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.
Custody
Self-custodial: The user holds the keys
As part of our Methodology, we ask: Is the product self-custodial?
The answer is "yes". The user has control of their own keys.
Read more
Released
9th February 2018
Passed 8 of 9 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 was "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 was "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 was "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 was "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 was "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 was "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 was "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 was "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 was "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 was "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.
This verdict means that the provider might or might not publish source code and maybe it is even possible to reproduce the build from the source code but as it is custodial, the provider already has control over the funds, so it is not a wallet where you would be in exclusive control of your funds.
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 was "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 was "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.The answer is "yes".
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Failed to build from source provided!" and the following would apply:
The answer is "no". We marked it as "Failed to build from source provided!".
We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Failed to build from source provided!" and the following would apply:
Published code doesn’t help much if the app fails to compile.
We try to compile the published source code using the published build instructions into a binary. If that fails, we might try to work around issues but if we consistently fail to build the app, we give it this verdict and open an issue in the issue tracker of the provider to hopefully verify their app later.
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 was "no", we would mark it as "Not reproducible from source provided" and the following would apply:
The answer is "no". We marked it as "Not reproducible from source provided".
We did not ask this question because we failed at a previous question.
If the answer was "no", we would mark it as "Not reproducible from source provided" and the following would apply:
Published code doesn’t help much if it is not what the published binary was built from. That is why we try to reproduce the binary. We
- obtain the binary from the provider
- compile the published source code using the published build instructions into a binary
- compare the two binaries
- we might spend some time working around issues that are easy to work around
If this fails, we might search if other revisions match or if we can deduct the source of the mismatch but generally consider it on the provider to provide the correct source code and build instructions to reproduce the build, so we usually open a ticket in their code repository.
In any case, the result is a discrepancy between the binary we can create and the binary we can find for download and any discrepancy might leak your backup to the server on purpose or by accident.
As we cannot verify that the source provided is the source the binary was compiled from, this category is only slightly better than closed source but for now we have hope projects come around and fix verifiability issues.
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.
Application build test result
(Analysis from Android review)
Update 2024-07-19:
This review is for version 4.8.0. It has an app hash value of 8cd6a12e3dc595964fabcbe82341e28f4a2a4ac6a347fcbead488b76faa7e186.
-
Using a modified version of Emanuel’s script (for 3.6.0), we successfully built the app.
-
We then ran:
$ aapt dump badging app-release-universal.apk | grep version*This resulted in:
package: name='co.edgesecure.app' versionCode='24062402' versionName='4.8.0' compileSdkVersion='34' compileSdkVersionCodename='14' -
We ran the same command on the apk we got from our phone (official)
$ aapt dump badging co.edgesecure.app_v24062402.apk | grep 'package\|version'This gave:
package: name='co.edgesecure.app' versionCode='24062402' versionName='4.8.0' compileSdkVersion='34' compileSdkVersionCodename='14' -
Next, we created directories for app-release-universal.apk (built) and co.edgesecure.app_v24062402.apk (official) and unzipped their contents, using the unzip command. We then ran a diff, and this was the result:
