Bitcoin Forum

I've been helping some friends get into bitcoin recently and one thing i keep noticing is how intimidating wallets can be for newcomers. From managing private keys to understanding transaction fees, there's a steep learning curve. Do you think crypto wallets are doing enough to improve user experience or is it still a major barrier to mass adoption? What features or improvements would you like to see in wallets to make them more user friendly?

It's good you choose an open source noncustodial wallet like Electrum wallet or Bluewallet because they are user-friendly and easy to understand by newbies. They already have the private keys and you don't need to generate any. All you need to to download the wallet from their official site and create your wallet. You write down your seed phrase on a piece of paper and make three duplicates, where you are to keep them in three different locations very far from each other.

I am not really an expert in UI/UX, but I feel that apps like BlueWallet and TrustWallet are very user-friendly to users who are new to bitcoin. you can introduce both apps to your friends or people who are new to bitcoin; and it shouldn't be too hard for them to understand how to use the app, because I was once a beginner myself and with a little learning I was able to use the app smoothly.

Managing private key. Why? All they need is to let them know what seed phrase is. Also about the transaction fee, wallet developers are trying to make sure they use the best algorithm for fee estimation. Most people do not know about memepool. Just let them know reputed wallets. Wallet was easy to be used for me when I started.

Agreed. Even though some features of these wallets could of been explained better (for some) - there are plenty of guides of different curve, from articles to simple youtube guides.
All the rest would be learned by just using the wallet.

This is a really difficult part, especially for people that is not that really technical or even not into technology.
Another thing to consider is some crypto wallets or any crypto-related projects sometimes when they improve UI/UX, the security sometimes is compromised or the opposite.
This is the challenge for everybody in the cryptocurrency market. UI/UX!

I have used wallets like MultibitHD (now defunct) and Electrum as well as some web wallets. I have never found them intimidating, but maybe this is dependent on the user's technological know-how and the fact that some new software they have to operate which they never used before.

To be honest Electrum is one of the most user friendly wallets out there, I would recommend it anyone on a PC.

Hence I dont think the problem exists, unless the OP specifically wants to point something out.

Out of curiosity, what wallet used by your friend? After all, many wallet these days expect you
1. To backup 12-24 recovery words rather than managing private keys manually.
2. To choose TX fee option (such as fast/slow or cheap/expensive) rather than entering fee/fee rate manually.

What is so daunting about using a wallet, give us examples of wallets you have used so far, so we can have an understanding of what you are talking about. Take note that backing up your seed phrase offline does not really have much to do with the wallet or wallet UX you are talking about, that is just how to use BTC safely and be your own bank.

I.e. i expect newbies to have problem setting up an airgapped wallet, but newbies don't have to do that from the off, they can use Electrum or BlueWallet and use a hardware wallet for cold storage, which is newbies-friendly. Needless to say that all wallets you use must be open source and self custodial.

Wallets tend to emphasize function over form, to prioritize security. Kind of like Windows vs Linux.
Linux is a lot more secure than Windows, but Windows is much more user-friendly.

You can make the interface more user-friendly but at the risk of compromising security.
The best wallets have a good balance between both.

Yep. Manually entering it may cause things down the line. Also I've seen the wallet making the fees much bigger than expected sometimes, it's most likely to do its job right. So that would be interesting to dive into the OP's friend's wallet.

Open-source crypto wallets like Electrum have terrible UI/UX design. Their developers focus more on wallet's security and functionality over design, they don't have a dedicated team of designers but now I have a question, since the UI/UX design field is very competitive, I really wonder why has nobody tried to spend their time and resources to create a good UI/UX design for Electrum to include it in their portfolio? I've never worked on open-source projects and I don't know how that happens but there must be a place on GitHub where we will submit our artwork with the dev team. I wonder if I should give it a try or not.

Btw commercial crypto wallets like Trust wallet, Trinity wallet, Exodus and Ark Vault wallet have good UI/UX designs.

They just need to think how many more users they would add up by being UI-friendly by doing the things they do already in the functionality field.
Maybe it's just not their aim.

I think I had too many questions on something like this in my early days.
As a beginner, I think one major thing we look forward to having is that easy/friendly user interface that will make us navigate easily through wallets, but at some point, I realized that security matters most when using a wallet.  In as much as I wasn't too comfortable with the wallet I was using at first, I had to get used to it due to it's level of security.

