An Inside Look at Bitstash’s New 3-Tier Hardware Wallet: Interview with CTO, Trevor Murphy

As we reported back in early October, Bitstash is a unique Bitcoin innovation.
Bitstash aims to deliver wallet solutions with two major selling points – one being flawless security, and the other being its ease of use as the device is designed so that even your grandmother can use it. It’s a 3-tier wallet system whose crowdfunding campaign was set to launch on October 22 at Kickstarter. The campaign was supposed to feature the opportunity to preorder Bitstash along in its push raise a funding goal of US$50,000. However, Kickstarter denied the request from Bitstash:
‘This product’s explicit purpose is storage and transaction management for virtual currency,’ reads the email response from Kickstarter. ‘This is quite different from a multifunctional device that could be used with a 3rd party banking services. We appreciate what you’re doing but it falls outside of our guidelines around currency processing products and services.’
Trevor called the incident an ‘unfortunate setback,’ but aims to raise funds by looking into a series A investment instead through more traditional channels.
‘In order for Bitcoin to gain mass adoption it needs to be as simple as using PayPal, or shopping at Amazon.com. BitStash achieves this, transparently securing Bitcoin transactions.’
– Trevor Murphy
As far as public release, Bitstash is slated to “start shipping NON FIPS Certified devices in May 2015 once the FCC certifications are done,” says Trevor, “while the FIPS certified versions will ship around November 2015.”
CoinTelegraph had the opportunity to discuss the device’s enhanced security in detail with CTO, Trevor Murphy who also shared his thoughts on why he thinks this wallet solution will be key in helping Bitcoin reach the average consumer.
CoinTelegraph: Why do you think this 3-tier hardware wallet will facilitate Bitcoin adoption?
Trevor Murphy: Bitcoin today is too difficult for the average consumer to use, and almost too difficult for everyone to secure. Complicated dongles such as the Trezor and Paper wallets, may solve the problem for the dedicated Bitcoin technology geek, but for the vast majority of consumers those solutions will not be acceptable.
Online wallets such as BlockChain.info are very useful, but they put a third party company between you and your Bitcoin, subject to business continuity risks, asset seizures etc. So BitStash brings the power of the industries best practices, AIR GAP device, virus free, private keys never exposed, true cold storage etc. to everyone. Its like having a team of Bitcoin security experts working for you full time.