Question - why aren't people worried about privacy using Blue Wallet? \ stacker news ~bitcoin

pull down to refresh

Question - why aren't people worried about privacy using Blue Wallet?

187 sats \ 19 comments \ @Signal312 25 Jan bitcoin_beginners

Whenever you're using Sparrow Wallet, there's the big topic of which server you want to use - the public electrum, private bitcoin core, or private electrum (https://sparrowwallet.com/docs/best-practices.html).

There's this from the above page (emphasis mine):

Over time, the value of your Bitcoin investment will likely grow through additional purchases and price appreciation. As this happens, you should be aware that sharing your balance with public servers may be making you a target. The point at which that happens will vary depending on the jurisdiction you live in, but consider that you are sharing your balance and location via your IP address.

So...why is this never discussed when using tools like Blue Wallet? Isn't the same information available, when using Blue Wallet?

That is, anyone (government entity) who wants to, can snoop and see which bitcoin addresses are related to your IP?

Or am I not understanding something?

view all related items

255 sats \ 18 replies \ @ChrisS 25 Jan

You can connect to a private node with blue wallet the same way you can with sparrow. To answer your question maybe sparrow wallet does a better job of explaining and documenting the process and why it’s a good thing to do.

9 sats \ 7 replies \ @freetx 25 Jan

yeah, Bluewallet has tons of features, but its UI design makes them non-obvious to discover.

I'm not being critical of BW because I really like it, but if they could hire an experienced UI designer to revamp, it would probably become much more popular than it currently is...

5 sats \ 6 replies \ @Bell_curve 25 Jan

blue wallet is done

what is the value prop of blue wallet?

9 sats \ 5 replies \ @freetx 25 Jan

certainly less popular than it once was....

what is the value prop of blue wallet?

one of the few mobile wallets I know that plays well with using Electrum as an offline signer.

You can import xpub into BW and then compose the transaction in BW and "export" via QRCode to Electrum which can sign and then reimport the signed TXN back into BW to broadcast.

In this way you can use an old (offline) laptop as a signer and have your own "hardware wallet" setup.

Heard good things about nunchuck recently, which maybe can do the same....

10 sats \ 4 replies \ @Bell_curve 25 Jan

fair point

but... electrum, xpub, hardware wallet, nunchuk... not exactly beginner friendlyl

update: isn't it easier to use CoinOS.io or Aqua wallet?

27 sats \ 3 replies \ @freetx 25 Jan

Yeah AQUA is much better for beginner. Its in fact my daily driver.

The problem comes with dealing with cold storage. The beginner friendly approach is to get a hardware wallet (which is a decent option). I happen to not be in love with idea of using "hardware wallets".

My concern with them is the "20 year problem". Is any of that going to work in 20 years? Will the computing device you are using have USB ports? Will the hardware even still work by then? etc etc.

Secondly, I got burned by Ledger back in 2018 or whenever their customer list got leaked...I mean the CEO just got kidnapped....not overly excited with having my name / address on someones mailing list.

9 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve 25 Jan

good point...

I like CoinOS for beginners because they support on chain, lightning and liquid and it's browser based and no KYC and no password and based in Canada

regarding hardware wallets, I recommend Casa for multi-sig using Jade (plus or not) or Trezor

Ledger is unfortunate... I like Jade, Trezor or Cold Card

I'm a big fan of Casa multi-sig

9 sats \ 1 reply \ @freetx 25 Jan

yep regarding casa, they do it well.

Been thinking about the jade+ recently. It seems to have most of the features that I'm looking for...

view replies

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @Signal312 OP 25 Jan

So...Blue Wallet is potentially inadvertently sharing the exact same information the Sparrow is, in exactly the same way?

130 sats \ 4 replies \ @ChrisS 25 Jan

Any wallet (sparrow, blue, trezor suite, ledger live, all of them) are getting information from a node. Its not inadvertent, its how the bitcoin protocol is designed. You have to get information from the blockchain in order to use it. It could be your own node or it could be someone else node depending on how you have the software configured. Some public nodes could be bad actors and share the info maliciously for various reasons, some may not. Either way if you are worried about this, the solution is to run your own bitcoin node and connect your wallet software to it instead of someone else's.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Bell_curve 25 Jan

I like the combination of sparrow, trezor (or jade or cold card) and multi-sig service like Casa

9 sats \ 2 replies \ @ChrisS 25 Jan

What do you mean use sparrow with casa? You are misunderstanding what sparrow is.