It's hard to use with such a minimal user interface and there's really no user experience to talk about. Despite this, it's currently the top wallet by installations worldwide.Įlectrum (thin client): It's a very bare-bone client out of Germany and Amsterstam. Some basic usability improvements are needed on MultiBit. So far, it doesn't support the euro currency, but most importantly, any new wallet created with MultiBit comes unencrypted by default. It allows more control than Hive but has a rather basic user interface. MultiBit (thin client): Nice thin wallet client based out of London. Hive is developed by European developers, mainly from Krakow. Great interface and user experience but they might have sacrificed too much functionality, especially security mechanisms, for the sake of usability. Hive (thin client): It's probably the slickest of all the wallets we tried.
Each of them have their pros and cons, but only with time (and funding) will the winner reveal itself. We played with some of them to get a feeling of how they worked. The following is a list – by no means complete – of the major Bitcoin wallets in existence. Although there are several new wallets coming out every couple of months, most remain relatively unknown or lack important functionality. The lack of a selection of Bitcoin wallet software is shocking. Surprisingly, while Bitcoin acceptance in the media and in broader circles is growing rapidly, the pace of Bitcoin startup adoption isn't exactly keeping up. As long as there's no business model behind Bitcoin wallets, it will continue to be difficult to get funding for them, although that might be about to change. The truth is, at this point, most Bitcoin startups (including wallets) are developed by volunteers – no money is being earned from them and security is expensive.
In April, Finnish trading platform Localbitcoins was under attack and, once again, about a month ago. It's not only wallets under attack, but any trading system that stores Bitcoins. The Bitcoin security space is definitely one of the growing niches of the cryptocurrency. (Source: Dell SecureWorks)Īs always, attacks supersede the speed at which wallet vendors are capable of developing new secure features. (Source: Dell SecureWorks)įigure 3: Top Cryptocurrency Stealing malware families and their detection rateĪcross AV vendors. According to Dell's SecureWorks Counter thread unit, the amount of malware families targeting cryptocurrencies has surpassed 100.įigure 2: C orrelation between Bitcoin price, new malware emergence and total threat ofĬryptocurrency-stealing malware. The variety of attacks are also widening considerably. A 2013 report on Financial Cyber threads by security company Kaspersky shows how aggressive cyber criminals are taking to Bitcoin.įigure 1: Growth of cyber threads on Bitcoin in 2013 (Source: Kaspersky Labs) The rise of Bitcoin prices are indeed turning wallets into a target for all kinds of cyber attacks. In the previous post, we gave an overview of what the Bitcoin ecosystem looks like – it's an ever-expanding ecosystem, one where wallets play a special role as they're one of the major driving forces of the Bitcoin industry after trading and payment gateways. In case you missed it, our first post covered the basics of Bitcoin and the second one looked at the Bitcoin ecosystem). Here, we take try to uncover the world of Bitcoin wallets: types, security and new trends. (Editor's note: This is the third post in our four-part Bitcoin series.
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