$ diff -r built official/ Binary files built/AndroidManifest.xml and official/AndroidManifest.xml differ Binary files built/assets/dexopt/baseline.prof and official/assets/dexopt/baseline.prof differ Binary files built/assets/dexopt/baseline.profm and official/assets/dexopt/baseline.profm differ Binary files built/assets/index.android.bundle and official/assets/index.android.bundle differ diff -r built/assets/sentry-debug-meta.properties official/assets/sentry-debug-meta.properties 2c2,3 < #Fri Jul 19 08:33:47 UTC 2024 --- > #Mon Jun 24 19:12:34 PDT 2024 > io.sentry.bundle-ids=a7dbdc5d-ac94-4540-92de-097feba6c718 Binary files built/classes2.dex and official/classes2.dex differ Binary files built/classes3.dex and official/classes3.dex differ Binary files built/classes4.dex and official/classes4.dex differ Binary files built/classes.dex and official/classes.dex differ Binary files built/lib/arm64-v8a/libedge-core-jni.so and official/lib/arm64-v8a/libedge-core-jni.so differ Binary files built/lib/arm64-v8a/libexpo-modules-core.so and official/lib/arm64-v8a/libexpo-modules-core.so differ Binary files built/lib/arm64-v8a/libmymonero-jni.so and official/lib/arm64-v8a/libmymonero-jni.so differ Binary files built/lib/arm64-v8a/libreanimated.so and official/lib/arm64-v8a/libreanimated.so differ Binary files built/lib/arm64-v8a/librnscreens.so and official/lib/arm64-v8a/librnscreens.so differ Binary files built/lib/armeabi-v7a/libedge-core-jni.so and official/lib/armeabi-v7a/libedge-core-jni.so differ Binary files built/lib/armeabi-v7a/libexpo-modules-core.so and official/lib/armeabi-v7a/libexpo-modules-core.so differ Binary files built/lib/armeabi-v7a/libmymonero-jni.so and official/lib/armeabi-v7a/libmymonero-jni.so differ Binary files built/lib/armeabi-v7a/libreanimated.so and official/lib/armeabi-v7a/libreanimated.so differ Binary files built/lib/armeabi-v7a/librnscreens.so and official/lib/armeabi-v7a/librnscreens.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86/libedge-core-jni.so and official/lib/x86/libedge-core-jni.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86/libexpo-modules-core.so and official/lib/x86/libexpo-modules-core.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86/libmymonero-jni.so and official/lib/x86/libmymonero-jni.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86/libreanimated.so and official/lib/x86/libreanimated.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86/librnscreens.so and official/lib/x86/librnscreens.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86_64/libedge-core-jni.so and official/lib/x86_64/libedge-core-jni.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86_64/libexpo-modules-core.so and official/lib/x86_64/libexpo-modules-core.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86_64/libmymonero-jni.so and official/lib/x86_64/libmymonero-jni.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86_64/libreanimated.so and official/lib/x86_64/libreanimated.so differ Binary files built/lib/x86_64/librnscreens.so and official/lib/x86_64/librnscreens.so differ Binary files built/resources.arsc and official/resources.arsc differ -
As an additional step, we ran
$ apktool don each, outputted in separate directories. -
We then ran $ diff -r on the folders with the decompiled apks and posted it on pastebin
Version 4.8.0 is evidently not-verifiable
Update 2023-10-31: Our latest issue was not addressed by the provider but
Emanuel had managed to compile a prior version of this app. Let’s see how it
goes for version 3.20.0:
Emanuel had managed to build the prior version using
$ podman build --rm -t edge_build_apk -f scripts/test/container/co.edgesecure.app
but here, this resulted repeatedly in different errors:
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
* What went wrong:
A problem occurred configuring project ':react-native-haptic-feedback'.
> java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.gradle.api.GradleException: Failed to create Jar file /home/appuser/.gradle/caches/jars-9/04d45982efaf99f21af92706e55e06a4/sdk-common-26.0.0.jar.
Deprecated Gradle features were used in this build, making it incompatible with Gradle 8.0.
You can use '--warning-mode all' to show the individual deprecation warnings and determine if they come from your own scripts or plugins.
See https://docs.gradle.org/7.5.1/userguide/command_line_interface.html#sec:command_line_warnings
5 actionable tasks: 5 executed
* Try:
> Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace.
> Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.
> Run with --scan to get full insights.
* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org
BUILD FAILED in 17m 17s
Error: error building at STEP "RUN set -ex; cd /Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/android/ ; ./gradlew packageReleaseUniversalApk": error while running runtime: exit status 1
or
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
* What went wrong:
A problem occurred configuring project ':react-native-haptic-feedback'.
> java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.gradle.api.UncheckedIOException: Failed to create receipt for instrumented classpath file 'f2b464732555e5b93522a12e9f7cd898/manifest-merger-26.0.0.jar'.
* Try:
> Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace.
> Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.
> Run with --scan to get full insights.
* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org
Deprecated Gradle features were used in this build, making it incompatible with Gradle 8.0.
You can use '--warning-mode all' to show the individual deprecation warnings and determine if they come from your own scripts or plugins.
