Blockstream Jade Review

[Pmalek]

I was initially going to create a thread focusing only on one feature and issue I was having with my Jade, but then I thought why not write a quick review about this hardware wallet. So, here it is…


I bought the Blockstream Jade a few months ago from the official shop in the US and had it delivered to the EU. It’s not the most cost-effective way because there are shipping fees, import taxes, and customs fees (depending on the destination country I didn’t worry about that because I wanted to purchase it from the manufacturer directly and not a reseller. You might save some money buying it from a reseller in your country, especially if it’s a shop close to you that you can visit and not leave your personal details on a server somewhere.

I made the purchase via bitcoin. The Blockstream store accepts crypto via BTCPayServer, which is nice.

Box Contents

This is the box content:

•   Jade hardware wallet
•   1 USB cable
•   1 Recovery sheet
•   1 compact SeedQR templete for 12-word seeds
•   1 compact SeedQR templete for 24-word seeds
•   A Get Started manual




Blockstream could have done better here. You only get one recovery sheet. They could have thrown in at least two. The same goes for the SeedQR templetes.

The Setup

Before I set up my device, I first downloaded the latest firmware. Blockstream gives you a few options here: You can install the firmware from the Blockstream Green software wallet, the web portal, or an advanced setup that requires cloning the repository and using a command line.

I upgraded the firmware via the web portal. You can choose one of two firmware versions. One has Bluetooth enabled, and the other one comes with disabled Bluetooth capabilities. I went with the second option.

Blockstream Jade has a Basic and Advanced setup. The Basic option requires the device to hold your seed, like a standard hardware wallet. You also generate a PIN code that you use with a blind oracle that functions as a virtual secure element.

But my goal was to use Jade as a stateless signer, which requires an advanced setup.

That’s where the SeedQR template comes in place. First, you have to generate a 12 or 24-word seed and back it up properly. I also added a long passphrase for extra security.

Then, it’s time to create your SeedQR. For that, you will need a sharpie or a marker. You use it to place small dots on the provided template sheet. This process takes some time, and I was very careful with it since Blockstream only gives you one copy per 12/24-word seeds.

When I was done, I double-checked everything and made sure I could recover my wallet.

Exporting the Master Public Key

Because Jade is an airgapped hardware wallet, it needs an internet-connected companion software app to create and broadcast transactions. There are multiple choices, but I went with Blue Wallet for Android and Sparrow Wallet for my desktop.

Exporting the keys from Jade and importing them into Blue Wallet was quick and painless. There were no problems with the QR scanning.

The same process on Sparrow Wallet was a huge pain in the ass. I don’t know if it’s a compatibility issue, if the camera on my business laptop sucks, or something else was going on, but it was far from pleasant.

It took me several minutes to get the status bar to load to 100% when scanning the QR code. I was close to giving up when it finally worked. I tried adjusting the brightness levels on the Jade, but that didn’t help. There is no option to change the QR density in Jade. It was quite difficult to center the Jade in the middle of the scan surface that Sparrow Wallet provides and figure out the angle correctly.

Does anyone else here have a Jade? Have you tried pairing it with Sparrow Wallet? If so, what’s your experience?

Wallet Recovery

In stateless mode, the Jade wipes itself clean every time you turn it off. The next time you turn it back on, you have to re-scan your SeedQR to be able to work with your wallet. Scanning the QR with the Jade works nicely, but you need to make sure there isn’t any shadow on the QR template because that can slow down the process.

Because I used a rather complex passphrase, it takes a while to enter it with the Jade. The device has a navigation wheel at the top that you use to swipe between the characters and enter them one by one. You will need a few minutes to get there if you have to navigate between upper and lowercase characters, special-case characters, and letters.

There is a way to make this process a bit easier for you. If you go into the Options of your Jade and select “BIP39 Passphrase”, you can change the method from “Manual” to “Wordlist.” With manual mode, you enter one character after the other. With “Wordlist,” you can only use words from the BIP39 wordlist. As soon as you enter the first few characters, Jade allows you to select possible word combinations to speed up the process. All words will be in lowercase characters with an automatic empty space between them, except the last word.

Sending & Receiving Transactions

When your SeedQR is loaded into the Jade, you can verify that the receiving address in your companion app belongs to that seed. By scanning the addresses’ QR code, the Jade shows you if it’s part of your wallet. I like doing it for peace of mind.

The sending to Jade is pretty self-explanatory. The process of sending from the Jade is the same as that of any airgapped hardware wallet. You create the transaction on the companion app, bring over the PSBT to the hardware device via QR code for signing, and bring back the signed transaction for broadcasting on the hot wallet.

