So I have been looking at bitkey and kind of want to get one, not for any specific reason, but Nat Brunel has a promo code to get one for like 99 bucks, and I'm tempted.
Thought I would ask SN what the consensus is on them, i had a look through all the faqs and how they work and how the 2 of 3 works, and that's fine, but i dont know how comfortable i am having an account linked to my identity and also the Emergency Exit Kit (an encrypted version of the app key in PDF form that is generated at setup and stored in the cloud account) doesnt give me great confidence as computers and phones are easy to compromise —an encrypted version of your app key in PDF form that is generated at setup and stored in your cloud account.
So thought i would see what you guys think and any arguments for and against you have
It seems like a pretty secure system. I like that they have streamlined things to the point where a foot-gun is very unlikely.
Personally, I don't plan on buying one because I like the nuclear option having access to my seedwords / private keys gives me. The emergency exit kit is probably fine in 99% of failure cases, but I'm still happier with being able to actually view my keys.
that's how evil capitalism gets you, huh, offering yah GOOD STUFF for JUICY PRICES.
to answer your question: I like it for what it does in my setup (first in-out, receive-send wallet) and that multisig/recovery layer over a hot phone wallet that I otherwise would have used gives me a lot of peace of mind.
I have not yet had to stresstest this (not recovered or lost my keys or hardware... yet) so I can't speak to how well it works.
What I really don't like is that I can't see UTXOs or choose from which ones it pulls. (There is a function to consolidate them, and with on-chain monitoring I can make educated guesses but still annoying). Basically any time coins have gone through my BitKey they're polluted from an on-chain surveillance point of view.
Oh, and the fee structure (probs a consequence of the multisig setup) makes it annoyingly expensive to transact (minimum 200-300 sats each tx).
But as a hardware wallet (again, replacing phone wallets or exchange) the BitKey is amazing... I'd def recommend it to newbies
Seeing the utxos would be classed as coin control, right? is that now a common feature on most hardware wallets?
I can't speak to "most" (ask somebody who routinely uses more than the ~2-3 hww I've ever used), but it's a feature I feel pretty naked/blind without
i feel like I should feel naked, and possibly even blind without it, but until now i have just made different wallets and named them to keep track, but i dont think that's quite the same thing
I think it's pretty noob friendly, like others have said. Good for people who can't trust themselves to keep things secure, which is frankly most non-technical / non self hosting oriented type people in my opinion. It doesn't have a screen at all which I think is a downside for sure.
It is kinda bullshit that you need to link a google account, which I remember having to do, I just made a burner account. But people who aren't way into the weeds on self custody and privacy probably won't care much about that.
Something I think is cool that they do is allow spending control (daily limits) which IMO should be a more popular feature for more wallets in general, I've been a strong proponent for "vault" like mechanisms whether that's at the protocol level or wallet implementations. Some kind of mechanism with a time-lock or limit on spending the entire balance. I think it's actually super important for self custody to take off in general since the risk of catastrophic failure due to mistakes and scams is way too high for normal people, but I digress.
I think it's a good wallet to give to your grandma or little brother, but any more sophisticated user probably would prefer something else. But like you mentioned it does simplify the 2-of-3 setup A LOT.
If you buy without code you spent 220k sats, with code you saved 72k sats (u said u had a discount), but not buying it at all saves 140k ! Easy math lol