AirGap, a self-custody bitcoin and crypto wallet with a storage application, announced today its latest release. In update v3.11.0, AirGap implemented support for SegWit for Bitcoin (BTC), improved secret import and entropy collection via dice rolls.
Segregated Witness (SegWit) 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 with AirGap, existing users of BTC need to generate a new address in AirGap Vault and send the funds to the new SegWit address.
Other Improvements Include:
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 users can collect their entropy without any digital help from the inbuilt device RNG (random number generators).
On the import page, there is now an advanced toggle. Users can then choose dice rolls or coin flips as a way of generating a mnemonic.
New secure mnemonic import feature (inbuilt keyboard)
The AirGap team has now replaced the normal device keyboard with its own virtual keyboard.
This produces advantages such as:
- The keyboard can not record/save a mnemonic (some device keyboards do that for spell checking and send everything entered to a server — this is not good for security). AirGap’s 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 their shoulders.
- There is a “hide” button that masks the mnemonic that was already entered, improving the security if someone watches over one’s shoulder.
BIP85 child mnemonic management
When generating a BIP85 child mnemonic, it is now possible to directly import that child mnemonic as a secret into AirGap. So users 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.”
– The AirGap Team