[UPDATE:] This blog post has been converted to a Doc page and has had some updates since this post was published.

I'd like to announce a side project we've been working called BitKey. The idea was to see if we could use the TurnKey development tools to create a self-contained read-only CD/USB stick with everything you need to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions.

http://bitkey.io

First, I'd like to thank Joey, Noah and Jeremy for providing much needed feedback on a related blog post. Thanks guys. It really got me thinking. What if instead of a contest we figured out how to do community funded bounties? Wouldn't an open, continual system of free software bounties be much a better idea than doing another contest?

This blog post started out as a response to a private email discussion between me and contributing developer Eric (tssgery) whom recently developed TurnKey Observium, one of TurnKey's top ten downloads. Observium is very popular for a newly hatched appliance. It has the same number of downloads as Redmine, which we've supported for a few years now!

Eric wrote:

TKL has two big issues as I see it:

1. Marketing. You're the best kept secret of the internet.
2. Testing. Too many appliance/products to be supported.