The first "domestic" Bitcoin wallet officially recommended by Bitcoin

On May 5, 2015, Bitcoin Wallet became the wallet recommended by the Bitcoin website Bitcoin.org. It was the first "domestic" Bitcoin wallet recommended by Bitcoin.org.

As one of many digital currency wallet development teams, the four-person team of Bitcoin Wallet has made many innovations in Bitcoin wallets in just one year:

Bitcoin Wallet is the Bitcoin wallet with the most native support platforms, including iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, and Linux;

The first wallet solution to achieve hot and cold separation using smartphones;

The first true random number solution with XRANDOM.

Wen Hao, CEO of Bitcoin Wallet, revealed that the team is currently promoting the enterprise version of Bitcoin Wallet to help companies manage Bitcoin assets more securely; at the same time, they are developing decentralized Bitcoin Wallet solutions to expand the services of the open platform.

Taking this opportunity, Wen Hao, CEO of Bitai Wallet, told Babbitt Information about his experience in the past year since its establishment.

First, please introduce the team background.

Our team consists of 4 members. My name is Wenhao, and the other members include Zhou Qi, Jiang Jiazhi, and Song Chenwen. We are all technically inclined. We were a team that worked on lottery systems. If you go out and buy a lottery ticket, you might have used us to make the software.

How did you come up with the idea of ​​creating the Bito wallet?

I wanted to do something of my own later, so I started working on mobile Internet projects with a few like-minded partners. Initially, we were actually working on mobile Internet projects, and we had accumulated a lot of technical foundations in iOS and Android development. It was around the Spring Festival last year that our team began to think about transforming into a Bitcoin wallet solution.

The reason why we wanted to make a Bitcoin wallet was because when we first started using Bitcoin, we found that Bitcoin was too difficult for ordinary people, even for professional technicians (coders like us). It was too difficult to store, manage, and use Bitcoin. Moreover, it was difficult to balance security and ease of use. That’s when we came up with the idea of ​​making a truly secure and easy-to-use Bitcoin wallet. Due to our accumulated experience in mobile Internet development, we also believed that we could do it. Therefore, we started the BitTorrent project. This is the general background and cause.

How long did it take from idea to product?

We started to learn and understand the Bitcoin source code and protocol principles after the Spring Festival in 2014. In March last year, we made a prototype demo. In mid-April, the entire team began to fully transform and develop Bither. The first fully functional Android version was released to Google Play on May 7. The first fully functional version (Bither Android v0.0.4) actually already had hot and cold modes realized by QR code scanning.

What was the initial product like? What problems did users report?

After the first version was initially discussed in the industry, many people were very supportive, including many industry leaders. Of course, some of the initial users were also very supportive. Because we are a small team, we focus mainly on technology, and other aspects are not enough. When we released the first version, many things were not done at all, such as QQ groups. An enthusiastic user didn't know how to find our email address and criticized us, so we set up the QQ group. These are the weaknesses of our team. After all, we are a very technical team, and there are too many deficiencies in other aspects.

The process of product improvement?

The first version was actually quite primitive, but the initial functional model was actually quite complete. Later, it was a process of continuous version iteration, improvement and perfection. In this process, it was actually a process of continuous self-improvement for our team. Our team has accumulated a lot of technology in the past in the development of mobile Internet, but in the field of Bitcoin, we have improved it while we were working on it. On May 7, Bither Android version v0.0.4 (the first fully functional version) was released. On May 20, we released the new version v0.0.5 and open sourced it on github.com. On July 28, we released Bither iOS v1.0.0. The iOS version should basically be regarded as the first application after Apple officially allowed Bitcoin applications to be launched (Apple's policy was to prohibit it before).

On August 11, we open-sourced the iOS version of BitTorrent and released our own Bitcoin protocol library for iOS, Bitheri. In addition, our previous Android version was developed based on bitcoinj, and bitocinj had many unavoidable problems due to its structural defects. So we finally decided to write our own Java Bitcoin protocol library. We released our own Java language Bitcoin protocol library Bitherj on September 4.

