Opinion about Bitcoin Wallet (android)

The Schildbach Bitcoin Wallet was the very first open source Bitcoin wallet and as it was open source from the start, many built on its source code, including most of the first alt-coin wallets. As a result, of all the Android wallets it is certainly the one with most eyes on it but it’s also a bit dated. Its developers keep contributing and new versions are released every other week.

Its very limited feature set also means that the code base is rather limited, resulting in a small attack surface. Its at times unconventional ways of doing things might confuse users coming from other wallets. For example, when requesting a payment, the app only shows a QR-Code and no receive address. The backup is not a 12 words mnemonic but an encrypted file that you have to remember the passphrase for. For me personally the least attractive about this product is that it connects to multiple Bitcoin full nodes and if that hasn’t changed, it also connects to random ones. As chain analysis companies run such nodes in big numbers, these companies probably learn your IP address and all your Bitcoin addresses with every transaction you make.

In summary, this wallet is great to not lose your coins to random backdoors or bugs but not so great for your privacy or convenience.

#WalletScrutiny #nostrOpinion

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