallets associated with certain versions of the Satoshi client, etc.    Please help test it so that I can release it as a final version!


I don't really want to enable folks to send hundreds of tiny transactions.  That bloats the blockchain for everyone else.   For instance... if you send 40 transactions like this, it's likely to add 10 kB to the blockchain, but if you send using multiple outputs, it will take about 1.5 kB...

It sounds like the BitLotto guys have decided that each transaction is one ticket.  It should be pretty easy to change it to each transaction output is/can be a ticket.  So instead of having a pool of tickets like:


They might have the following:

Ya, don't worry about the BitLotto request. We've since changed how it operates so it's not needed anymore. You can now make any size payment you want.

BTW, I really like your program!! Keep up the good work. My machine is a little on the low end for the requirements but I'm watching your progress closely. Thanks!

Two hours left.......

Got one hour left!  One final push for some funds!!!  I anticipate that even though I didn't make $12k, I will be able to take a substantial amount of time off to work for Armory!  And I'm really looking forward to it!

I will maintain a donation address (and there's a donate button in Armory) for after crowdfunding is over, but RocketHub was my way to collect donations from credit cards too.  I may keep some kind of rewards thing for people who continue to donate in BTC, as I feel like it's a really good idea to make donors feel like their money isn't just hitting a black hole.

Just to be absolutely clear. It's free, right?

Armory is free, open-source software.  My only monetization plans are to charge a few dollars for the Android app for two-factor authentication, because I'm getting external help with it, and that's not free.  All other aspects of Armory are completely free, up to an including everything mentioned on the RocketHub page  (http://www.rockethub.com/projects/6056-armory-bitcoin-development-funding)(which is everything including all multi-sig capability, offline wallets, multi-OS support, etc).  

I've already added an elliptic curve calculator, Bitcoin-address message-signing interface and Satoshi wallet migration tool, since starting this push one month ago!  (and there was even a one-week vacation with the g/f in there, too!)

Good work so far!

its really too bad more ppl don't step up and donate.  for all the things we're getting as a community we need you to spend more time developing this product.  given how much you've already added just this last month i could only imagine how much better the product would be if you were working on it full time.

It looks like it's just about over.  Obviously, I would've liked to see more donations (mainly because I really love this project and would love to work on it full-time if I could!).  But it was far from a failure.  There's quite a bit I can do with the money that was raised, and I'm already plenty psyched about taking some time off to get lost in coding for 10 hour chunks of time (while my g/f is at work :)).  Speaking of work, I'm at my real job, right now, but I'll post a more-detailed description of thoughts and plans tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks so much to all those who donated!  Seriously, even if I didn't make the goal, I got so much extraordinarily positive feedback, and so many people donating large sums that I really feel like my work is appreciated and will continue to make an impact!

-Alan

Can't see why donations cannot carry on, in bitcoins :)

When I get more free time myself I will try to promote it a bit.

I can't find the one-week vacation with the g/f feature anywhere in there. I checked all the menus and options, too. Does the "there was" imply this feature was taken out? How much of a bounty is needed to add it back in?  ;D

Of course!  But for long-term planning purposes, I really needed to gague the level financial support I would get up front, so I know how many hours to reduce at my real job.  The decision I make will stick for at least 9 months, so I have to be sure I'm ready to do it!

I will update the top post with information, shortly.  And I will continue collecting donations through my regular two donation addresses:  

1QBDLYTDFHHZAABYSKGKPWKLSXZWCCJQBX
1ArmoryXcfq7TnCSuZa9fQjRYwJ4bkRKfv


I might even start something very similar on my webpage:  a mini-store of over-priced items that will double as donation/support and also getting something useful.  I'll have to look into the financials of providing shirts & USB keys on-demand, but it might be doable in such a way that I get more benefit than effort spent doing it.  Plus who wouldn't want one of those TShirts!?! :)   I will send out an email soon asking donors for information, and verify that rewards are requested.  There were a lot of folks who explicitly declined rewards...



LOL.  Nice interpretation.  I'll check with her about adding that as a feature :)

Interesting address, is it really all in uppercase?

