Bitcoin Forum

Imagine a scenario when all mobile phone companies finally decided to add a custom default bitcoin wallet to all of their devices as factory app. I believe that will further increase the adoption of bitcoin

No one likes bloatware. This is a terrible idea and I'm not sure if it is even allowed on most mobile service providers.

People won't use Bitcoin unless there is a reason to and most commonly, it would be some incentives from using it which most companies won't have. Forcing Bitcoin on people doesn't bode well for its image nor increase the adoption by any significant amount.

Maybe if the users can choose to do so then they should add that kind of feature, if forcing to adopt bitcoin down their throats is the only problem when it comes to adding this feature then my suggestion could possibly solve it but the other problem is that it will fall under the "not your keys, not your coins" category.

Samsung already have their own Samsung Blockchain Wallet (https://galaxystore.samsung.com/prepost/000003907881) that is non-custodial and they even partnered with Gemini exchange to enable trading, but I am not sure it's a good idea to have any of this apps as factory default.
Apple Bitcoin wallet would be interesting for masses to see but it would probably be close source like everything they make.

You meant giving the choice to the user to install the app themselves if they want to?

Yeah, you can already do so through your app store. There is no such thing as default Bitcoin wallets; making people use a certain app goes against the ethos of Bitcoin.

You can not know for sure. Maybe bitcoin is not ready to be adopted right now but in the future, the chance for such custom application is quite high when bitcoin becomes essential. This also reduce a huge number of scam wallets on the online store. People are being robbed at the moment since there are too many phising wallet


A clever move from Samsung. Asian always understand the potential of cryptocurrency instead of arguing whether it is beneficial or not. If the app is official created by Samsung, it is hard for thieves to make a fake one on their store.

What type of bitcoin wallets on mobile phones that are opt-in by companies. Mobile phone producers are centralized companies and their bitcoin wallets will very highly be centralized (custodial).

As we all know that 'Not your keys, not your coins', such wallets (if appear in the future) should be avoided. Not only because they are new released wallets but also due to their centralization and likely close-sourced wallets.

Risks for your bitcoin, your privacy and other identities on your phone. You don't know what companies hide in their wallets.

• NotYourKeys.org (https://notyourkeys.org/)
• Recommended bitcoin wallets (https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/recommended-wallets.html)

Both gold and stock has been adopted very well in all countries, does have default exchanges on our phone? ;)

Custodial wallet also a indirectly thief because they charge more fees than it does, instead of $5 they charge $10-20. I think it's useless if we have such default wallet, because if you didn't anything with Bitcoin you will delete the apps because you think it's only consume your storage or they didn't learn how to protect their phone from any kind malware/virus by installing many unknown apps or download unsafe files.

On the surface, it's sounds like a great idea to have a separate secure element on phones for cryptocurrency wallets. In the end though, if the software is going to be closed-source anyway, it's still going to suck.

On the other hand, something like this would be decent for a bit more extra security for a hot wallet.

Closed-source and backdoors from companies. The news with data leak or sell from Facebook hours ago is a warning.

Facebook Data on 533 Million Users Reemerges Online for Free (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-03/facebook-data-on-533-million-users-leaked-business-insider)

Yeah well, Apple is a company and they are not in the business of trying to make money off bitcoin. That's the only reason they didn't jump on this. On the other hand, Apple is quite large. They could easily afford such a product.

They currently don't, but they could if they allowed Apple Pay to become some sort of Bitcoin debit card. It's just that they probably don't see that much demand for using Bitcoin to pay for stuff yet. That, or they're playing it safe in the regulatory side of things.

Pros of default mobile wallets: may make more people get into crypto & the users don't need to pre-verify the app to verify whether they truly come from Samsung's devs

Cons of default mobile wallets: you probably have no idea what the app does compared to the open-source build & there is a chance of getting a modified phone with a malicious preinstalled app if you don't purchase the phone from a safe source..

Not sure how non-custodial the wallet is since it comes as a preinstalled factory app. Unless you verify & build it yourself, there is no way to verify the legitimacy of the app.. is it? Perhaps the preinstalled app has a separate code that sends information back to Samsung's backend servers..

It doesn't seem like the right thing to do and I hope it doesn't happen. It goes against everything we have learned about bitcoin and crypto. I wouldn't trust Samsung to protect my keys no more than I would trust Nike to do the same. I like them on my feet, but that's about it. I like to have my own say of what apps to use. PayPal or Ebay have been around much longer than bitcoin and they aren't forcing those services on users either.      

It could possibly be non-custodial though(because why have a separate secure element in the first place?). But yea, if it's closed-source anyway, there's no way we would know if they're storing the keys on their servers in the first place.

I see 2 problems here.
First is that bitcoin adoption has to be already high enough so that there is a need to add such an app to each phone by default, just like how each phone has a web browser, app store, email app, etc. So adding it prematurely is not possible and adding it after mass adoption is not really going to change anything about adoption.

Second is that when it comes to bitcoin users should never trust any third party. They should either build open source software from the source code or download and install binaries that are reproducible and are signed after verifying their authenticity and integrity. This won't be possible if the wallets came preinstalled on the phones!
In other words it is not just a privacy risk but a security risk also. You won't know what kind of backdoors the company might have introduced in that wallet.

Google and some governments tried to force manufacturers to use their applications, but they failed in that. One example is that the Google + app did not gain popularity compared to applications such as TikTok despite all the restrictions that were placed it.

The increased adoption will make it easier to download wallets, but the developers must be ready to give the user all possible options from the beautiful interface, support for currencies, high security and others.

Installing a specific application will need to be updated and trust the manufacturer and is against the Bitcoin philosophy.

No, it is not a great idea. But they may initiate such kind of idea in future when bitcoin adoption is in mainstream because they can take the custody of the user's bitcoins and cryptos with the wallet they installed and it is also going to be a wallet with full of ads which no one ever wanted to install.

Yeah, privacy inference attacks based on accelerometer and gyroscope sensor data are a new and dangerous threat to smart devices. Some mobile platforms, like Android, have no restrictions on the use of these sensors. Also, many companies and manufacturers tend to forget about the privacy issues when making a design decision for their devices. It seems that we are now entering a new era where privacy is not a big priority for companies in this field.

What does the gyro sensor and walking data have to do with the Bitcoin app? If a phone brand wants to do this, they'll do it in the background no matter what app you're using or not. If walking/location data is a problem for you, then better yet just take your phone with you but place it in a faraday bag.. or get a dumb phone.. or don't take it at all? The BTC wallet isn't necessary in order to spy on citizens/customers.

If their intention is to track you down, they have so many ways to do it nowadays. For one, your internet connection and/or cell tower are two basic things that are easily able to approximate your current location.

I mean let's be hones storing is not the best option. You need to wait few years for that to work out

Nike? I  mean I don't see crypto replaces fiat in next 50y