AirGap adds support for SegWit, improved secret import and entropy collection via dice rolls
While celebrating our fourth anniversary, we released a non-exhaustive list of our plan features. Among those were integration for SegWit, entropy collection via dice rolls and coin flips, and a new secure mnemonic import feature (inbuilt keyboard). Our most recent updates (3.10.0 and 3.11.0) bring support for the three listed features.
SegWit — AirGap now supports sending and receiving to SegWit Bitcoin addresses 🚀
SegWit (short for Segregated Witness) is an update to the Bitcoin protocol that modified the way data was stored in the blockchain. This update brings several benefits, including increased scalability, faster transaction times, and, most important, lower transaction fees.
To use SegWit, existing users of BTC (with AirGap) need to generate a new address in AirGap Vault and send the funds to the new SegWit address. But this is optional. There is no security issue if you keep your funds on the old/legacy address. It only makes sense if you frequently use your BTC address, because you can save fees.
Entropy collection via dice rolls and coin flips 🎲
Secret generation with dice rolls and coin flips is a security feature to generate secure mnemonics by using a specific sequence of inputs for entropy. The advantage of this is that you can collect your entropy without any digital help from the inbuilt device RNG (random number generators).
On the import page, there is now an advanced toggle. You can then choose dice rolls or coin flips as a way of generating a mnemonic.
In the next few days, we will release a new blog that talks more about SegWit and entropy collection via dice rolls and coin flips in detail. So stay tuned.
New secure mnemonic import feature (inbuilt keyboard) ⌨️
We replaced the normal device keyboard with our own virtual keyboard. This brings a couple of advantages:
- The keyboard can not record/save your mnemonic (some device keyboards do that for spell checking and send everything you entered to a server — this is not good for your security). Our keyboard does not use any external dependencies and is included with the app.
- The new keyboard allows only valid words from the BIP39 list to be imported. So there can be no more typos / double spaces, etc.
- The keyboard has BIP39 words autocomplete for faster imports.
- There is a “scramble” button that shuffles the order of the letters on the keyboard, improving the security if someone is looking over your shoulders.
- There is a “hide” button that masks the mnemonic that you already entered, improving the security if someone watches over your shoulder.
Easy BIP85 child mnemonic management.
When you generate a BIP85 child mnemonic, it is now possible to directly import that child mnemonic as a secret into AirGap. So you don’t have to write it down before importing it.
The security features of AirGap are continually evolving, and in addition to the two new security features stated above, we also support the PSBT standard (BIP-174), which means the Vault is now compatible with other watch-only wallets, though this is currently in beta.
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