Foundation Passport Official Thread

[dkbit98]

@foundationdvcs : It has been a while so I wonder - Any plans on creating a European hub of Foundation to sell your current hardware offering (and perhaps setup shop for the future devices?). Probably this isn't on the list as a big priority considering the amount of resellers that you have but perhaps long term could be something that it could be interesting to explore?

I know about several good resellers for Passport devices that are located in Europe.
Passport device is more expensive when ordered from one of this resellers compared to price on website, but at least you don't have to wait for delivery and import customs charges from US.
And so far I didn't see any other hardware wallet manufacturers having ''hubs'' in different countries.

[1714667279]

1714667279

[1714667279]

1714667279

[1714667279]

1714667279

[RickDeckard]

I know about several good resellers for Passport devices that are located in Europe.
Passport device is more expensive when ordered from one of this resellers compared to price on website, but at least you don't have to wait for delivery and import customs charges from US.

And so far I didn't see any other hardware wallet manufacturers having ''hubs'' in different countries.

From a business perspective, assuming you've got a established business unit, it makes sense in the long term (especially considering that clients will probably prefer buying directly from the source with the least amount of extra fees). By shipping from USA to Europe what usually happens is that, like you said, on top of the shipping you also end up paying the customs and tax on your country, which usually just blows the price out of proportion.

And so far I didn't see any other hardware wallet manufacturers having ''hubs'' in different countries.

But there are. For example, if you check Trezor FAQ[1] you'll see that they have a local hub in the USA (and SatoshiLabs Group, where Trezor belongs to, has their HQ in Czech Republic[2]):

Delivery in the UK and USA

Orders delivered to customers in the United Kingdom and the United States of America are dispatched by local fulfillment centers using local delivery services.

• The US orders are shipped from Chattanooga (TN), Grapevine (TX), Phoenix (AZ).
• The UK orders are shipped from Manchester.

The same can be said from Ledger[3]:

Regardless of where they're assembled, all Ledger orders made through our store are shipped from one of the following locations:

• Our warehouse in Vierzon, France
• Our distribution center in Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States.

I reckon that it is not fair comparing the size of these companies with Foundation, but if Foundation eventually devices to have a hub of their own in Europe I will assume that it is good news - it means that their company has matured enough to the point that they are now able to withstand costs in another continent while still being financially viable.
[1]https://trezor.io/faqs
[2]https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/satoshilabs
[3]https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403006133393-Where-are-orders-shipped-from?support=true

[RickDeckard]

@foundationdvcs : While in another discussion with other users[1] something struck me that wasn't asked before - is Foundation planning to release support for miniscript? It would be great if we could use Passport with miniscript[2] to create custom spending conditions on some address[3].
[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5492618.msg63958265#msg63958265
[2]https://bitcoinerlab.com/guides/miniscript-vault
[3]https://bitcoin.design/guide/how-it-works/custom-spending-conditions/

[NotATether]

@foundationdvcs : While in another discussion with other users[1] something struck me that wasn't asked before - is Foundation planning to release support for miniscript? It would be great if we could use Passport with miniscript[2] to create custom spending conditions on some address[3].
[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5492618.msg63958265#msg63958265
[2]https://bitcoinerlab.com/guides/miniscript-vault
[3]https://bitcoin.design/guide/how-it-works/custom-spending-conditions/

I'm curious to know how would a user create miniscripts inside the Passport though. Would they just import them by QR code, since typing them by a keyboard of sorts is out of the question?

Also the miniscript could get quite long if many constants are being used, which would make the QR code really big - and maybe require an extremely large QR code in some cases - so what to do about that?

[RickDeckard]

I'm curious to know how would a user create miniscripts inside the Passport though. Would they just import them by QR code, since typing them by a keyboard of sorts is out of the question?

