Is there a Wiki comparing different wallets?

1

I am new here so please go easy on me if my question is not written to your standards. If you ask me to make changes, I will make them so that my question is more suitable for this SE.

If you look at Wikipedia's Comparison of numerical analysis software or Comparison of smartphones, you quickly see information (such as whether the software supports GPUs or only CPUs, or what year the software was first released), that is by no means not available elsewhere, but is probably unmatched in how well it's organized.

I wonder if there is such a Wiki (website where users can make their own edits, not necessarily on Wikipedia) for comparing different cryptocurrency wallets. For example the table could include information such as the year that wallet first became available, whether they currently charge a fee for transactions, etc.

Wikipedia does have a List of cryptocurrencies but doesn't seem to have a list of wallets.

There is a bitcoin-specific Wiki site which has a page on "wallets", but it only lists wallet formats, so none of the top wallets listed for example here, such as Coinbase and RobinHood are listed there.

I have done some research before coming here.

1) Is there a comparison between different blockchain.info's wallets? - is specific to blockchain.info
2) Is there a website that compares the features of different cryptocoins? - is asking about cryptocoins, not wallets (and also doesn't have any answers).
3) Comparison of different active cryptocurrencies - asks about different coins, not wallets.

Question (1) did not end up getting closed, but in the comments it says "Questions seeking product or service recommendations are off-topic because they tend to become obsolete quickly. Instead, describe your situation and the specific problem you're trying to solve."

I am therefore not seeking a product recommendation, but rather I'm asking whether or not there exists a page where I can go and study the different products myself easily. Such a page would not go "obsolete quickly" because on a Wiki, people can constantly update it to include new wallets or remove features no longer offered. I did start this research because I wanted to find something like RobinHood but not requiring for me to have an SSN card from the USA, or like Coinbase but without requiring me to be able to receive text messages (I only have a land-line phone) but still allows free transactions, but some link to a Wiki page would suffice if I can't ask directly whether or not the type of wallet I want exists.

user1271772

Posted 2018-11-28T23:37:18.277

Reputation: 113

The ‘wallets’ you’ve mentioned (Robinhood, Coinbase) are custodial exchanges, I’m not even sure I would truly call them ‘wallets’ persay. ‘Free transactions’ do not exist, in any case you will be either sacrificing privacy and/or paying in other ways. – chytrik – 2018-11-29T00:10:57.620

Thank you @chytrik: They were called "wallets" in this article. By "free" I mean there's no monetary cost for the transactions. Isn't it true of Robinhood? The no-free-lunch theorem states that free things will have other disadvantages (such as privacy) but "free" transactions are more important to me than privacy.

– user1271772 – 2018-11-29T02:39:20.927

@user1271772 Robinhood is not a wallet and it is arguable whether or not you are even trading real Bitcoin since there is no way for you to send your coins anywhere outside of their platform. – JBaczuk – 2018-11-29T04:50:46.223

@user1271772 most 'free transaction' platforms I've seen just let you send 'free transactions' to other users of the same service, which is to say you are not sending real bitcoin transactions, instead you are just asking some third party service to update their database of user account balances. For example, if you wanted to send me a transaction, you would be unable to, because I am not a user of those services. If you want to send a real bitcoin transaction, you will need to use a real wallet. – chytrik – 2018-11-29T11:59:11.473

@user1271772 Oh good, did you see the link at the bottom of the wiki: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

– JBaczuk – 2018-11-29T16:28:39.620

Answers

2

To my knowledge, there is no such list, although many comparisons between a subset of wallets and services are available.

Although one could conceivably build such a list, perhaps on the Bitcoin wiki, there would be limits to its benefits for actual wallets.

Wallets vs. Wallet services vs. Custodians vs. Exchanges

Services such as Robinhood do not qualify as a wallet, since there is no way to send or receive bitcoin. These are simply exchanges, and you usually have no way to verifying that the bitcoin you supposedly own are actually there, or to access them.

You also have custodial services, most of which offer exchange services as well, such as Coinbase, Bitfinex, and other popular exchanges. Via these, you can send, receive, and trade bitcoin. However, you are still not in control of your keys, and are subject to a significant counterparty risk.

You then have wallet services, such as Bitpay and BitGo. These services provide mobile and desktop apps, and also allow you to maintain control of your seed words, which lead to your private keys. Here, you are still implicitly trusting that their apps will not steal your BTC, but are free to move your keys to another application if you wish, or if the service shuts down.

Lastly, you have programs that are not centralized, and allow you to maintain full control of you coins, such as Bitcoin Core and Electrum. Here, there is no single point of failure, the code is open source, verifiable, and can be compiled directly by you. Backend services are also distributed and redundant, and your keys never leave your machine. This is the only stage I would consider to be a true wallet.

At this stage, any wallet would achieve feature parity fairly quickly, since the underlying transaction mechanism of the blockchain is the same for everyone. As such, a comparison would be limited to the code/ease of use/team, and other such factors.

At higher levels where custodian and exchange services are involved, a comparison makes more sense since features diverge a fair bit. However, this is hard to put into a wiki, since it is not often black and white - for instance, some exchanges only offer certain features to residents/citizens of specific jurisdictions for legal reasons.

Moreover, such a list would also be more prone to defamation and spam attacks with competitors/bandwagons trying to artificially make someone look good or bad, which would be hard to moderate quickly and effectively - On a popular list like this, listing a scammy wallet for even a short while could easily cause someone to lose a lot of money.

Raghav Sood

Posted 2018-11-28T23:37:18.277

Reputation: 10 897

Asked: 2018-11-28T23:37:18.277

Viewed: 50 times

Active: 2018-11-29T10:00:23.067