At this point, our team is actually maintaining the Bitcoin protocol libraries for two platforms: Bitheri (Objective-C) and Bitherj (Java), and Bitcoin wallet clients for two platforms, Bither-Android and Bither-iOS. On September 29, we released XRandom, a true random number solution. This, like Bither's hot and cold model, is the first of its kind in the industry.

In fact, when I was designing the lottery system, I knew a lot about random number generators, such as hardware random number generators. The lottery system does require the purchase of expensive hardware random number generators certified by professional organizations.

After that, of course, we continued to iterate and improve. For example, we significantly optimized performance, saved more power, supported TouchID on iOS, and optimized the performance of scanning QR codes. We made many iterations. Then at the end of the year, on December 30, we released a version that supports signing messages and verifying signatures. This function is actually needed by many people. If you want to get the signed version of Professor Chang Qia's book, you were required to sign a message with your Bitcoin private key and post it in the forum.

The function of signing messages and verifying signatures is also the most convenient to operate on BitTorrent. In most cases, you only need to scan the QR code.

On January 7, 2015, we released the first version of the Bitcoin Wallet desktop version v0.0.2 (before 0.0.1, it was tested in the user group). On January 9, we released a new model that combines HD and Multisig technologies, HDM, and made the first HDM implementation. In fact, the first HDM implementation we made is just a model for users to choose. In the future, there may be more HDM models in the expanded version of Bitcoin Wallet to meet specific Bitcoin management needs within enterprises.

On April 9 this year, we released the desktop version of the Bitcoin Wallet v1.3.2, which integrates the functions of the Honor Address Vanitygen and the extended HDM model, which can be used for Bitcoin asset management within the enterprise, and can flexibly combine asset allocation and division of responsibilities and rights between different personnel. This is still under development, so there is no detailed description yet. In the future, relevant content will be added and the technical details will be shared with everyone on Babbitt.

Regarding the Honor Address, many people may think that BitTorrent has only integrated a tool called vanitygen. In fact, most people underestimate samr7 and his tool vanitygen. The content in it is far more than everyone thinks. It is a pity that after 2012, samr7 no longer updated this project.

We all know that if an open source project is no longer maintained, its vitality will wither, so our team should maintain a fork of the previous version of vanitygen and improve the main and new Bitcoin technology. Regarding more technical details of vanitygen, I originally planned to give a public class on Babbitt, but I didn’t have time for it some time ago. I should do it in the next 1-2 weeks.

On April 11, 2015, Bither iOS v1.3.2 passed the official Apple App Store review. The review process for this version was actually quite tortuous. Most people don’t know about it because it was revised several times. Moreover, Apple did not queue up for the review of this version. That is, once the update was submitted, it would be reviewed the next day. After the review, they would tell you if there were any problems. Then, we would immediately make changes and submit again. After two versions, it passed the review. This was actually because of Apple Watch. At that time, Apple officially allowed the submission of Watch apps, but we did not have a real Watch. So, in a few places, the reviewer took the real machine and ran it, saying that this needed to be changed, and that needed to be changed. We changed it and submitted it again, and basically achieved the first wave of Watch apps that passed the review. This is also the reason why some people can run Bither directly on the Watch after receiving the real Watch on the 20th. This is probably the situation of the main version of Bither Wallet.

Has Bitai ever raised funds? Is it profitable?

Well, we haven’t raised any money, but the BitTorrent team has some revenue inside and outside the industry. Our team’s revenue in the non-Bitcoin industry mainly comes from the mobile Internet technology that we have accumulated before. The related technical services have revenue, although it basically does not occupy our energy, but there is still a certain amount of revenue. This is outside the industry.

Then, in the past period of time, we have been developing the enterprise version of Bitcoin Wallet, and some companies in the industry have also contacted us. We all know that Bitcoin companies lose coins almost every day. In this regard, we will also provide (revenue-generating) technical solutions.