Yessir!  I got a little crazy with vanitygen and succeeded.  It should've taken about 70 days of computation time but I got lucky and found it in about a week...  (notice no digits either, only uppercase letters).

Unfortunately, it's so cool that people don't even recognize it as a Bitcoin address :(  

Bitcoin can even be used to prove that there are limits to vanity?

What integration? And what is the charge for?

An Android armory client, that also has 2FA to interact? or

Android app that is just a 2FA client to produce a code that is then entered into an armory client on windows/a.n.other client to unlock wallet/functions?

in the last case just use google authenticator (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.authenticator) as a separate android app that can be used to 2FA for armory. It can have multiple counters (I have one for bitcoinica for example, another for my SSH logins, armory would just be a scroll down in the list).

Use a standard OTP library compiled into armory, and produce a QR code for the device to set up the seed. It can be time or counter based. These are IETF standards based mechanisms:
HOTP: An HMAC-Based One-Time Password Algorithm (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4226)
Time-based One-time Password (TOTP) algorithm (http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-mraihi-totp-timebased-06.txt)

As a bonus, you also get iOS and Blackberry authenticators as well. (blackberry doesn't have QR code scan though)

code is at https://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/ (https://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/) so you can clone and customise the UI yourself if you want an armory client - it has already been done several times as I think the Battle.net/StarWars KOTOR clients are basically reskinned authenticators. Or just add to the list of accounts in the standard authenticator, and leave it up to google to keep it updated so you don't have to fix the issues resulting (and there have been a few recently including Force closing when opening the app- it was updated the same day, but was still an issue as it had been updated for several new devices that had recently been launched.)

The only real cost should be that of getting it into the Google Android market, though you can just make the APK available to download from your armory client site. You won't get the auto-update features of the market. (There are a couple of other markets as well such as amazon app market and appbrain)

marked

Marked,

Armory desktop client will always be completely free and open-source.  It will even include capabilities to set up an arbitrary 2-of-2 wallet, which include creating a Full+WatchOnly wallet-pair for Device A, and a WatchOnly+Full wallet-pair for Device B.  And the appropriate tools to manage them if they happen to both be desktops using Armory.

It's the Android app that will be cost money.  There's been a lot of talk about how that could be done, and a lot of talk (like you posted) about being able to use something like Google authenticator.  But that relies on google.  It's a third-party.  Sure it's free, but it's not "The Way."   I made deterministic and watching-only wallets, and BIP 10 (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0010) for a reason:  to do all this cool stuff that no one else can do!  This Android app is one of those things.

The Android app will hold only a full wallet (B), probably transferred to it via scanning a paper-backup.  The watching-only wallet of (B) will be kept on the user's computer along with the full other wallet (A) to be used in the 2-of-2 transaction.  Whenever the user wants to spend Bitcoins:

(1) Create transcation as usual on desktop, provide signature A
(2) Generate BIP 10 packet of partially signed transaction, display as a QR code (or sequence of QR codes)
(3) Scan QR code(s) with phone, display confirmation dialog
(4) Enter passphrase as confirmation, press "Go".  Signature B is added, converted to final tx, and broadcast.

(The broadcast step will actually be to jump onto the Bitcoin network, seek out 3+ peers, and broadcast to each... it should take only a couple seconds).

The whole process requires no third-party at all.  Only your computer and your Android device.  Besides the broadcast part, you don't even need an internet connection.  Broadcasting will simply be queuing it to be broadcast next time it has a connection.

THAT app is what would not be free, because someone else is doing the bulk of the development on it.  It won't be even be a full Bitcoin app. 
If others want to implement it some other way, they are welcome to do so, and I will do my best to support the use cases other developers request.  But at the moment, this is what my plan is.  Let me know if you are planning to develop your own Android client that has Armory in mind...

I've updated the title and top-post with a "wrap-up" section.  Thanks again to everyone, and please contact me if you donated but did not receive an email regarding rewards.

