To all my friends and acquaintances, I used to recommend the following Bitcoin wallets for mobile phones: SBW for Android and Coinomi for iPhone. Coinomi is also available for Android, but I have always liked SBW for its functionality and simplicity. However, SBW has been experiencing some issues — the app has been removed from Google Play (the developer mentioned that Google’s new requirements for apps are too time-consuming to comply with). Nevertheless, SBW can still be installed from F-Droid or from Github.
Looking for a good wallet, I tested Green Wallet (Android and iPhone versions).
Click here to see screenshots of the Android wallet.
I came across this wallet a few years ago and tested it then. At the time, I was put off by the requirement to provide an email address to create a wallet. Now, this requirement is gone, as it was linked to two-factor authentication, which I neither understood nor wanted to understand back then and still don’t.
Now, install the app and create a wallet. For simplicity, choose the “Standard SegWit” format, which is the most modern address format for low network fees. Be sure to write down the seed phrase. The wallet is straightforward to use.
Here are the key features of the Bitcoin wallet that I found useful. There are actually more, but these are the most important for me:
- Seed phrase 12 words instead of 24 — a big plus as many people find 24-word recovery phrases annoying.
- Allows you to manually set transaction fees (sat/vbytes), supports RBF, and offers three standard fee options (fast, medium, and slow).
- Displays xpub keys for importing a watch-only wallet into another app.
- Compatible with BIP39 (seed phrases) and BIP84 (modern SegWit address standard). Funds can be restored using Electrum on a computer.
- They also have apps for Windows, Linux, and Mac!
- Allows sending unconfirmed funds to another address — no need to wait for confirmation to send Bitcoin further.
- Displays unconfirmed funds immediately (an issue with some wallets like Blixt or Zeus).
- Lets you view multiple unused Bitcoin addresses in advance.
- Supports multi-signature wallets. I haven’t delved into this, but it seems to be a standard multi-sig wallet.
- Can sweep Bitcoin from a paper wallet with a private key (e.g., from BitAddress.org). Many wallets lack this feature.
- Secures app access with a PIN code and biometrics.
- Allows using your own Electrum server, Tor, and proxy settings.
- Easy to use and intuitive.
- Supports multiple wallets simultaneously! This is convenient if you need to move funds from one seed to another (e.g., if you suspect your seed phrase has been compromised).
The downside: it is not a Bitcoin Lightning wallet.
The wallet was developed and is maintained by Blockstream, a reputable company founded by Adam Back, the creator of Hashcash, a technology used in Bitcoin.
Conclusion: this is probably the simplest yet highly functional on-chain Bitcoin wallet. There is no doubt that the developers will support the project, as Blockstream is here to stay for the long haul!
