Foundation Passport review and thoughts

Having just lived through the setup and misery of a blockstream jade setup last week, I felt compelled to write a quick summary of my passport setup and experience.

It’s a pricey hardware wallet at $259, but now that coldcard and ledger are both coming out with $200-300 devices, it feels right in line.

I purchased because I wanted a fully airgapped, QR code reading publicly usable hardware wallet. Since the jade doesn’t currently support safe public airgapped use, due to no way to input a pin, the passport felt like my best option.

The hardware feels like an old Nokia candy bar phone, very solid and heavy in your hand, but feels quite good quality. The buttons feel a little finicky and loose, like a slight redesign could give better feel to match the premium feel of the overall design.

Upon setup, you get cards to write down your 24 word seed phrase, and the device also makes an encrypted backup to an included industrial micro sd card.

I decided to try the envoy software and it is very simple and straightforward, feels great for newer bitcoiners who want an easy to use Bitcoin only wallet with no extra features. Use with your phone is very simple and 100% airgapped, scan a QR code in both directions to send a transaction.

Overall I’m quite happy with the device, although I’m also excited to see what new hardware wallets come out this year, the coldcard q1 looks compelling and whatever Jack Dorsey ends up coming out with.