Yes, just not at launch.
Its guaranteed that prime will eventually allow firmware upgrades via microsd right?, air gapped firmware upgrades are a make or break criterion for me to choose my hardware wallet
Yes, but not at launch.
Yes, I’m an expat and the country I live in are freakish in wanting to tax you on electronics in general. Though i do not see myself traveling much with anyting that i would be using for cold storage. I am a hodler.
Can I save txt files on encryted storage on prime and also view files on the device itself? without having to connect it to computer?
@qna Not gonna lie this countdown feature does sound pretty neat. Definite upvote from here!
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Prime!
Please reconsider
- Dice entropy
- trick pin /wipe pin
- customizable delayed login countdown like found on coldcard
- encrypted seed phrase backup via microsd ( custom phrases or 12 word from wordlist both options)
5.providing microsd adapter even for prime bundle
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@qna enjoyed the bitcoin multisig podcast that you were in!
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Passport prime is marketed as a security all in 1 device which is great, I intend to buy it for the same reason, But in the future If i decide to just use it for btc only, will there be a bitcoin only firmware eventually available?
Possible yes, but we have no plans for this right now. Customers wanting a focused Bitcoin only device can purchase Core.
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Generally speaking, I can safely buy prime even though I am bitcoin focused hoping that all the core features will be present on prime as well right?
Yes! Prime will have everything Core offers in terms of bitcoin capabilities
Hopefully,
- Bitcoin only firmware
- microsd firmware upgrades
- microsd adapters in the prime shipping box eventually
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Hi there!
My two cents - I don’t think the depth of what Prime is is fully understood when a “bitcoin only” firmware is asked for. Prime is an open source platform where anyone can build tools permissionlessly. It’s a security focused free and open source offline pocket-computer. You can build a password manager, an encrypted photo storage (like you could literally save seeds safely by taking photos of them with a prime), an offline storage for 2FA codes, encrypted storage for sensitive documents, you could have a nextcloud instance manager, a nostr signing device, heck, a gameboy emulator if you wanted one… anything. It’s a computer. And we can’t prevent any of it being built, that’s the beauty of its permissionless and open source nature.
Asking for a bitcoin-only prime is like asking for a bitcoin only Linux computer, or a bitcoin only windows laptop. It just doesn’t make much sense, cause that would mean we would have to remove the ability of the open source community to build tools in it and essentially remove the “computer” and “permissionless” parts of it, which are at the core of its essence.
I’m not saying we won’t do it in the future, it can physically be done, but then it wouldn’t be a “bitcoin only prime” in the same way that there can’t be a “bitcoin only windows laptop”, it would just be a passport core with a touchscreen and a bigger screen. It would remove the essence of prime out of it.
TLDR: You have to stop thinking about Prime as a hardware wallet only, and start thinking about it as a personal security device that goes well beyond the bitcoin realm.
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You are absolutely right, and its your product and mission statement end of the day, I understood prime is a all in one security device, I went through your presentation video 3 times before buying it,
- If i was running a single sig holding my generational net worth, I wouldnt bother with prime, I would just go with core, I wouldnt be comfortable with all the bells and whistles and potential pitfalls if there were zero day vulnerabilities that could be exploited by developers of other apps in Prime
- Because I plan for a multi vendor multisig, I don’t mind if 1 of the 3 devices isn’t bitcoin only firmware, In exchange to the tradeoff of not having BTC only, I get to explore u2f,fido2, encrypted storage, waterproof device, touch screened HW, and all the future miniscript or other hardware intensive bitcoin upgrades that would be possible in this flagship masterpiece device.
- Just that, If I am eventually not using all the bells and whistles of prime, I want to be able to convert it into a BTC only HW with touch and water proof
- I am willing to pay double the price for the device compared to core, in exchange to having the option to go either way,
- Also my eyes aren’t what it used to be, I could use a high res. large screen btc only hardware wallet( end of the day its your call what you do with your products,
- along with convincing a new customer to have all in one security device, you could also make hyper paranoid bitcoiners to buy prime instead of pushing them to Core( By just making a bitcoin only firmware) we are more than happy to buy for the large touch screen, with waterproof and high res
Hey @kaisa thanks for the reply!
That’s understandable and that’s alright! Prime is not fit for everyone, and this is fine. If what you are looking for is an airgapped device with no usb or bluetooth that only communicates via QR codes and microSD then Passport Core is your product. To your point, the bigger screen and waterproofing might actually be a reason to produce “bitcoin only prime” devices eventually, so Passport Cores but on upgraded hardware essentially. We hear you - however, this is not on the roadmap for now, as we will continue producing Passport Core devices for the foreseeable future. The plan now is to always have at least one bitcoin only device on offer, and that is Core right now, so if/when we decide to discontinue Core we will 100% explore the idea of using the same software but on Prime’s hardware.
This will be possible day 1 the same that it is possible not to install metamask on a laptop. If you don’t want any bells and whistles… just feel free to not install them and leave the bitcoin wallet app only. While it’s true that at launch we are not planning on allowing uninstalling any of the first party apps like 2FA, Vault and so on, it is in the roadmap to allow uninstalling them for anyone that just doesn’t want them, so you will eventually be able to only have the bitcoin app installed in Prime if you want to. As for third party apps or apps whose source you don’t trust, you are free not to install any of them, like you do on any linux/windows/apple machine.
Again, we hear you, but Prime is not the device you are looking for. As mentioned before “Prime with a bitcoin only software” doesn’t make sense like a “windows laptop with bitcoin only software” doesn’t make sense, so pushing hyper paranoid bitcoiners to buy prime to use as something it wasn’t designed for doesn’t sound like a solid plan.
Think about it for a second. If we did do that software, then the complaint would be that the device still has a bluetooth chip and NFC coil, even if we disabled them from software, so hyper paranoid bitcoiners wouldn’t want that either. Then we’d have to remove those two components, but the next complaint would be that the USBC port still had data pins (instead of the power only USBC that Core has), so we’d have to remove those as well. But if we removed the USBC’s data pins then we wouldn’t be able to ship an adapter for the microSD cards because the USBC would be power only and thus not able to interact with a microSD. So then the ask would be to add a microSD card slot to be able to use a microSD card directly with Prime.
And so, at the end of the day, you would be asking for a complete redesign of the hardware, circuitry, and software. So essentially what you are saying is that you don’t want Prime, you want another device. You are looking for Core on upgraded hardware. Which, again, we don’t discard the possibility of and in fact it will probably eventually arrive, but I doubt it will happen while Core is still available, because for hyper paranoid bitcoiners taht use a single sig holding their generational net worth Core might be a better suited product.
Hope this helps!
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