See https://docs.gradle.org/7.5.1/userguide/command_line_interface.html#sec:command_line_warnings
BUILD FAILED in 8m 35s
5 actionable tasks: 5 executed
Error: error building at STEP "RUN set -ex; cd /Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/android/ ; ./gradlew clean": error while running runtime: exit status 1
or
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
* What went wrong:
A problem occurred configuring project ':react-native-screens'.
> Could not resolve all files for configuration ':react-native-screens:classpath'.
> Could not download gradle-4.2.2.jar (com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.2.2)
> Could not get resource 'https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/com/android/tools/build/gradle/4.2.2/gradle-4.2.2.jar'.
> java.io.IOException: No file descriptors available
> Could not download builder-4.2.2.jar (com.android.tools.build:builder:4.2.2)
> Could not get resource 'https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/com/android/tools/build/builder/4.2.2/builder-4.2.2.jar'.
> java.io.IOException: No file descriptors available
That latter one looks like an issue with the internet connection. Anyway. We tried to go step by step. Omitting the very verbose bulk of the output, here are the commands we ran to obtain an apk:
$ podman run -it --rm --volume $PWD:/mnt frolvlad/alpine-glibc sh
/ # apk update
/ # apk add --no-cache \
git \
npm \
yarn \
openjdk11
/ # adduser -D appuser
/ # mkdir -p "/Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/"
/ # chown -R appuser:appuser /Users/
/ # su - appuser
a77152952cd1:/Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/android$ export NODE_ENV="development" \
ANDROID_SDK_ROOT="/home/appuser/sdk/" \
ANDROID_HOME="/home/appuser/sdk/" \
AIRBITZ_API_KEY="74591cbad4a4938e0049c9d90d4e24091e0d4070" \
BUGSNAG_API_KEY="5aca2dbe708503471d8137625e092675"
a77152952cd1:~$ mkdir -p "/home/appuser/sdk/licenses"
a77152952cd1:~$ printf "\n24333f8a63b6825ea9c5514f83c2829b004d1fee" > "/home/appuser/sdk/licenses/android-sdk-license"
a77152952cd1:~$ cd /Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/
a77152952cd1:/Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master$ git clone --branch v3.20.0 --depth 1 --no-tags --single-branch https://github.com/EdgeApp/edge-react-gui/ .
a77152952cd1:/Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master$ yarnpkg install --frozen-lockfile --ignore-scripts
a77152952cd1:/Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master$ yarnpkg prepare
a77152952cd1:/Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master$ cd /Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/android/
a77152952cd1:/Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/android$ ./gradlew packageReleaseUniversalApk
...
BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 18m 17s
965 actionable tasks: 965 executed
a77152952cd1:/Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/android$ exit
/ # cp /Users/jenkins/.jenkins/workspace/Edge_edge-react-gui_master/android/app/build/outputs/universal_apk/release/app-release-universal.apk /mnt/
Notice, we also tried running what the build instructions say:
> Task :app:bugsnagReleaseReleaseTask FAILED
Bugsnag: Uploading to Releases API
{"errors":["API key not recognised: a0000000000000000000000000000000"],"status":"error"}
> Task :app:createReleaseApkListingFileRedirect
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
but that fails because the application of the API keys was omitted. Emanuel had patched the source with the provider’s API key but I prefer not to upload stuff to their Bugsnag account or generally to patch the source to make it reproducible, so I will leave it at this and go with the build result from above.
