Our wallet review process
We examine wallets starting at the code level and continue all the way up to the finished app that lives on your device. Provided below is an outline of each of these steps along with security tips for you and general test results.
Passed 5 of 7 tests
We answered the following questions in this order:
We stopped asking questions after we encountered a failed answer.
The answer is "yes".
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "Fake" and the following would apply:
The answer is "no". We marked it as "Fake".
We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "Fake" and the following would apply:
The bigger wallets often get imitated by scammers that abuse the reputation of the product by imitating its name, logo or both.
Imitating a competitor is a huge red flag and we urge you to not put any money into this product!
The answer is "yes".
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "Not a wallet" and the following would apply:
The answer is "no". We marked it as "Not a wallet".
We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "Not a wallet" and the following would apply:
If it’s called “wallet” but is actually only a portfolio tracker, we don’t look any deeper, assuming it is not meant to control funds. What has no funds, can’t lose your coins. It might still leak your financial history!
If you can buy Bitcoins with this app but only into another wallet, it’s not a wallet itself.
The answer is "yes".
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "A wallet but not for Bitcoin" and the following would apply:
The answer is "no". We marked it as "A wallet but not for Bitcoin".
We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "A wallet but not for Bitcoin" and the following would apply:
At this point we only look into wallets that at least also support BTC.
The answer is "yes".
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "Can't send or receive bitcoins" and the following would apply:
The answer is "no". We marked it as "Can't send or receive bitcoins".
We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "Can't send or receive bitcoins" and the following would apply:
If it is for holding BTC but you can’t actually send or receive them with this product then it doesn’t function like a wallet for BTC but you might still be using it to hold your bitcoins with the intention to convert back to fiat when you “cash out”.
All products in this category are custodial and thus funds are at the mercy of the provider.
The product cannot be independently verified. If the provider puts your funds at risk on purpose or by accident, you will probably not know about the issue before people start losing money. If the provider is more criminally inclined he might have collected all the backups of all the wallets, ready to be emptied at the press of a button. The product might have a formidable track record but out of distress or change in management turns out to be evil from some point on, with nobody outside ever knowing before it is too late. The answer is "yes".
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "Custodial: The provider holds the keys" and the following would apply:
The answer is "no". We marked it as "Custodial: The provider holds the keys".
We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "Custodial: The provider holds the keys" and the following would apply:
A custodial service is a service where the funds are held by a third party like the provider. The custodial service can at any point steal all the funds of all the users at their discretion. Our investigations stop there.
Some services might claim their setup is super secure, that they don’t actually have access to the funds, or that the access is shared between multiple parties. For our evaluation of it being a wallet, these details are irrelevant. They might be a trustworthy Bitcoin bank and they might be a better fit for certain users than being your own bank but our investigation still stops there as we are only interested in wallets.
Products that claim to be non-custodial but feature custodial accounts without very clearly marking those as custodial are also considered “custodial” as a whole to avoid misguiding users that follow our assessment.
We have to acknowledge that a huge majority of Bitcoiners are currently using custodial Bitcoin banks. If you do, please:
- Do your own research if the provider is trust-worthy!
- Check if you know at least enough about them so you can sue them when you have to!
- Check if the provider is under a jurisdiction that will allow them to release your funds when you need them?
- Check if the provider is taking security measures proportional to the amount of funds secured? If they have a million users and don’t use cold storage, that hot wallet is a million times more valuable for hackers to attack. A million times more effort will be taken by hackers to infiltrate their security systems.
The answer is "yes".
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "No source for current release found" and the following would apply:
The answer is "no". We marked it as "No source for current release found".
We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer were "no", we would mark it as "No source for current release found" and the following would apply:
A wallet that claims to not give the provider the means to steal the users’ funds might actually be lying. In the spirit of “Don’t trust - verify!” you don’t want to take the provider at his word, but trust that people hunting for fame and bug bounties could actually find flaws and back-doors in the wallet so the provider doesn’t dare to put these in.
Back-doors and flaws are frequently found in closed source products but some remain hidden for years. And even in open source security software there might be catastrophic flaws undiscovered for years.
An evil wallet provider would certainly prefer not to publish the code, as hiding it makes audits orders of magnitude harder.
For your security, you thus want the code to be available for review.
If the wallet provider doesn’t share up to date code, our analysis stops there as the wallet could steal your funds at any time, and there is no protection except the provider’s word.
“Up to date” strictly means that any instance of the product being updated without the source code being updated counts as closed source. This puts the burden on the provider to always first release the source code before releasing the product’s update. This paragraph is a clarification to our rules following a little poll.
We are not concerned about the license as long as it allows us to perform our analysis. For a security audit, it is not necessary that the provider allows others to use their code for a competing wallet. You should still prefer actual open source licenses as a competing wallet won’t use the code without giving it careful scrutiny.
The product cannot be independently verified. If the provider puts your funds at risk on purpose or by accident, you will probably not know about the issue before people start losing money. If the provider is more criminally inclined he might have collected all the backups of all the wallets, ready to be emptied at the press of a button. The product might have a formidable track record but out of distress or change in management turns out to be evil from some point on, with nobody outside ever knowing before it is too late.Distribution
Build Verifications
Build cannot be done because the source code is not publicly available.Android
This wallet claims to be non-custodial but went closed-source in early 2016 according to them
coinomi
@CoinomiWallet
No, we moved to closed source to protect the users from getting ripped off by scammers. Our website is open source and there are at least 10 clones at the time of the writing stealing users’ funds (by stealing their private keys).
