BitKey is a specialist, Debian-based distribution designed for Bitcoin users - it provides useful utilities to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions as well as tools for most paranoid Bitcoin users, such as Warpwallet for generating a "brainwallet". It is developed by the TurnKey Linux project. The distribution's first release, version 14.1.0, was announced yesterday on its GitHub page: "BitKey 14.1.0. Changes: refreshed component versions and base operating system to Debian 'Jessie'; manually verified and signed integrity of upstream components; new Bitcoin apps - warpwallet, coinbin and libbitcoin-explorer (bx); new packages - secure-delete, dosfstools (mkfs.vfat); added background color labels to boot modes; desktop UX - cut and paste, improved keybindings." See also BitKey's website to learn about the product's features and to read about its security modes. Download the live CD image from here: turnkey-bitkey-14.1.0-jessie-amd64.iso (445MB, SHA512, signature, pkglist). (If you are interested in cryptocurrencies, don't forget to check out DistroWatch's sister project - CryptoCoin.cc.)

BitKey is a Debian-based live distribution containing specialist utilities to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions. It contains a swiss army knife of handy Bitcoin tools that support a wide range of usage models, including a few very secure ones which would otherwise be difficult to perform. The system boots into one of the three available modes: "cold-offline" - for creating a wallet and signing transactions; "cold-online" - for watching the wallet and preparing transactions; "hot-online" - standard usage but less secure as the private keys are known to the computer which is connected to the internet. BitKey also provides tools for generating "brainwallets", for the most paranoid of Bitcoin users. The live CD provides a simple desktop based on the Metacity window manager with quick links to the Bitcoin tools and Chromium for web browsing.

With the current craze surrounding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, here is a timely release of BitKey - a specialist, Debian-based distribution and a Swiss-army knife designed specifically for Bitcoin users and fans. The live CD image comes with a range of useful utilities to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions as well as tools for the most paranoid among the Bitcoin users. This updated build ads a new paper wallet generator as well as printer and scanner support (via CUPS and SANE). The included Chromium browser has also been updated. "Changelog for BitKey 14.2.0: upgraded base distribution to Debian 'Jessie' 8.8; new Bitcoin application - Bitcoin Paper wallet; added printer support; added on-screen keyboard; manually verified and signed integrity of upstream components." This brief changelog can be found on the project's GitHub page, but see also BitKey's website at BitKey.io for a full list of features and security guidelines. The live CD image, which is generated by the TurnKey Linux project, is available for download from here: turnkey-bitkey-14.2.0-jessie-amd64.iso (519MB, SHA512, signature, pkglist).