Square’s hardware lead, Jesse Dorogusker, announced yesterday that Square, Jack Dorsey, and he have decided to build a secure yet user-friendly mobile Bitcoin wallet designed for mainstream adoption.
We have decided to build a hardware wallet and service to make bitcoin custody more mainstream. We’ll continue to ask and answer questions in the open. This community’s response to our thread about this project has been awesome – encouraging, generous, collaborative, & inspiring. https://t.co/CHf9hAmKnn
— Jesse Dorogusker (@JesseDorogusker) July 8, 2021
This comes after last month’s consideration for building the wallet in an announcement by the Twitter and Square CEO in a Twitter thread.
Square is considering making a hardware wallet for #bitcoin. If we do it, we would build it entirely in the open, from software to hardware design, and in collaboration with the community. We want to kick off this thinking the right way: by sharing some of our guiding principles.
— jack (@jack) June 4, 2021
We’re doing it #Bitcoin https://t.co/IwbKuBoXGv
— jack (@jack) July 8, 2021
In the thread, Dorsey dives into why they’re interested in making this type of bitcoin wallet, highlighting the questions of what is going to get bitcoin into the hands of the next 100 million users in a noncustodial fashion. “Bitcoin is for everyone,” he says. “It’s important to us to build an inclusive product that brings a noncustodial solution to the global market.”
The importance of this wallet being noncustodial is to ensure the users always have full control over the bitcoin and not a third party. But they realize that bitcoin custody does not always have to be “all or nothing,” and they can help with assisted self custody. Which one can only assume that they will have the option to help play a role in the multisignature schema, similar to fan favorite multisig providers Unchained Capital and Casa.
This wallet will be prioritizing smartphone use. Dorsey mentioned that most people today access the internet via mobile devices, and that this helps them create a wallet that will “blend availability and security,” making “it easy for customers to keep the funds they want quick access to at their fingertips, spendable with phone-only permissions.”
He states that trust can not be required for this wallet and that many customers depend on third parties. Square will be there for any customers to “lean on” when they need assistance, but clarifies that they are not required. Towards the end of the thread he explains that safety is of the utmost importance, addressed some of the threats Bitcoin wallets face, and asked for feedback on anything they missed.