Sending from the Jade in connection with Blue Wallet was easy. I had no problems scanning the signed transaction to broadcast it on Blue Wallet. Again, it was Sparrow Wallet on my desktop that created problems, and I couldn’t scan the QR code at all this time.

Overall Experience

For the price of this device, I am satisfied. I would prefer if I could use it in connection with Sparrow Wallet, but as I explained earlier, it’s not working correctly.
It’s a good wallet. I already moved some bitcoin to it, and I am waiting for a good opportunity for another consolidation to move another stash.

[Findingnemo]

First impression the material used seems fragile, is it?

Considering its price this could be the cheapest hardware wallet available at the moment and also it's only for Bitcoin, not a multi-crypto wallet

The same process on Sparrow Wallet was a huge pain in the ass. I don’t know if it’s a compatibility issue, if the camera on my business laptop sucks, or something else was going on, but it was far from pleasant.

It took me several minutes to get the status bar to load to 100% when scanning the QR code. I was close to giving up when it finally worked. I tried adjusting the brightness levels on the Jade, but that didn’t help. There is no option to change the QR density in Jade. It was quite difficult to center the Jade in the middle of the scan surface that Sparrow Wallet provides and figure out the angle correctly.

The last time I used Sparrow Wallet it was kind of buggy and even can't able to maximize to full screen on my PC well it's irrelevant since it's due to the technical difficulty of a built-in webcam and I am sure this will be similar if you used different wallet software too such as electrum or anything that's compatible with it.

[Pmalek]

First impression the material used seems fragile, is it?

The navigation wheel you use most of the time is Jade's weakest link. I expect that part to fail before anything else. Other than that, the device has a confirmation and on/off button. I couldn't find anything negative with those two, but I am not sure about the quality of the navigation wheel.

Considering its price this could be the cheapest hardware wallet available at the moment and also it's only for Bitcoin, not a multi-crypto wallet

Exactly what I wanted. An airgapped bitcoin-only device that I will seldom use and which doesn't contain any excess features and code for altcoins.

The last time I used Sparrow Wallet it was kind of buggy and even can't able to maximize to full screen on my PC

I didn't have any issues with full-screen size on my end. It's just the scanning process I am unsatisfied with.

[Davidvictorson]

Thank you for taking out time to write this brilliant review. At least I have this as another resource to turn to whenever I have a Jade wallet. I have two questions though

• 1. Would you recommend this wallet to store a life savings?
• 2. Is it possible to generate a seed phrase using the dice method on the wallet?

[Pmalek]

1. Would you recommend this wallet to store a life savings?

That's a hard question to answer. It depends on how much risk you are willing to take. Also, if your coins are on an exchange or hot software wallet, I would rather have them on a Jade. I will only hold a portion of my bitcoin on it as a way to diversify my portfolio and move more away from Ledger.

2. Is it possible to generate a seed phrase using the dice method on the wallet?

You can if you want to. Jade will allow you to enter 11 or 23 words from your recovery phrase based on your dice rolls and it will automatically calculate the last word.

You can read more about it here if you are interested:
Create a recovery phrase using dice
Dice Generated Recovery Phrase

[bitmover]

I was initially going to create a thread focusing only on one feature and issue I was having with my Jade, but then I thought why not write a quick review about this hardware wallet. So, here it is…


I bought the Blockstream Jade a few months ago from the official shop in the US and had it delivered to the EU. It’s not the most cost-effective way because there are shipping fees, import taxes, and customs fees (depending on the destination country I didn’t worry about that because I wanted to purchase it from the manufacturer directly and not a reseller. You might save some money buying it from a reseller in your country, especially if it’s a shop close to you that you can visit and not leave your personal details on a server somewhere.

I made the purchase via bitcoin. The Blockstream store accepts crypto via BTCPayServer, which is nice.

Thanks for bringing this up.

This is an old hardware wallet manufacturer and certainly is a safe one.

I have an old ledger nano s (not compatible with recent versions of ledger live which send keys). I had to buy a new ledger visor recently, but it is still working fine. I will have to buy a new hw in the future  and probably jade is a good option.

The main problem imo is that it is not possible to store USDT or other stable coins, which might be a handy feature in some circumstances

[Davidvictorson]

1. Would you recommend this wallet to store a life savings?

That's a hard question to answer. It depends on how much risk you are willing to take. Also, if your coins are on an exchange or hot software wallet, I would rather have them on a Jade. I will only hold a portion of my bitcoin on it as a way to diversify my portfolio and move more away from Ledger.

2. Is it possible to generate a seed phrase using the dice method on the wallet?

You can if you want to. Jade will allow you to enter 11 or 23 words from your recovery phrase based on your dice rolls and it will automatically calculate the last word.