6:48 PM · Dec 24, 2017
Our verdict: This app is not verifiable.
Full SegWit Support
SegWit which is short for “Segregated Witness” was an August 2017 upgrade to the Bitcoin protocol which came with new address types.
Full SegWit Support means that the wallet can both send to and receive to all SegWit address types, including bech32 starting with “bc1…”.
- Receiving to SegWit addresses provides fee savings, as sending these funds is possible using less base-block space. In Bitcoin, transaction fees are proportional to the transaction size in bytes.
- Receiving to bech32 addresses provides more fee savings than P2SH Segwit addresses.
- Sending to SegWit addresses is sometimes required in order to use more modern tools that dropped support for legacy addresses, often because of another core property of SegWit transactions: They are not malleable, meaning that the transaction ID cannot be changed “in transit” (on unconfirmed transactions).
Why we list it for this wallet
Native SegWit Enjoy faster confirmations and lower fees for Bitcoin, Litecoin, and many other cryptocurrencies. Switch dynamically between Bech32, P2SH, and legacy modes.
Source: Website
Hierarchically Deterministic
All accounts and keys are derived from one masterseed as defined in BIP 32, BIP 39, BIP 44, BIP 49, BIP 84 and BIP 86. While some wallets might use different definitions and not all support SegWit or Taproot, we only consider this feature as given if
- the backup is a BIP 39 mnemonic
- the funds are recoverable on a competitor’s product correctly implementing those standards
- no address reuse
- simple backup
- no vendor lock-in
Why we list it for this wallet
Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet (BIP44) logic enables you to keep everything both accessible and secure, with one strong passphrase that you'll only have to back-up once.
Source: Website
Unlimited Accounts
The user can create or restore secondary BTC accounts
- Accounting: Multiple accounts allow for easier separation of funds.
- Privacy: Using an account with a positive balance at all time makes it relatively easy for blockchain analysis companies to determine the full history of the wallet. By using multiple accounts, emptying them at times, the user can retain some privacy.
Why we list it for this wallet
Multi-seed support Import and manage an infinite number of wallets, each with its own encryption settings.
Source: Website
Trade from and to other crypto currencies
Exchange one crypto currency for another. You “receive Xcoin to your Ycoin account” while in the background the wallet sends your Ycoin address to a service provider which gives it an Xcoin address which it then displays. Funds sent to that Xcoin address - to that service provider - are then sold for Ycoin and the returns are sent to the wallet’s Ycoin address.
Easily accept receiving more coins without actually holding them.
- Sometimes the service is less favorable in its fees when used through a wallet integration than when using the service’s website.
- Some of those services require registration which links your transactions to your ID.
- The exchange provider might not deliver, making it complicated to prove what happened, who to talk to and how to ultimately recover funds.
Why we list it for this wallet
Exchanges built-in Swap between hundreds of assets and thousands of pairs instantly, through our strategic partners and various DEXes.
Source: Website
Buy with Credit Card
Buy coins with your credit card from within the product.
Ease of use.
Buying with Credit Card usually comes with huge fees and the same exchange provider often offers a better rate when not using via a wallet integration.
Why we list it for this wallet
Buy crypto with card Purchase Crypto directly from Coinomi through the use of our partner Simplex. More options coming soon!
Source: Website
Advanced UTXO Control
The wallet offers advanced control over which Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs) are spent. This goes beyond simple coin selection — it may include the ability to freeze or exclude specific UTXOs (e.g., dusting attacks or tainted coins), label UTXOs, or select inputs manually. The user does not necessarily need full visibility of all UTXOs, but has meaningful control over what gets spent.
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Privacy: Prevent spending from UTXOs linked to unwanted transaction history, or avoid merging coins from different sources in one transaction.
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Dust protection: Mark suspicious incoming transactions as “do not spend” to avoid revealing your wallet’s full UTXO set.
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Fee optimization: Strategically select inputs to manage transaction size and fees.
Why we list it for this wallet
UTXO Control Dusting attacks protection and Do-Not-Spend flags. Choose like-type change addresses to reduce transaction linking. Full UTXO control coming soon!
Source: Website
Custom Node Connection
The wallet can be configured to connect to a user-specified, independently operated Bitcoin node — such as Bitcoin Core, Electrum Server, or other compatible full node software — instead of the wallet provider’s default servers. The key requirement is that the node is clearly independent from the wallet vendor: a third-party node the user controls or trusts.
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Privacy: Transaction queries go to your own node rather than a third-party server, so no provider learns your wallet addresses or balances.
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Security: No risk of a provider lying about your balance or the state of the network.
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Sovereignty: Full independence from wallet provider infrastructure.
- Requires running and maintaining your own Bitcoin node.
- More complex initial setup compared to using the provider’s default servers.
Why we list it for this wallet
Trusted Node Gain complete financial sovereignty by connecting to your own full Bitcoin node.
Source: Website
iPhone
This wallet claims to be non-custodial but went closed-source in early 2016 according to them
coinomi
@CoinomiWallet
No, we moved to closed source to protect the users from getting ripped off by scammers. Our website is open source and there are at least 10 clones at the time of the writing stealing users’ funds (by stealing their private keys).
6:48 PM · Dec 24, 2017
Our verdict: This app is not verifiable.
Product page updated by Leo Wandersleb
Do your own research
In addition to reading our analysis, it is important to do your own checks. Before transferring any bitcoin to your wallet, look up reviews for the wallet you want to use. They should be easy to find. If they aren't, that itself is a reason to be extra careful.