Congratulations to etotheipi! :)  Too shame for missing the donation period... :'(

For now, if folks still want to donate to my 1ArmoryXcf address, I will offer the same rewards.  I have extras of each reward, so it's not a problem to continue providing them.  I can even continue updating this thread, but I already did all the part-time stuff at work, so it won't change that.  Many here donate just because they know it will help me continue to do this work, so don't let me stop you from that :)

I guess the big difference is that I can no longer take credit-card donations... but this is the Bitcoin forums, after all!

Feel free to donate:  1ArmoryXcfq7TnCSuZa9fQjRYwJ4bkRKfv, then email me and I will send the appropriate rewards when I get them in.

On the topic of rewards: I am still waiting for shirts... it might be another week (hopefully not two).  Sorry!  I'll get them out ASAP!

this is the kinda attitude that we all appreciate and what is so great about open source and Bitcoin.  i'm sure i speak for the community when i say thank you for all the great features and quick fixes you're applying to Armory.

with people like you how can Bitcoin fail?

I sent some more coins to my offline wallet, and at the same time sent you a small donation :)

@etotheipi Great to heard about this! How much BTC should I donated for an Encryption Seminar?

The original price list was $10 for the seminar.  $25 for a USB key, $50 for Tshirt, $100 for all of the above + Casascius coin, $300 for used laptop, and $500 for all the above.  I will still honor those, at least until I run out of stuff...

Glad to see people still interested!

Btw, I'm getting close to a preliminary RAM-reduction release for Linux (and Windows will get implemented as people help test Linux).  I'll post on the main thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56424) when I'm ready for people to help me test -- hopefully Friday!  And it will need quite a bit of testing!

4000 dollars in one month? wow, didn't know anyone could get so much money from donations in so little time in such a niche field as a bitcoin wallet application.
Congrats!

And people continue to donate!  With RAM-reduction on the way, I'm hoping that I will get another surge!  I love working on the project, but it would be nice to recover a little bit more of the salary I'm not collecting...

So, I have re-opened the reward/gift system on the BitcoinArmory website (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/donating-for-armory-development)!   (I also updated the top post with this information).

Sorry Donors!

I've been waiting to send out rewards until I got the Tshirts made.  After a mess of getting the Tshirts negotiated with ooShirts.com, they delivered the lowest-quality shirts imaginable!  The logo is awkwardly placed, and the printing is so terrible it looks like they washed the shirts 30 times before sending them.  I have no choice but to return them and start over.  Ugh! 

If you are waiting on just a USB key, I can send those out.  If you are waiting on both, please email me if you'd like your USB key separately instead of waiting for the shirts.  I have no reservations about sending out the keys separately.

Thanks for being patient!
-Eto

Nine months later, Armory is now Beta!  Check the top post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64449.msg756577#msg756577) for details!

been checking the client for the last 2h.

what a lovely client... your work is inspirational.

keep it up dude.

Armory is an excellent idea. Can't wait to check it out for real.

Well, what are you waiting for?  It is real, right now!  "Beta" in this case, actually means functional, stable, and with a complete set of features (not all the features I ultimately want, but enough to use as your primary app).  There's a few lingering bugs, but most are aesthetic, and as long as you create a paper backup you can't lose your coins -- but the wallet code has been in use for 10 months now, and no one has had a problem.

Getting past beta means Armory will have multi-signature tx support, a sister Android app, reasonable system requirements, and full support on OSX.  But, for a majority of users right now, none of these are a problem (most users have sufficient system specs, and OSX users have generally succeeded with RedEmerald's install instructions).

Time to pay up, dude ;D

Nice, just downloaded and am playing with it. Some questions.

1. If I did not print a paper backup when it first launched, can I do so later and if so how?
2. Assume that the file armory_blahblah_backup.wallet is my digital wallet backup correct? If I store this somewhere secure and my computer gets destroyed/stolen/etc, that is all I need to get my coins back would be to install a new version of Armory, point it to this file and enter the same passphrase I entered originally? This file is encrypted correct? So if I sent it through email it should be safe unless someone knows my passphrase?
3. How is the armory_blahblah_wallet file different from armory_blahblah_backup.wallet?
4. Is there any sort of user manual that explains how to use all the features?

