We created BitNote because we ran into an annoying problem: where do you store secret information?

The traditional advice is to use a fireproof safe that is bolted to the ground in a hidden place in your house. That’s great advice if you’re Batman. Unfortunately, for the rest of us that kind of physical security is not really feasible. 

Many people turn to centralized password managers like 1Password or Lastpass. Not only can these have pricey subscriptions and the threat of going out of business, they can also have a lot of security issues. And because they are not open source, you never really know what’s going on with your data.

Even open source alternatives like Bitwarden can have frustrating flaws, like the ability to permanently delete your vault if someone gets access to your email or having access blocked because you use a VPN. 

We’ve seen people store sensitive information in their Apple, Google, or Microsoft accounts (only sometimes encrypted), but what happens when they randomly decide to ban you or you get locked out of your account? Or worse, someone steals your phone and pin and now has access to everything.

We’ve seen people concoct crazy “security” practices like this poor soul, who split his crypto seedphrase between four excel files only to lose the data in a harddrive crash.

Even people who have high technical competency, like Bitcoin core developers, can have questionable security practices leading to hacks.

We searched for something that could store our secrets safely that would solve these issues. Decentralized, trustless, permissionless, open source, private, permanent storage that is highly secure but easily usable and accessible. And we didn’t find it. So we built BitNote.

BitNote is built with simple, time tested technology: HTML, CSS, and Javascript. No frameworks. The entire app comes in well under 1MB in total size and is very fast. It’s designed to have no centralized dependencies and be resilient for many years to come.

What's next? On the roadmap we're excited to solve the next big problem: how do you automatically pass down your important information if something happens to you? Decentralized succession will unlock a number of new, important use cases.