Casa's focus on bitcoin security

by Nick Neuman 6 years ago 6 min read

Casa had an amazing year in 2019. You can read our full recap here.

In 2020, we’re continuing our mission of maximizing personal sovereignty and security. This means setting our sights on the problem that we started Casa to solve in the first place: securing your bitcoin.

This is a longer post, and I’d encourage you to read it in full for the full picture of what we’re doing at Casa for the next year. Here are the quick takeaways:

• Casa will be laser-focused on Keymaster, our multisig solution that helps bitcoiners everywhere secure their bitcoin with peace of mind
• Casa membership at the Gold tier will be $10/month, giving everyone the opportunity to have robust security for their bitcoin for less than the price of a Netflix subscription!
• We will be open-sourcing the Casa Node so that anyone can build it on their own hardware (and we won’t be building new Nodes for now).

Here’s why we’re doing these things...

Securing your bitcoin still sucks

Eleven years after bitcoin was created, securing bitcoins is still really hard to do. Everyone, from individuals to experienced crypto OGs, agonizes over the challenge of doing this effectively. The result?

• Nearly 4 million bitcoins are estimated to be lost forever (that’s almost 20% of the total supply!)
• Over $150 million in cryptocurrency was stolen in (reported) hacks in 2019 alone
• Since 2017, the number of all-time physical attacks on bitcoiners has increased by 400%

Holding on to your bitcoin requires properly managing your private keys, and while we’ve seen some crazy stuff out there (people burying their keys in their yard, we’re looking at you), we have yet to see an easy solution. Many people skip this headache completely and keep their bitcoin on an exchange or with an intermediary, sacrificing security and control of their money. As the value of bitcoin continues to rise, hackers will continue targeting these large “honey-pots” of bitcoin.

Moreover, what is the point of building a new financial system on permission-less money if we turn around and give up our control to a bank with a new face?

To use bitcoin as it was meant to be used, we must empower individuals to manage their own private keys. Seed phrases, meant to be a private key backup to protect against loss, are a single point of failure and are difficult to keep over long periods of time. The majority of the world can barely keep track of their usernames and passwords—how can we expect them to properly manage seed phrases to secure their personal wealth?

Holding your own coins, and your own private keys, unlocks the true value and vision of bitcoin: the ability to have full control and full sovereignty over your money.

But it’s not easy. And if people can’t have peace of mind that their bitcoin will always be there, they won’t store significant personal wealth in it. Adoption of bitcoin as a store of value beyond the current community of early adopters won’t happen.

We are focusing our efforts at Casa on making it easy for everyone in the world to secure their bitcoin. We truly believe this is the biggest opportunity to bring bitcoin to billions of users.

Casa is focused on self-custody in 2020

We’re proud that in the last year, our Keymaster solution has become the gold standard for individuals securing bitcoin. Thousands of bitcoiners use Keymaster to finally get peace of mind that their bitcoin is safe and can be passed on to future generations.

Expecting someone not to make a mistake with a single private key is too high a bar—after all, we’re human. That’s the true magic of why Keymaster is so useful: a single key doesn’t matter, but the set of keys does. If you lose a key, you simply rotate it out for a new one using the remaining keys you still have, and your bitcoin remains safe.

Since losing a key is no longer a problem, you now don’t have to worry about writing down a seed phrase and squirreling it away in a drawer somewhere. You don’t need your seed phrase at all.

As we continue to build Keymaster into the safest place to keep your bitcoin, we’ll have some great updates coming this year, including:

• New inheritance features, so you can pass on your bitcoin to your loved ones after you pass away
• New hardware wallet integrations, with Coldcard coming soon
• Continuing to strengthen our Client Services for Platinum and Diamond members
• Making Keymaster even easier for all bitcoiners

This year, we are fully focused on helping people secure their bitcoin. This means we’ll be making some changes to the Casa Node and Sats App.

Casa Node will be free for anyone to build

The Casa Node was a massive step forward in usability for bitcoin and Lightning nodes. We created the first plug-and-play hardware node that allowed people to run bitcoin and Lightning as it was meant to be: with your own node. The Node 2 is now shipping out to everyone who has purchased one, and we’re excited to get it into your hands.

While we sold out our first batch of Casa Node 2’s, given our laser focus on Keymaster, we’ve decided to stop selling Casa Node 2 in the near term. As part of this change, we’ll work to fully open source the Casa Node software and its build scripts/images, so anyone can build the Casa Node on their own hardware! We’ll have more details on this coming, but we are very excited to have the Casa Node become a community open source project.

New Casa Gold membership

We have some exciting updates to our Casa Gold membership. Casa Gold will now only cost $10/month (billed annually). That means 2-of-3 multisig and peace of mind that your bitcoin is safe now costs less than your Netflix subscription.

We want to give every bitcoiner access to secure, easy-to-use bitcoin security. Now every person who uses a hardware wallet to secure their bitcoin can 10x their security by using it with Casa Keymaster. Coupling your hardware wallet with Keymaster gets you:

• Assurance against physical theft, in-person attacks, disaster, and accidents
• Protection against hacking, phishing, and SIM swaps
• Access to Casa Key Recovery Services (KRS) in case of lost keys

Sign up here to get top tier security for your bitcoin today. Our current Gold subscribers will be automatically converted to the $120/yr price, and will receive 3 months of additional subscription time as a gift from Casa—it's time to get your bitcoin security right for 2020!

Onward

The Casa team is extremely excited to continue working on making bitcoin easier to secure in 2020 and beyond. Join us in helping every bitcoiner hold their own keys. With Casa, you control your keys; you control your money.

FAQ

What will happen with my Casa Gold membership renewal?

• We’ll be giving every Casa Gold member an additional 3 months of membership time to try out Keymaster, and all current membership plans will shift to the $120/year price.

When will I receive my Casa Node 2?

• We are shipping out all existing Casa Node 2 orders over the next week!

Will you continue to support my Casa Node/Casa Node 2?

• Yes, we’ll continue to support our existing Casa Node customers, and we’re excited to build this into community project with support for a long time to come.

Will I still get a hardware wallet and Faraday bag with my Gold purchase?

• If you purchased before the new price, yes. With the new price, they won’t be included, but you will be able to buy them separately on our store.

Can I still earn SatsBack for using the Casa Node with Sats App?

• Since we’ll be allowing anyone to build their own Casa Node, we will no longer be providing SatsBack for connecting your Casa Node or for doing heartbeats. You can still use Heartbeats to check if your node is online, and Sats App to send/receive from your Casa Node.

What happens to my current SatsBack balance?

• In the coming weeks, we’ll lift the 50k sat limit on SatsBack cashouts and allow everyone to cash out their current rewards.