My honest review of Bitkey Wallet

I received my Bitkey wallet few days ago and I have being playing with it since then.

For those who don’t know, Bitkey is the first wallet from Block (Jack Dorsey). It aims to bring self custody to normies. There is no seed (yeah, no seed) and no seed means no seed at all.

It’s a multisig wallet for non tech savvy. Everything goes behind the scenes.

You have some levels of backup, so you can recover your BTC in case you lost your phone or your hardware wallet and even both.

Here’s my review (sorry for my English faults).

PROS

The device definitely has a UOU factor. It’s like a little stone, well designed and seems robust. Really look likes something came from the future.

Setup was ridiculously easy. In less than 4 minutes everything was working. I have added my wife as the secure contacted, download the app to her and that’s it.

I have sent some sats to it and they’re there. The UI of the app is simple and beautiful.

Unfortunately the PROS ends here

CONS

The main problem to me is that you don’t have your seed. I think that Block took this decision to protect users from their own mistake. But there are users that want their seed. Without the seed you are locked at Block device forever. If the hardware fails you have to order another one. If they go out of business or stop sending to your country you’re rekt. You can’t move large amounts of bitcoin without the hardware.

If you die your family can’t recover your BTC. There is no option to add another fingerprint at the device.

Clouds everywhere. Yes, you can recover your wallet easier. But the trade off is that there are sensitive information at ICloud and ar Block’s server. You need to trust them.

You can’t control transaction fees. There is no option. And this is a double sign device, so you will pay twice.

The daily limit to send BTC is too low. You can’t choose more than 200 bucks. This causes more dependence on the hardware.

CONCLUSION

Bitkey is a wallet for beginners. A kind of first step at the self custody world. But I think that with a little more research people would be better with other wallets.

Self custody without a seed seems like a paradox.

I’ll keep mine and hope they add some features down the road. But this is not a device that I would trust to add huge amounts of money until they figure out how to solve this problems.