With the apk from our build and the apk from Google Play in the same folder:
$ unzip -d fromGoogle Edge\ 3.20.0\ \(co.edgesecure.app\).apk
$ unzip -d fromBuild app-release-universal.apk
$ diff --recursive from*
Binary files fromBuild/AndroidManifest.xml and fromGoogle/AndroidManifest.xml differ
Only in fromGoogle/assets: dexopt
Binary files fromBuild/assets/index.android.bundle and fromGoogle/assets/index.android.bundle differ
Binary files fromBuild/classes.dex and fromGoogle/classes.dex differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/arm64-v8a/libedge-core-jni.so and fromGoogle/lib/arm64-v8a/libedge-core-jni.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/arm64-v8a/libmymonero-jni.so and fromGoogle/lib/arm64-v8a/libmymonero-jni.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/arm64-v8a/libreanimated.so and fromGoogle/lib/arm64-v8a/libreanimated.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/armeabi-v7a/libedge-core-jni.so and fromGoogle/lib/armeabi-v7a/libedge-core-jni.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/armeabi-v7a/libmymonero-jni.so and fromGoogle/lib/armeabi-v7a/libmymonero-jni.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/armeabi-v7a/libreanimated.so and fromGoogle/lib/armeabi-v7a/libreanimated.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/x86/libedge-core-jni.so and fromGoogle/lib/x86/libedge-core-jni.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/x86/libmymonero-jni.so and fromGoogle/lib/x86/libmymonero-jni.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/x86/libreanimated.so and fromGoogle/lib/x86/libreanimated.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/x86_64/libedge-core-jni.so and fromGoogle/lib/x86_64/libedge-core-jni.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/x86_64/libmymonero-jni.so and fromGoogle/lib/x86_64/libmymonero-jni.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/lib/x86_64/libreanimated.so and fromGoogle/lib/x86_64/libreanimated.so differ
Binary files fromBuild/resources.arsc and fromGoogle/resources.arsc differ
$ sha256sum Edge\ 3.20.0\ \(co.edgesecure.app\).apk
115fa7dbd478a0812048d416c94766e1bf548517a4960cf035225946fec50d0b Edge 3.20.0 (co.edgesecure.app).apk
This app is clear not verifiable.
Reveiw 2022-11-02:
Their latest version on Play Store is 2.25.0. The last version we checked did not match the code. Let’s see how it goes now …
Using Emanuel’s Container file updated to 2.25.0:
...
+ cp /home/appuser/app/edgeUpstreamAPK/res/raw/env.json ./env.json
cp: can't stat '/home/appuser/app/edgeUpstreamAPK/res/raw/env.json': No such file or directory
Error: error building at STEP "RUN set -ex; cd edge-react-gui; git checkout v2.25.0; yarnpkg install --frozen-lockfile --ignore-optional --ignore-scripts; yarnpkg prepare; cp /home/appuser/app/edgeUpstreamAPK/res/raw/env.json ./env.json; cd android; ./gradlew assembleRelease": error while running runtime: exit status 1
ran into an error. The env.json configuration file that Emanuel had extracted
from the binary we are trying to test is not in the binary anymore.
After removing that part of the container file, it fails to build from source:
$ podman build --rm -t edge_build_apk -f scripts/test/container/co.edgesecure.app
...
> Task :bugsnag_react-native:compileReleaseKotlin
w: /home/appuser/app/edge/edge-react-gui/node_modules/@bugsnag/react-native/android/src/main/java/com/bugsnag/android/BugsnagReactNative.kt: (204, 48): Elvis operator (?:) always returns the left operand of non-nullable type ReadableMap
> Task :bugsnag_react-native:javaPreCompileRelease
> Task :disklet:generateReleaseBuildConfig
> Task :bugsnag_react-native:compileReleaseJavaWithJavac FAILED
/home/appuser/app/edge/edge-react-gui/node_modules/@bugsnag/react-native/android/src/main/java/com/bugsnag/android/BugsnagPackage.java:1: error: cannot access com.bugsnag.android
package com.bugsnag.android;
^
/home/appuser/.gradle/caches/transforms-3/db229a6e5f4fe0ba69c000c5a66ca523/transformed/swiperefreshlayout-1.0.0-api.jar: No file descriptors available
/home/appuser/app/edge/edge-react-gui/node_modules/@bugsnag/react-native/android/build/generated/source/buildConfig/release/com/bugsnag/reactnative/BuildConfig.java:4: error: cannot access com.bugsnag.reactnative
package com.bugsnag.reactnative;
^
/home/appuser/.gradle/caches/transforms-3/db229a6e5f4fe0ba69c000c5a66ca523/transformed/swiperefreshlayout-1.0.0-api.jar: No file descriptors available
2 errors
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
...
This release is not verifiable.
Tests performed by Leo Wandersleb, Emanuel
Previous application build tests
| 10th November 2019 | 1.10.1 |
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.
<img src="https://walletscrutiny.com/images/social/iphone/co.edgesecure.app.png">
