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The BitBox02 quietly celebrated its fifth birthday this year, with the official launch dating all the way back to September 2019! While the hardware itself stayed mostly the same since then, a lot has happened under the hood when it comes to the development of the firmware and the BitBoxApp.
From new features to security improvements: Let’s take a walk and revisit some highlights from past BitBox releases and how every BitBox02 – even if bought back in 2019 – is better than ever today.
How the BitBoxApp improved
As our official companion app, the BitBoxApp is at the core of the user experience. Working closely together with the device not only allowed us to seamlessly integrate new features, it also enabled security features which would be way harder to pull off without it.
Android app
Using the BitBoxApp on Android smartphones and tablets has become the favorite way to interact with the BitBox02 for many. Because it shares the same codebase, all features of the desktop app were available on mobile right from the start. Being able to plug your hardware wallet directly into your phone, without having to deal with annoying cables, adapters, or the location of USB ports, has proven its worth. The Android release was one of our first major updates after the BitBox02’s release!
Buy and sell
To take control of your coins, you first need to get ahold of some. Buying and selling cryptocurrency can be a cumbersome experience, with countless services to choose from – not to mention the varying quality of the user experience. This is why we started to recommend exchanges very early on, with the goal of integrating services directly in the BitBoxApp already in mind.
Today, after the integration of Moonpay and partnering up with Pocket Bitcoin, users of the BitBox02 can manage their portfolio securely from the comfort of the app. Recently, we even made selling bitcoin more secure by using a novel security feature.
Account management
Creating and managing several accounts in the BitBoxApp, introduced in 2021 with the Masnee update, has made it easier to separate your savings, salary, KYC-free coins or whatever else comes to mind, without the need to manage different backups or optional passphrases. We improved on this feature even further in 2023, by making sure previously used Bitcoin accounts are detected and synchronized automatically after restoring your wallet.
Oh, and did we mention the accounts summary and performance chart introduced in 2020? 🚀
At the end of 2023 we also introduced the option to remember your accounts in the BitBoxApp, even when your BitBox02 is not connected, enabling quick checks on transactions and balances. The same update also brought the ability to hide amounts and a screen lock on Android for improved privacy on the go!
Bitsurance
Earlier this year we partnered up with Bitsurance – a German startup that offers an optional insurance for your bitcoin against threats like the $5 wrench attack, theft, floods or fire. All this while you remain fully in control of your funds and an onboarding process accessible directly from within in the BitBoxApp.
How the firmware improved
The open-source and fully reproducible firmware of the BitBox02 also received regular updates over the years. Security is the most important aspect of a hardware wallet, and through firmware updates, we can directly improve it even further.
Protection against leaking private keys
A topic that recently attracted attention again due to the “Dark Skippy” vulnerability has been a security feature of the BitBox02 and BitBoxApp for years now. In early 2021, we introduced the Anti-Klepto protocol with the Monte Rosa update to protect against a clever attack vector, where a malicious hardware wallet can leak private keys by manipulating signatures of Bitcoin transactions.
This security protocol works closely together with the BitBoxApp (and other compatible wallet software) to cryptographically verify this kind of manipulation did not take place. You can find more details about it in this article.
Payment requests
Sending bitcoin to an exchange is way more secure if you can be confident the address you’re sending your coins to actually belongs to the service and not someone else. Payment requests introduced with the Ritom update this year create a secure link between the hardware wallet and the exchange, which now also enables the selling integration of the BitBoxApp with Pocket Bitcoin. Learn more about this novel security feature in our article.
Encrypted seed in RAM
The seed of your wallet is stored encrypted on the BitBox02 – like with any good hardware wallet. However, when signing transactions, your private keys need to be decrypted and held in the hardware wallet’s working memory at some point in order to actually use them.
The Bellinzona update introduced another “line of defense” by even keeping the seed encrypted in memory – only decrypting it briefly once needed. This makes potential attacks, where the memory can be read by an attacker, even harder to pull off, as we explain in our article on the topic.
Child keys
Looking for a way to gift some bitcoin to a loved one for Christmas? The Brienz update from earlier this year brought BIP-85 child key support to the BitBox02, enabling the creation of additional seed phrases, all derived from your wallet backup.
This is great when you want to create new wallets for different purposes, e.g. a hot wallet for your smartphone – or for a Christmas gift wallet! The great thing about child keys is not having to worry about any new backups, since you remain in control of all child keys with the wallet backup of your BitBox02.
Did somebody say Miniscript?
Advanced users who want to fine-tune their wallet setup with precision can do so since the Motterascio update that came with Miniscript support. Together with the powerful Liana wallet, it can help with inheritance planning and other more complex wallet recovery plans. Just recently, we expanded Miniscript to work on Taproot as well!
There were many more exciting improvements of the BitBox02 firmware, like support for Taproot in 2022, the ability to display the firmware hash in the bootloader, and, of course, support for sending silent payments! Check out our past release blog articles for more.
BitBox02 integrations
On day one, the BitBox02 could only be used directly with the BitBoxApp. It was then integrated quite early on with popular wallet software Electrum, followed by Sparrow Wallet, Specter, Liana and several other alternatives that make use of the official Bitcoin hardware wallet interface (HWI), where the BitBox02 can also be used for multisignature wallets.
Users of the Multi edition were also treated with support for MyEtherWallet, Rabby, as well as AdaLite for Cardano!
Got ideas?
There are many more improvements we could have mentioned, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Instead, we’d like to throw the ball back to you! Do you have ideas on how we can improve the BitBox experience, both in the BitBoxApp and together with the BitBox02 firmware? Don’t hesitate to reach out with your feedback. We are also actively working on updated hardware that will be compatible with other platforms, introducing entirely new possibilities — stay tuned!
Conclusion
Five years after its release, the BitBox02 is a more competitive and feature-rich hardware wallet than ever, even leading the industry with support for payment requests and silent payment sending support. We’d like to thank our users for their support over the past years, the valuable feedback we received and are looking forward to more exciting developments of the BitBox02 and beyond in the future!
Don’t own a BitBox yet?
Keeping your crypto secure doesn't have to be hard. The BitBox02 hardware wallet stores the private keys for your cryptocurrencies offline. So you can manage your coins safely.
The BitBox02 also comes in a Bitcoin-only version, featuring a radically focused firmware: less code means less attack surface, which further improves your security when only storing Bitcoin.
Shift Crypto is a privately-held company based in Zurich, Switzerland. Our team of Bitcoin contributors, crypto experts, and security engineers builds products that enable customers to enjoy a stress-free journey from novice to mastery level of cryptocurrency management. The BitBox02, our second generation hardware wallet, lets users store, protect, and transact Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with ease - along with its software companion, the BitBoxApp.