You can read more about it here if you are interested:
Create a recovery phrase using dice
Dice Generated Recovery Phrase

Okay good.
So I'll spread it instead of having it all in one place. I'll read the resources you have provided dice generated recovery phrase. It's something I have found difficult to understand.

[satscraper]

The same process on Sparrow Wallet was a huge pain in the ass. I don’t know if it’s a compatibility issue, if the camera on my business laptop sucks, or something else was going on, but it was far from pleasant.

It took me several minutes to get the status bar to load to 100% when scanning the QR code. I was close to giving up when it finally worked. I tried adjusting the brightness levels on the Jade, but that didn’t help. There is no option to change the QR density in Jade. It was quite difficult to center the Jade in the middle of the scan surface that Sparrow Wallet provides and figure out the angle correctly.

Does anyone else here have a Jade? Have you tried pairing it with Sparrow Wallet? If so, what’s your experience?

I don't have a Jade, but having Passport 2  I, also  experienced     repeatedly the same issue of Sparrow scanning. Based on my observations the QR reading in Sparrow became worst after 1.8.3 release which implemented  additional  scanning using BoofCV library. The latter, which was intended to be improvement , in fact, resulted in reciprocal action i.e. increasing of the scanning time. Probably, it is due to the additional, BoofCV relevant  operations with QR image, which require some time to complete.

[Pmalek]

I have an old ledger nano s (not compatible with recent versions of ledger live which send keys).

Are you talking about the Ledger Recover feature or something else? I got confused seeing that you wrote that your Nano S isn't compatible with newer versions of Ledger Live. It's the first time I hear that new LL releases don't support the old Nano S.

The main problem imo is that it is not possible to store USDT or other stable coins, which might be a handy feature in some circumstances

Yeah, the Jade is a bitcoin-only device, but it supports liquid assets. You could store liquid tether and liquid bitcoin in it in connection with the Blockstream Green software wallet.

<Snip>

Thanks for confirming that I am not the only one that has problems with Sparrow Wallet's QR code scanning. That hopefully rules out what I thought could be issues with my laptops camera. What desktop wallet are you using with your Passport that doesn't have such scanning issues?

[satscraper]

Thanks for confirming that I am not the only one that has problems with Sparrow Wallet's QR code scanning. That hopefully rules out what I thought could be issues with my laptops camera. What desktop wallet are you using with your Passport that doesn't have such scanning issues?

I continue to use Sparrow. Passport has very convenient feature to switch  on the fly from QR to PSBT. Thus, I feed it with QR patterns coming from Sparrow, it  signs transaction and  reveals in return its own QR. When Sparrow is reluctant to read it I switch on the  fly from signed QR to signed PSBT and provide it to Sparrow.

[bitmover]

I have an old ledger nano s (not compatible with recent versions of ledger live which send keys).

Are you talking about the Ledger Recover feature or something else? I got confused seeing that you wrote that your Nano S isn't compatible with newer versions of Ledger Live. It's the first time I hear that new LL releases don't support the old Nano S.

You are right. Ledger Live supports it, but the Ledger Recover feature doesn't. I used the wrong name for their software.

[Pmalek]

Anyone considering buying a Jade can take advantage of a 10% discount by entering promo code "ORANGEMART" at checkout. This isn't the first promo code I see for this device and I am sure there will be more in the future.

<Snip>

I think I saw Nunchuk for desktop being advertised as a good companion app for the Blockstream Jade. I might as well try that. Although I like Sparrow Wallet and what their team does, it doesn't do me much good if I can't use the main feature I want from it with my Jade.

[satscraper]

<Snip>

I think I saw Nunchuk for desktop being advertised as a good companion app for the Blockstream Jade. I might as well try that. Although I like Sparrow Wallet and what their team does, it doesn't do me much good if I can't use the main feature I want from it with my Jade.

The size of  scanning field in Nunchuk is a bit large than in Sparrow (probably the specs of its  digital lens) but I have tried a few times to pair it with my Passport 2 via QR code and always failed. Thus for me Nunchuk is not a solution. Hope you will be more lucky with it.

[Pmalek]

The size of  scanning field in Nunchuk is a bit large than in Sparrow (probably the specs of its  digital lens) but I have tried a few times to pair it with my Passport 2 via QR code and always failed. Thus for me Nunchuk is not a solution. Hope you will be more lucky with it.

That's too bad, but I am still going to try it. Maybe the experience will be different on my Jade. I prefer to use desktop wallets rather than mobile apps. Besides Sparrow and Nunchuk, there aren't many options left. The only remaining one I know of is Specter. Blockstream Green isn't going to work because it doesn't support SeedQRs. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it because it's the native app of the Jade developed by the same company.