Casa App: Home for your bitcoin

by Michael Haley 4 years ago 5 min read

Six months after announcing Casa’s focus on bitcoin security, we’re updating the name our flagship product.

At the start of 2020, we announced Casa’s laser focus on secure self-custody for bitcoin.

Why?

Because eleven years into bitcoin’s existence, it’s still incredibly difficult to secure your funds. Too many bitcoiners are asked to make tradeoffs between the security + accessibility of their wealth on one hand, and their own self-sovereignty on the other.

We built Casa to change that.

That’s why today, six months after redoubling our efforts on bitcoin security, we’re updating the name of our flagship product: Casa Keymaster is now Casa App.

Casa is home. For you and your bitcoin.

Why the name Casa?

Today, few of us are at home in the digital world.

Rather than spending time in spaces that we’ve crafted ourselves - whose rules we’ve determined - most of us, at the end of the day, are squatting on someone else’s property. This month’s Twitter breach was a sobering reminder.

Not your database, not your tweets.
— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) July 15, 2020

So what does a genuine home look like in cyberspace? The distinguishing feature is that you hold your keys — and no one else.

Bitcoin provides the keys to secure your financial sovereignty, and Casa exists to help you manage them safely.

(Re)Introducing Casa App

Casa App is the safest, easiest way to secure your bitcoin wealth for the long term. No matter what comes your way.

DIY self-custody is empowering and a great option for some users. But staying up to date with key management best practices (or even hardware wallet firmware versions) can be daunting and time-intensive. It’s also unforgiving. A single mistake can result in catastrophic funds loss.

Casa App allows you to maintain full control over your wealth, while putting the innumerable dos and don’ts of bitcoin key management on autopilot.

The world’s best self-custody experience

Casa App can be used standalone as a software-only wallet, but has been purpose-built to work with Casa memberships.

Casa Gold, Platinum, and Diamond memberships are all built on our hardened multi-signature, multi-device, and multi-location security model. And each tier includes greater sovereignty and resilience for your wealth, plus bespoke and customized service to keep you safe from new threats and new vulnerabilities.

Learn more about our memberships here or check out our full security docs.

With half of 2020 now behind us, we wanted to take this opportunity recap all the improvements we’ve made to Casa App over the past 6 months:

In February, after 18 months of research and development, we launched Casa Covenant. Covenant is the definitive bitcoin inheritance solution, designed in tandem with the co-creator of Glacier Protocol. After extensive piloting in 2019, we took Covenant live in Q1, and have helped clients secure their wealth for their loved ones every month since.

In March, we added support for Coldcard. A core feature of Casa’s security model is leveraging different hardware wallets from different manufacturers, further securing you against supply chain attacks and manufacturer-specific vulnerabilities. Today, Casa members can now use these hardware wallets:

Trezor One
Trezor Model T
Ledger Nano S
Ledger Nano X
Coldcard Mk 3

Last month, we launched Casa Wallet. Built inside Casa App, this single-key wallet can be used standalone (i.e. without a Casa membership). It’s best for securing smaller amounts of BTC and is a great way to introduce anyone to being their own bank with bitcoin.

In Q1 and Q2, our engineering team rewrote Casa’s back end infrastructure to use Electrum, resulting in significant performance improvements. We’ve shared our findings about the performance of different Electrum implementations in the report above.

This past Thursday, we announced a slew of service improvements to our Diamond offering. Every Diamond client now receives white-glove support for large bitcoin purchases, personalized security planning, and invitations to closed-door discussions with Casa's co-founders and experts in bitcoin and personal security.

Finally - here's a sampling of the many incremental changes we've made to Casa App in the first half of 2020:

Improvements to Sovereign Recovery - Casa clients are never dependent on Casa or Casa tools to access their bitcoin. In 2018, we launched the Casa Sovereign Recovery Instructions, a step-by-step guide making it easy for clients to recover their BTC using open source software. In 2020, we’ve streamlined this process and made it possible for users to access the seed to their Mobile Key - even if they’re offline. This gives Casa members greater independence and resilience - even in catastrophic scenarios. (You can view a copy of the Sovereign Recovery guide live on Wallets Recovery.)
Health Check reminders - Every 6 months, Casa members now get helpful, automated reminders to perform Health Checks on their keys. Private keys can become corrupted or lost over time - regular checkups are needed, and these reminders help make that easy.
Across the board performance and stability improvements - As well as UX improvements and a rebuilt onboarding process for Casa Gold.
Status page - And lastly, we launched status.keys.casa, so you can monitor our infrastructure health at all times.

Stay Tuned

What’s next? Some of our biggest announcements are coming later this year.

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