A screen that's easy to read and a device that stays compact sound like opposites. This week we tried to have both — we fitted the large 2.24-inch OLED onto a modified, smaller PCB.
Every hardware wallet lives inside the same tension: the screen wants to be big enough to verify an address on, and the device wants to be small enough that you will actually carry and store it properly. Those two pull in opposite directions across the same piece of board.
Two things that pull against each other
A few updates ago we chose a screen big enough to actually read — because on a hardware wallet, the display is where you verify a transaction. But we also found the first case was too big to love. So there's a real tension: a large, easy-to-read screen versus a compact, palm-friendly device. This build is our first proper attempt at getting both at once.
The 2.24-inch on a tighter board
We kept the big, easy-to-read 2.24-inch OLED — readability is the one thing we won't trade away, because a screen you can't read is a transaction you can't verify. Then we redrew the board around it: PCB v3.0 is smaller than the original, trimming the body without shrinking the screen. Bigger where it counts, smaller everywhere else.
Still plenty to test
We'll be honest — this is nowhere near done. Button placement, how it sits in the case, the exact board outline, the fit and feel in the hand: there's a long list still to test and refine. But holding a big, clear screen on a smaller board is a real step in the right direction. One stepping stone toward the goal.
Why the board shrank instead of the screen
When something has to give, it should not be the part you verify with. The screen is the security feature — it is where a Bitcoin address is checked before the device signs anything — so it sets the minimum, and everything else has to fit around it. Shrinking the PCB instead means the compromise lands on layout difficulty, which is our problem to solve, rather than on legibility, which would become the user's problem every time they approve a transaction. That is the general rule we keep coming back to on this hardware wallet: absorb the cost in engineering, not in the part someone has to trust.
That's how this whole thing gets built — one honest step at a time, in the open. If you'd like to see where it's at in person, we'll have the prototype at Bitcoin Thailand Conference 2026.