Airbitz Wins!

What is Airbitz?  Well…Airbitz is a company first and foremost.  An amazing company that conveys levels of dedication to their product and customer service that are few and far between these days.  We at TBP had the immense pleasure of interviewing the CEO of Airbitz, Paul Puey.  And, during the interview I began to understand how the product, their wallet, is so amazing.  A vast amount of life experiences in customer service industries as well as a hella-technical background helped Puey and his team forge this wallet of awesomeness. Him and his team at Airbitz are bonafide digital wallet-smiths. Airbitz Wins! They win the wallet war by finding the perfect balance between privacy, safety, security, and simplicity.

Privacy is a new problem.  As technology advances and widely spreads privacy is becoming not-so private.  In today’s social media driven interactions it is very likely that something that you say or do will end up on someone’s Snapchat story, or someone’s YouTube page.  As all facets of our lives get turned into data, or in the words of the amazing 80’s show, “Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future,” we become digitized and morphed into 1’s and 0’s.  Digitized versions of you or floating all over the interwebs and landing in places you may not want them to be.  So, in a world where you have to be digitized just to exist, no really…a lot of employers will not employ you if you do not have a social media presence, then how do you protect your 1’s and 0’s? How do you keep things private? Airbitz uses the power and slickness of encryption to keep you private…to keep your 1’s and 0’s with you.  Firstly, they don’t want your address, email , or phone number.  Secondly, they encrypt everything on the client-side, that is your side o’awesome user!  All of your information is encrypted before it drops into the internet ocean.  I will put it like this, unencrypted data to an internet bad dude is like blood to a shark…they’ll find it. Lastly…Hiearchal Deterministic Wallets capable of changing your sending address with every purchase.  A little pro-tip for the users…changing your sending address every time you send bits highly protects you from the internet sharks, well, Airbitz’s wallet will do it for you.  In my opinion as a long term bitcoin user, when it comes to privacy, Airbitz wins!

Banks, they are pretty sore subject matter in the bitcoin community.  Why? Because they suck, literally.  They leech wealth from the unwealthy to perpetuate their own wealth…that is nasty nasty business.  Let’s rewind the clock, banks exist for a real reason and a good one. Thousands of years ago, if your neighbor up’d and decided he wanted to come over to your property and take your gold bullions, all he would need is will and better weapons than you.  One genius guy said, “Hey, I’ll hold your money at a tiny fee…I’m going to take everyone’s fees and spend that money to protect everyone’s money.”  Banks kept money safe, and they were needed.  But…now they aren’t!  Airbitz cuts a bank out, and these modern banks need to be cut out because they have forgotten their purpose.  Not even Airbitz can get to your funds.  This was taken directly from the FAQ on their site:

Q: Does Airbitz have access to my Bitcoin funds or personal info?

A: No, neither Airbitz nor any third party can access the private keys, or even the public addresses and transactional metadata of any users. Private and public keys are generated on the user’s device and encrypted using THEIR login/password (Airbitz has no ability to decrypt the data). The encrypted data is then stored on their device and backed up to peer-to-peer cloud servers with a very high level of redundancy. User’s can access their funds from any compatible iPhone or Android device using the Airbitz mobile app and the same login & password.

Now ask yourself, if Airbitz does not have access to your funds, then how in the world can anyone else when they are encrypted on your side? In my opinion as a long term bitcoin user, when it comes to safety, Airbitz wins!

Safety has a sibling and that sibling is security.  Internet security is a very lucrative field these days.  If you have a website, then securing it should now be on the forefront of your mind.  Not a last minute custodial afterthought.  The team at Airbitz built this wallet from the ground up with C/C++ and heavy encryption with password hashes. Security, is the foundation of this wallet. Not the frame, not the plumbing, not the drywall…it is the foundation. In my opinion as a long term bitcoin user, when it comes to security, Airbitz wins!

I had an old professor that was more than generous with his office hours.  He was around 70 years old and had lived such an amazing life as an engineer. It just so happened that I had a block of free time in my schedule that coincided with his.  After the very first day of class I walked into his office and said, “I just listened to you lecture for 90 minutes, and I didn’t understand a single noun you used.”  He laughed…I laughed.  Then he told me, “You need to drop this class.”  I told him, “That’s not an option.”  For an entire semester he taught me foundations of electrical engineering from knowing zero things about electricity to using Ohm’s, Kirchhoff’s, and Joule’s Laws like a true boss should.  I mean boss in the colloquial sense…like how a rapper would use it. The one thing I tell my students that he told me at least three times a week, “You need to KISS the problems…Keep It Simple Stupid.”  By the end of the semester it got to the point where he would even bop me on the forehead like those V8 commercials.  Where am I going with this?  Airbitz keeps it simple.  There are a slew of features in this wallet for the users, but by far the standout feature is the business directory.  No longer do you have to wonder where you can spend your bitcoin. The very moment you finish setting up the wallet you are met with a directory of business nearest to you that accept bitcoin…and the user interface rides smoother than a Mercedes on the autobahn.  Not to mention multiple wallets per account with editable metadata.  Oh yeah…automatic wallet encryption, automatic backups, and multiple device synchronization!  This wallet is the standard!  And, all other wallets in the game…they need to take notes.  In my opinion as a long term bitcoin user, when it comes to simplicity, Airbitz wins!

So…as a company, Paul Puey and his team have built the Ferrari of bitcoin wallets. Such unrelenting focus on privacy, safety, security, and simplicity is why, in my opinion as a long term bitcoin user, Airbitz wins!