BitPay has launched a new wallet application for mobile and desktop operating systems, which it says “brings together the best features and integrations of the BitPay payment experience... without compromising on security or usability.” The impetus for BitPay wallet was so that the company could “integrate more BitPay-powered services into the experience, while allowing the Copay wallet to remain true to its open source nature.”
The major drawback with the BitPay wallet, despite the massive strides it makes into ease-of-use, is that it’s US-oriented. For example, to buy bitcoins to load into your wallet you must use a US-based bank account. While you can still send bitcoins to the wallet or buy from another source, the experience will be downgraded compared to that received by US-based users.
The major features in the BitPay wallet on launch include:
- Loading and management of a BitPay Visa Prepaid Debt Card directly from the app, which can be used with any Visa merchant, or instantly withdraw cash from any Visa-compatible ATM
- Locally stored bitcoins, with user control over private keys, therefore BitPay can’t get access to your money
- Ability to split funds across multiple wallets
- Support for shared multi-sig wallets
- Support for multi-device authentication on up to six different devices to authorize payments
- Open source
- Integration for buying Amazon.com gift cards
BitPay says that it will continue to release Copay for all platforms, and the Copay project will continue to be the primary “development head” for BitPay. To download the BitPay wallet, just head over to the dedicated page on BitPay.com.
Source: BitPay