Cowrie Research

foundation-devices-primary-sources-2026-05-01

4 min read

Foundation Devices primary-source snapshot

Fetched: 2026-05-01 UTC

1) Official Passport product page

Source: https://foundation.xyz/passport-core/

Selected excerpts from the official site:

Passport Core has no direct connection with the outside world – meaning your keys are never directly exposed online.

Passport Core uses a camera and QR codes for communication.

Passport Core’s software and hardware are both fully open source.

Additional signals from the source:

  • The Passport page is the clearest high-level statement of Foundation’s airgapped model: camera + QR + microSD, no USB data, no Bluetooth, and no wireless communications of any kind
  • The same page also surfaces supply-chain-tamper checks, security lights, anti-phishing words, replaceable battery details, and core hardware components, which makes it much more useful than a generic ecommerce product page
  • The combination of “Bitcoin only,” airgapped communication, and fully open hardware/software is the core classification signal

2) Official Envoy product page

Source: https://foundation.xyz/envoy/

Selected excerpts from the official site:

Manage your Bitcoin mobile wallet and Passport hardware wallet accounts, all in the same app.

Envoy offers a guided, mobile-first experience for your Passport.

Envoy’s code base is fully open source under GPLv3 and is reproducible.

Additional signals from the source:

  • Envoy is clearly more than a setup helper; the page exposes hot-wallet functions, Passport management, Tor connectivity, own-node connectivity, firmware updating, transaction tagging, and Magic Backups
  • The page also states that Magic Backups are optional and apply only to the mobile wallet, never Passport, which matters for understanding custody boundaries
  • The architecture note about Flutter + Rust helps explain why the GitHub repo is substantial rather than a thin mobile wrapper

3) Foundation docs portal and Passport / Envoy docs

Sources:

Selected excerpts from the official docs:

Passport Core is our next generation hardware wallet for keeping your bitcoin safe and secure.

Envoy is our cross platform mobile wallet and Passport companion app.

Additional signals from the source:

  • The docs homepage cleanly splits the product surface into Envoy, Passport Core, and Passport Prime
  • Envoy docs link to mobile-wallet setup, Passport management, in-app bitcoin purchase flows, send/receive guides, backups, and troubleshooting, which reinforces that the mobile app is part of the operational stack
  • The docs corpus is lighter on architectural prose than the product pages and repos, but it is still the canonical navigation layer for how Foundation wants users to think about the products

4) Passport firmware repository

Source: https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2

Selected excerpts/signals from the official repo:

Passport is an ultra-secure, open source hardware wallet for Bitcoin that offers excellent usability and a great design.

Bootloader - This is typically flashed into the device permanently at the factory

Main Firmware - This is the main, updatable software running on Passport

Additional signals from the source:

  • The repo documents the separation between bootloader and main firmware, secure-element initialization, firmware validation, code-signing utilities, and reproducibility guidance
  • It also explicitly lists upstream dependencies such as MicroPython, LVGL, Coldcard firmware influences, Trezor crypto libraries, and Foundation’s own UR tooling
  • This repo is one of the strongest primary sources for understanding that Passport is a serious firmware project rather than only a branded consumer device

5) Passport hardware repository

Source: https://github.com/Foundation-Devices/passport2-hardware

Selected excerpts/signals from the official repo:

This repository contains the electromechanical design files for Passport.

Additional signals from the source:

  • The repo exposes electronics, mechanical, and bill-of-materials folders, which is strong evidence that Foundation’s open-source claim extends into hardware design files and assembly inputs
  • For classification, this moves Foundation closer to open-hardware self-custody infrastructure than to a closed appliance vendor with only a marketing-level “open source” narrative

6) Envoy repository and GitHub organization

Sources:

Selected excerpts/signals from the official repo/org:

Envoy is a companion app for the Passport hardware wallet.

Envoy is a Bitcoin wallet Flutter application with Rust backend libraries for cryptographic operations.

Additional signals from the source:

  • The Envoy repo shows substantial internal packages for backup encryption, Tor HTTP, Shamir sharing, UR encoding, and next-gen wallet functions
  • The GitHub organization also surfaces Passport firmware, Passport hardware, Envoy, KeyOS, release repos, and shared libraries, which makes the overall stack look coherent and actively maintained
  • The org tagline — “Building the open hardware foundation for Bitcoin and the sovereign Internet” — is useful context for how the company frames itself publicly

Notes

  • Foundation Devices appears best cataloged as bitcoin hardware-wallet infrastructure / open-hardware self-custody stack / airgapped signing / companion-wallet control plane.
  • No canonical standalone whitepaper or litepaper surfaced in this pass.
  • The most useful primary sources are the Passport and Envoy product pages plus the Passport firmware, Passport hardware, and Envoy repositories.

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