Bitcoin Armory offline wallet

Hey all – life’s been crazy with finals and a graduation or two to attend. Glad to finally be back writing about Bitcoin. There’s been some exciting developments lately, but after attending the MIT Bitcoin Expo a few weeks back and learning of the release of a pair of ease of use-focused Bitcoin products (Boston-based Circle‘s product and QuickCoin), I want to speak on a philosophical level in this post.

Both Circle and a Bitcoin startup known as Armory had featured speakers at the MIT Bitcoin Expo. The products of these companies couldn’t be more different. While Armory is by no means difficult to use for most tech-literate people, it seemed to me that Armory placed little or no emphasis on being user-friendly. For example, a paper backup is the only way to back up and retrieve your wallet if you happen to forget a password. One also needs to install and synchronize the full Bitcoin-qt client and run a full node to use Armory online. Armory also has an option for an offline wallet for “cold storage” – possibly the most secure way to hold bitcoins. This requires an offline computer, though, which is simply not something every Bitcoin user is going to have on hand. (Read more about using Armory’s wallet here.)

Armory is still in a beta build, yet there have been no reported hacks or losses of bitcoins due to the software itself. If one loses their paper backup and something happens to the computer (online or offline) on which the wallet is hosted, though, bitcoins can be lost. Using Armory is inconvenient – no two ways about it. Installing and synchronizing Bitcoin-qt takes hours, and even after it’s installed, it can take a few minutes to load. An offline computer just seems completely unnecessary to own for any other purpose besides something like Armory. And paper is annoying. Yet security of a digital currency in a world full of hackers is an issue that may be paramount.