I was actually thinking in interacting between making the code on a laptop and then use a microSD card and to also register the descriptors on the device. The implementations of miniscript that I have seen seem to involve a 3rd party entity as such is the case between BitBox and Liana[1], but I suppose that there could also be a way to make that operation without that 3rd party?
[1]https://bitbox.swiss/blog/exploring-bitcoin-miniscript-with-liana-and-the-bitbox02/

[foundationdvcs]

@foundationdvcs : While in another discussion with other users[1] something struck me that wasn't asked before - is Foundation planning to release support for miniscript? It would be great if we could use Passport with miniscript[2] to create custom spending conditions on some address[3].
[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5492618.msg63958265#msg63958265
[2]https://bitcoinerlab.com/guides/miniscript-vault
[3]https://bitcoin.design/guide/how-it-works/custom-spending-conditions/

Miniscript adoption is definitely something we're keeping a close eye on, and something we want to implement down the line but is quite complex to do it properly, especially from a UX perspective. Definitely on our radar but no firm implementation date to share at this point!

[RickDeckard]

Miniscript adoption is definitely something we're keeping a close eye on, and something we want to implement down the line but is quite complex to do it properly, especially from a UX perspective. Definitely on our radar but no firm implementation date to share at this point!

Great news, thank you for the quick update! As a matter of strategy, and I reckon that this may not be doable, but, as a suggestion, it would be awesome to have some sort of roadmap of features that you intend to implement on Passport. Internally I know that this probably already exists (to guide the development) and I understand that not everything could be shared, but it would be nice to have an idea how the product would develop say in 1 year from now (for example).

[Pmalek]

I just came across a video of your marketing head talking with the Bitfinex team, and I heard some interesting things I wanted to mention them and ask you about it.

• He was pretty secretive but said that Foundation is working on multiple new hardware devices, with plans to release them this year. Can you say something more, exclusively for the Bitcointalk community? We already know there won't be a pre-sale stage.
• How is the development going with Lightning being added to Envoy? When do you expect that to be finished, and have you thought about liquid BTC, for example?
• How far ahead is the Monero community with introducing their forked version of the Passport firmware to support the coin?

[foundationdvcs]

A new release of Envoy, our powerful Bitcoin mobile wallet and companion app for Passport is live now!

Read more in our blog post on the release:

https://foundation.xyz/2024/04/envoy-version-1-6-2-is-now-live/

[RickDeckard]

Was browsing around Zeus[1] Telegram group when found out a (not expected) reference to Foundation Passport in their recent alpha build (only available to sponsors):

ZEUS v0.9.0-alpha1 is now rolling out to community sponsors!

This build includes:
- Watch-only account import (xpub)
- Hardware wallet / signing device support (Coldcard Q, Seedsigner, Passport Foundation etc.)
- Batch channel opens
- Batch on-chain txs
- Close channels to external addresses
- Improved payment path view

(...)

Zeus looks like a solid wallet and knowing that Passport is intended to be integrated with it just adds more options to their users (especially considering that Zeus is a Bitcoin Lighthing wallet),
[1]https://zeusln.com/

[satscraper]

A new release of Envoy, our powerful Bitcoin mobile wallet and companion app for Passport is live now!

Read more in our blog post on the release:

https://foundation.xyz/2024/04/envoy-version-1-6-2-is-now-live/

Would be nice to have in the future releases the notification of new version at entering Envoy.

I have updated mine (1.6.0 on Android) only after reading your message.

Keep refining this magic app for Passport, the hardware wallet  we are fond of.

[foundationdvcs]

A new release of Envoy, our powerful Bitcoin mobile wallet and companion app for Passport is live now!

Read more in our blog post on the release:

https://foundation.xyz/2024/04/envoy-version-1-6-2-is-now-live/

Would be nice to have in the future releases the notification of new version at entering Envoy.

I have updated mine (1.6.0 on Android) only after reading your message.

Keep refining this magic app for Passport, the hardware wallet  we are fond of.

