Written by John Scianna, Contributor
BitGo, the company that pioneered the first multi-signature wallet, is announcing today that the Bitcoin Foundation has elected to use BitGo Enterprise’s security solutions for its operations. The Bitcoin Foundation is a non-profit trade organization and its core values are the “development, safety, and promotion” of Bitcoin.
Will O’Brien, the CEO and co-Founder of BitGo, stated that the Bitcoin Foundation’s “adoption of multi-sig is a case study for the world. As stewards of the core protocol code and influencers in other important areas of the ecosystem, the Foundation must have business continuity and operational scalability.”
The news comes at a time when security of bitcoin assets has become a top priority in the community. BitGo Enterprise’s platform utilizes multi-signature security and hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets that allow for master public keys and master private keys.
Simply put, Multi-signature technology requires multiple parties to sign off on transactions and HD wallet addresses are generated from a master seed or “parent key.” From the parent keys, child keys can be generated where the parent can have access over the child accounts but not vice versa. This is perfect for companies, as the legal department or sales department can have their own funds and sub-funds to use their allocated capital accordingly. So, the CFO, CEO or audit team could then hold the master/parent keys to manage over the company’s funds.
The multi-signature and HD wallet technology gives customers of BitGo Enterprise the security they need while having the ease of using their bitcoins in day-to-day transactions. For the Bitcoin Foundation, this means they can use BitGo’s financial and management tools for “payroll, technical grants, and other activities.”
O’Brien, said “Multi-sig and HD are foundational standards that will make it safer to store and transact in bitcoin, and therefore accelerate bitcoin adoption.”
According to Jodie Brady, Bitcoin Foundation’s Director of Operations, “BitGo is the first in the ecosystem to provide a sophisticated wallet for securely managing spending authority at an institutional level. BitGo are truly innovators, in that they are bringing functionality traditionally provided by conventional banking services to the Bitcoin ecosystem.”
Having raised $12 million in a Series-A funding round earlier this year, BitGo is one of the most well-funded companies in bitcoin. BitGo Enterprise’s features include 24/7 monitoring and industry leading alerts, along with spending limits, approval for large transactions and more. In addition, BitGo’s service gives users full-control over their bitcoin assets and acts simply as a “security layer and co-signer, similar to how a safe deposit box works” said O’Brien.
Bitcoin technologies are exhibiting more and more each day the wonderful applications they can be applied to, from making simple transactions to managing key accounting components of large organizations.