Bitmain Acquires Telescope BCash Browser Wallet

Bitcoin Cash browser wallet extension Telescope announced today it’s been acquired by Bitmain.

The acquisition, the price of which was not disclosed, is part of Bitmain’s stated intention to support projects that help build out a viable payments infrastructure for BCH.

Telescope: Local Private Key Storage

Like other similar browser wallet extensions for BCH and other cryptocurrencies — at least, the reputable ones — Telescope stores its private keys locally on each user’s device. This means there’s no login account or central server to communicate with. However, users do have the option to set password protection if they so wish.

“I am extremely proud of what Telescope has been able to achieve so far and am excited for its future with the additional help and support of Bitmain,” said Aaron Angert, lead developer of Telescope.

“We are honored to be a part of the Bitcoin Cash community, as a vibrant collection of individuals contributing towards the development of blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency industry.”

Telescope goes for a bare-bones approach, and only supports Bitcoin Cash. The extension also identifies Bitcoin Cash addresses on websites and turns them into hyperlinks, meaning users can click them to make a quick payment instead of copying and pasting the address string.

Users can also set their preferred fiat currency for conversion, from a list of  eighteen world currencies. The code is open source and available on GitHub.

Telescope was launched in 2018 by Aaron Angert, a former IBM software engineer and Texas A&M University Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science. At this stage it’s available for Chrome and Firefox browsers.