Already a work in progress 

Was browsing around Zeus[1] Telegram group when found out a (not expected) reference to Foundation Passport in their recent alpha build (only available to sponsors):

ZEUS v0.9.0-alpha1 is now rolling out to community sponsors!

This build includes:
- Watch-only account import (xpub)
- Hardware wallet / signing device support (Coldcard Q, Seedsigner, Passport Foundation etc.)
- Batch channel opens
- Batch on-chain txs
- Close channels to external addresses
- Improved payment path view

(...)

Zeus looks like a solid wallet and knowing that Passport is intended to be integrated with it just adds more options to their users (especially considering that Zeus is a Bitcoin Lighthing wallet),
[1]https://zeusln.com/

Good find! We are very excited for this, and it's much more novel than "just" Passport integration into another wallet. Exciting things for those who seek to use LN in a self-sovereign way.

I just came across a video of your marketing head talking with the Bitfinex team, and I heard some interesting things I wanted to mention them and ask you about it.

• He was pretty secretive but said that Foundation is working on multiple new hardware devices, with plans to release them this year. Can you say something more, exclusively for the Bitcointalk community? We already know there won't be a pre-sale stage.
• How is the development going with Lightning being added to Envoy? When do you expect that to be finished, and have you thought about liquid BTC, for example?
• How far ahead is the Monero community with introducing their forked version of the Passport firmware to support the coin?

• He was pretty secretive but said that Foundation is working on multiple new hardware devices, with plans to release them this year. Can you say something more, exclusively for the Bitcointalk community? We already know there won't be a pre-sale stage.

So sorry, we like to play things pretty close to the vest and don't want to give away too much! Suffice it to say we're going to break this space open with something new in two directions 

• How is the development going with Lightning being added to Envoy? When do you expect that to be finished, and have you thought about liquid BTC, for example?

Still a work in progress, but we have concrete plans of how we will tackle it from both an architecture and UX perspective and are working hard towards those goals. We won't release anything half-baked, and want to ensure that the integration is as seamless and intuitive as Lightning can be.

• How far ahead is the Monero community with introducing their forked version of the Passport firmware to support the coin?

Unfortunately it seems that the effort has mostly stalled, but we're in communication with some Monero devs and trying to see how we can assist.

[foundationdvcs]

An excellent new review of Passport + Envoy just dropped, thought it was worth sharing for anyone on the fence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9EPXCJWTB0

[Pmalek]

So sorry, we like to play things pretty close to the vest and don't want to give away too much! Suffice it to say we're going to break this space open with something new in two directions 

Hmm, that sounded pretty similar to what your marketing head said in the YouTube video I watched. Are you the same guy?

Unfortunately it seems that the effort has mostly stalled, but we're in communication with some Monero devs and trying to see how we can assist.

That's too bad. I know that whatever they are building is unofficial, but it would still be cool to see a privacy coin like Monero working within an airgapped solution like that of the Passport hardware wallet.

An excellent new review of Passport + Envoy just dropped, thought it was worth sharing for anyone on the fence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9EPXCJWTB0

I hoped it would be Ben Sessions. A pretty popular channel when it comes to these types of software/hardware wallet reviews. But I have come across the work of Crypto Guide as well. Decent lad.

[foundationdvcs]

> Are you the same guy?

Yes 

> That's too bad. I know that whatever they are building is unofficial, but it would still be cool to see a privacy coin like Monero working within an airgapped solution like that of the Passport hardware wallet.

Agreed, we'd love to see this and are working to make things like this drastically easier on a future product.

> I hoped it would be Ben Sessions. A pretty popular channel when it comes to these types of software/hardware wallet reviews. But I have come across the work of Crypto Guide as well. Decent lad.

He did a review when we first launched Passport Batch 2, but unfortunately there was a bit of a strange focus on common FUD rather than a product review. Would love to see him re-review it with all the changes that have happened to Passport and Envoy since then!