Samourai Wallet Raises First Funding Round in Fight Against Bitcoin Surveillance

The team behind the privacy-obsessed bitcoin app, Samourai Wallet, has gotten its first round of venture funding.

Samourai Wallet has been built for Android users, specifically designed to enhance privacy while using bitcoin.

"The founding team of Samourai has zero interest in working on other coins, or even other layers of bitcoin at this time."

The company is also offering a forthcoming hardware product, called Dojo, which is a user-friendly bitcoin node built to work with the wallet.

The products have personally impressed John Carvalho, a longtime bitcoin user who currently works at Bitrefill.

"I have respect for any company that adds utility for Bitcoiners and Samourai is clearly willing to go against the grain to add privacy options for users. If Bitcoin is freedom money, Samourai are freedom fighters."

Cypherpunk's chief investment officer, Moe Adham, said in a press release, "Katana's technologies will advance the bitcoin project. Privacy is an increasingly important, yet underfunded sector of the market, and it is increasingly coming under attack."

"Bitcoin itself scores badly on privacy, but it scores highly on market cap and usage. What bitcoin has that no other coin does is this colossal network effect. That is a powerful thing," Frisby told CoinDesk.

The fund is not limiting itself strictly to bitcoin.

"We're investing on both sides - in privacy coins themselves and in bitcoin privacy tech. We think there will be growing demand for both."