Looks great so far. Thanks for the effort. Will send some btc your way

• (1) Yes, you can print a paper backup at any time.  It always prints the root key and chaincode, which is always capable of reproducing every non-imported key in your wallet, ever.   Just double click on the wallet (or select it and click "Wallet Properties"), and there is a button on the right that says "Make Paper Backup."
• (2) The *_backup.wallet file should be an exact copy of your main wallet file, used for consistency checking.  Let's say you modify your wallet in some way, such as importing an address to it.  Here's exactly what Armory does:  (a) import address into .wallet file, (b) import address into _backup.wallet file, (c) report success to user.  The user is not notified until the update is written to both files, and no matter which nanosecond the power goes out, one of the two files will be uncorrupt and automatically restored.  Along with single-bit error correction in every wallet field, this is why I claim "corruption-resistant" wallets.  I have even have unit-tests that involve interrupting the write process and verified they work as intended.
• (3) See above
• (4) There is no manual.  The best I've got is a tutorial on using the offline wallets feature (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/using-offline-wallets-in-armory).  I've been meaning to come up with more how-tos and tutorials, but I'm a one-man show, and I've been more focused on development.  However, I am very good at baking descriptions and warnings into the app, so I hope a lot of it is self explanatory (Armory yells at you when you're about to dangerous things).

Glad you like the app!  Thanks!

There may be some interference depending on how exactly OS/Bios handles writing of files (as in, file #1 write is being cached, reported completed, file #2 is being written upon, reported completed, power goes down, nothing was committed). Even so, this is a nice feature.

Even so,  if Armory encounters errors reading one file,  it will restore from the other one.   If,  somehow, both are corrupt... That's why you have a paper backup :-)  (and for reference, I'm not aware of anyone suffering wallet corruption, yet).

I do recognize that the disk writes are not guaranteed, but at least there is an fsync called after each write,  so there's a good chance it will.

Yeah, that's probably the most you can/should do at this point.

I totally agree most of my hatred for it is out of lack of understanding. I see the good that comes from it, but I count the good as "dumb luck". Business is about making money regardless of what happens. I don't rely on donations to publish the magazine for example, I do so based on a very calculated effort of costs, fees, public interest, and I constantly move for more adoption and interest wherever possible. This might not apply to a software application like Armory, but it actually might too. I won't pretend to know, but I will ask the question-- anything other than crowdfunding on the menu?

EDIT: It's not going to happen, but what if MtGox paid him $100 a day to have MtGox trading options embedded (optional of course) into the client. For people who don't use MtGox, it would help them to learn about MtGox (good for MtGox), for those who do use MtGox it would simplify their process of buying bitcoins etc, and for those who are not too fond of MtGox *cough*me*cough* it would be easily ignored as it's just a feature. This is a highly exaggerated example for so early in the game, but it's not an impossible one.

Download link in OP needs changing to http://bitcoinarmory.com/download/, congrats on the funding btw!

Edit to add: I just started downloading this but when installing I get this error message from my anti virus, should I just report it as a false positive & continue?

https://i.imgur.com/TfPLvH2.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/TfPLvH2.jpg)

Bump for my question above if anyone is so kind, maybe missed as I added a little while it after posting.

It is a false positive.  guardian.exe is a process that is installed with Armory on Windows. 

Many thanks, it's now installed, I couldn't tell avast it was a false positive because that popup option went away, just need to get the Bitcoin-Qt now.

Any plans on support for Trezzor and/or BitSafe?

We already started BitSafe integration, and plan to do Trezor as well.  Slush has tried contacting me a few times but I've been super busy (for obvious reasons), and figured I'd back to him when I have the resources to execute it.  I also thought I had more time, but it looks like Trezor release is closer than I realized. 

Support will be there.  It's going to be higher priority than the new wallets, actually (because it's very easy to integrate with Armory).  We have a new guy coming in at the end of the month who has the perfect skillset for doing this integration.