What are the criteria for becoming an official recommended wallet for Bitcoin? What are the advantages of BitTorrent compared to other recommended wallets?

The standard should be safety. Actually, we checked it some time ago and found that the previous review was relatively loose. For example, last year, people like knc who directly forked the code were allowed to go online. Starting this year, the safety requirements are much higher. After submitting the application, they will review it according to the safety standards, including code review.

Compared with other wallets, Bither actually has many innovations, but the most important point is:

Most other wallet solutions usually meet some of the needs of users. For example, for daily small amounts, you may use a certain wallet, but you may not use it for large amounts. But generally speaking, the solution of BitTorrent is that users can use it for both large and small amounts. If you want security, users can prepare a mobile phone without Internet access to store large amounts of Bitcoin offline. If you want ease of use, users can just store small amounts of daily Bitcoin on their daily mobile phones. Whether it is on a computer or a mobile phone, you can use BitTorrent in this way.

Other wallet solutions usually solve a certain point.

In addition, here are some of our innovations:

Hot and cold

Previously, hot and cold functions were only available on the computer side via Armory. However, the hot and cold functions on the mobile side, based on QR codes, actually provide much better user experience and security.

Very random

Previously, there was a solution to collect additional environmental noise through the mouse and keyboard (bitaddress.org). We use the rich sensing devices of smartphones (camera, microphone, gravity, geomagnetic, acceleration, light and other sensors) to collect the user's environmental noise, similar to this.

We have also made a lot of efforts and improvements in the implementation of HD and Multisig to make the user experience smoother and to allow users to easily store and use Bitcoin while ensuring security. In fact, we will continue to improve these aspects (there are many planned improvement plans that have to be implemented step by step). The wallet involves user assets, so we can't be impatient or wrong.

What are your recent development plans?

We will be promoting the enterprise version of the Bitcoin wallet in the near future to help businesses manage their Bitcoin assets more securely and strive to reduce the number of incidents of corporate coin loss. This is our first goal in the near future.

The second goal is to expand the services of the open platform based on the decentralized Bitcoin wallet solution. In this way, third-party developers do not need to develop Bitcoin code to support Bitcoin in their applications. Just like when you pay money on Weibo, Weibo itself does not need to implement the payment function. The mobile phone will jump to the payment interface of Alipay, and you just need to pay and come back. In the future, we will provide services in this area to meet the needs of third-party applications. In addition, we will also provide extended services based on multi-signature technology.

One year review of Bither Wallet:

2014

On May 7, Bitai Android version v0.0.4 (the first fully functional version) was released on Google Play.

On May 20, the new version v0.0.5 was released and open sourced on github.com.

On July 28, Bither iOS v1.0.0 was released. The iOS version is the first application after Apple officially allowed Bitcoin applications to be launched (Apple’s previous policy was to prohibit it).

On August 11, the iOS version of Bitcoin was open sourced, and the self-developed Bitcoin protocol library Bitheri for the iOS platform was released.

On September 4, Bitherj, Bitherj’s own Bitcoin protocol library written in Java, was released.

On September 29, XRandom, a true random number solution, was released. It is the first of its kind in the industry.

Subsequently, it continued to iterate and improve: greatly optimized performance, more power saving, iOS supported TouchID, optimized performance of scanning QR codes, etc.

On December 30, a version supporting signing messages and verifying signatures was released.

2015

On January 7, the first version of the Bitcoin Wallet desktop version v0.0.2 was released.

On January 9, a new model that combines HD and Multisig technologies, HDM, was released, and the first HDM implementation was made.

On April 9, the desktop version of Bitcoin Wallet v1.3.2 was released, integrating the functions of Honor Address Vanitygen and the expanded HDM model, which can be used for internal Bitcoin asset management in enterprises.

On April 11, bither iOS v1.3.2 passed Apple's official App Store review.

On May 5, Bitcoin became the official recommended wallet of bitcoin.org.