Bitkey demos Emergency Exit Kit for fund recovery without app access

The biggest fear in self-custody isn’t losing your private keys. It’s trusting that the company behind your wallet will still exist when you need it most. Bitkey, the Bitcoin hardware wallet built by Jack Dorsey’s Block, Inc., is trying to solve that problem with what it calls the Emergency Exit Kit, a feature that lets users transfer their funds without ever touching Block’s servers or app. How the Emergency Exit Kit actually works Bitkey uses a 2-of-3 multisig architecture, meaning three keys exist but only two are needed to authorize a transaction. The user holds two of them: an App Key (stored on their phone) and a Hardware Key (stored on the physical Bitkey device). Block holds the third. Under normal circumstances, the App Key and Block’s server key handle routine transactions. The hardware device steps in for higher-security operations. But the Emergency Exit Kit flips that model on its head for worst-case scenarios. During initial wallet setup, Bitkey generates an encrypted version of the App Key and saves it as a PDF to the user’s iCloud Drive or Google Drive. That PDF, combined with the physical Hardware Key, forms the Emergency Exit Kit. Together, they give the user both...