Passed 4 of 7 tests
We check each wallet from its code to the app on your device, asking these questions in 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 same goes for off-ramps that hold no balance at all: bitcoin (or gift cards) go in and fiat goes straight out to your bank. An off-ramp that keeps your fiat until you cash out is a wallet, just not for Bitcoin. One that keeps a bitcoin balance you can’t send out is ‘Can’t send or receive bitcoins’.
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.
A product that can send and receive other coins but only tracks Bitcoin addresses read-only is a wallet, just not for Bitcoin, so it gets this verdict. ‘Not a wallet’ is for products that hold no coins at all, such as pure portfolio trackers.
The same goes for off-ramps that credit your bitcoin to a fiat balance you later cash out: the app holds your money, but not as bitcoin.
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.
Balances on operator-dependent layers (Spark, Ark and similar) are judged by one question: “Can a user, with only what the app gives them and expecting help from nobody, actually force their money onto the Bitcoin blockchain?” Such a balance counts as self-custodial only for the part that the app itself shows the user could recover this way, calculated without network access at a fee rate the user chooses, and only once a recovery from that app has been demonstrated, because the app decides how the balance is split and therefore how much of it can come back. The rest of the balance is considered custodial.
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
Check your file
Build Verifications
As far as we know, iPhone apps cannot be reproduced. Nobody has managed to build an iPhone app from its source code and get the same binary that the App Store delivers, so there is nothing to verify here.
⚠️ Warning: Genesis Vision suspended its services in November 2022. In October 2026 an unrelated company, GVT Ltd, announced that it bought the software and plans a relaunch, but there is no app yet.
Android
Google Play Description
Genesis Vision appears to be a trading and investment platform. From the Play Store description:
Genesis Vision created an ecosystem, where skilled asset managers compete on an open market in delivering profits to their investors. Asset managers can trade both conventional and crypto assets; thus Genesis Vision investors have a choice of which market they want their funds to be traded on.
The App
As expected from an exchange, user registration is mandatory. You are also advised to enable two factor authentication upon signing up and logging in.
If a user wants to add funds from an external address, they are provided with the BTC wallet’s QR code and address. Users who want to withdraw BTC must enter a withdrawal address.
From the Privacy Policy:
To comply the DIRECTIVE 2005/60/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 26 October 2005 and Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 we use your data in KYC (Know your customer) Scoring Processing, in which we need to obtain reasonably complete information about you for conducting financial transactions in order to prevent money laundering, financing of terrorism and tax evasion. The next data we use in KYC process: identity document information, residence address certifying document information, your economic profile (information on annual income, net profit, expected annual amount of investment, sources of funds), your conformity assessment (education, employment status, trading experience), number of your payment wallet).
Terms
In its Terms, section 3.2::
3.2. You agree that GV may, in its sole discretion and without prior notice, suspend or terminate the provision of any Services or access to the Website (or its functions) to You personally or all Users.
Other Media
In a Medium blog post, it is mentioned that they plan on creating a non-custodial version of their existing trading platform.
Future Plans The release of Genesis Vision platform’s DeFi version is right around the corner and we wanted to share some more details on what we’re getting into. The first version of our non-custodial model of Genesis Vision consists of two parts: Decentralized asset management platform based on Ethereum blockchain. Decentralized platform based on XDAI blockchain.
Verdict
Despite having available source-code, backing up the private key is not readily apparent. Moreover, it mentions in its Privacy Policy that the company has the ability to backup and recover the personal data of users.
We reached out to Genesis vision via twitter to clarify.
We’ll tentatively label this app as custodial and thus not verifiable.
iPhone
The Android analysis above applies to the iPhone app too.
Product page updated by Daniel Andrei R. Garcia
Community Opinions
These comments are contributed by Nostr users.
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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.