And not just that, I have also learned how to keep my seed phrase, which I believe every wallet must prompt a user to keep safe. Keeping a seed phrase does not require a master degree or technical knowledge, because the words are very simple. And when I say "keeping", I don't mean trying to memorize. I believe your friend knows it's importance. And as for tx fees, there is also an easy option to select which one to use.


Like I said, in as much as user experience matters, security is far more important, and that's what I think reputable wallets are trying to improve. I didn't find it convenient at first, but I had to adapt. I believe wallet developers are not developing wallet to satisfy one person's taste.


That selective option makes it simple for users to choose, though I have noticed that a particular wallet doesn't accept manually inputted tx fees, even though there is an option for that.

Most of wallets are user friendly, you only need to save your 12-24 words in safe place either by write down on paper or use steel plate, as for transactions fees, many wallets offer you to choose slow, medium and fast priority.

I would like to know which wallet you find it's hard to understand the UX.

Personally I don't see there's need for improvement in UX if we talk about how to make it easier to use the wallet because I think it can't be improved anymore, it's already simple.

Do you remember the first time you used a computer or a smart phone? Wasn't that intimidating? A bitcoin wallet is the same. It is just new and different from what people are used to (like their Paypal account) which is why at first encounter, some people feel intimidated.

Although there is always room to improve the user interfaces and making them more user friendly, I don't think they are bad anymore. Not like they were in very early days. Today, most wallets are very user friendly and easy to understand and use by newcomers.
But of course people have learn how things work, the very basics. And I disagree with your statement that there is "a steep learning curve". "Using" bitcoin is really not that complicated, the technology itself is but people don't need to learn it to be able to use it.

Depending on what wallet we are talking about..
As it was said - Electrum could of done some more work in that regard. Though everything would be able to be googled, I imagine.

The features that these wallets have are more than enough for average and newbie users. What makes it intimidating is the experience of each newbie which is normal for first time users. Let alone keep on using the wallet and everything will be easy and the user will be used to it.

Yep. Some just don't want to read a guide or two to reach their target - they want answers there and now, or else. That's why sometimes the experience can be a bit frustrating for a newbie.

Most closed source wallets focus on UI/UX so that with a few clicks you can access hundreds of cryptocurrency addresses.
Open source wallets are less focused on UI/UX but enough for those who are aware of the importance of open source code and can be easily handled by anyone.
Privacy wallets focus mainly on functionality so those who want to use them need to have programming experience.

You are absolutely right despite too many here pretending it's simple.

It's not. It's not like opening a bank account which is something most people understand.

Wallets like electrum ARE intimidating to newbies. Hell even the seed phrase isn't portable. And in any wallet what is a change address!? There's nothing intuitive about these things we all understand.

The best way to do it is to keep it simple. Just the seed phrase: but then as soon as you need to send coin someone gives you an address - not a phrase. So what's an address and why is there more than one? Similarly you need to give an address to receive coin. And you get a different one each time you ask.. Huh?

Then people are told to have a Watch Only wallet. But it doesn't have a seed phrase. It has an xpub generated from your seed phrase. Well WTF is that!?

So yes. Houston we have a problem with usability which makes it unintuitive and in many cases beyond what some people want to try to understand. Solving these will increase adoption.

I know that everyone isn't techy at all with stuff. But if someone has an android phone and has an access to their bank accounts. That can connect the dots and they'll surely understand what they are up to. With that, they only have to be familiarized with the basics and understand on how to keep their wallet's private keys.

I'm not really sure what is intimidating about wallets like Electrum, which is open source and minimalist, all you need is already there, instructions are clear and they have documents that you can go through if you have questions or doubt.

So for me, I do not see what kind features we still need to be seen. For private keys or mnemonic phrase, get it, write it down and make a back up, simply as that. And I think that's what wallets want, not to complicate things for newbies as everything is laid for us, we just need to understand it.

QR is also available which makes very easy and flexible to use to newbies.

I can't imagine any world where electrum could be considered newbie-friendly. It's probably the worst wallet for newbies I can think of.

That's why they need to push the decision to make their UI a more user-friendly experience, in my opinion.
Or maybe that's a trick to put all that wouldn't pay some time to learning the wallet out of the picture  ;D

The easiest bitcoin wallet I’ve used is Electrum Wallet, and I think most posters here would agree with me. It’s pretty straightforward and easy to monitor since it’s exclusively for Bitcoin. I believe it’s not complicated if we take the time to research. Interest matters, and if we’re thinking of investing, we should start by setting up and securing our wallet. This helps minimize risks, you know, you can’t afford to be ignorant in crypto, as there are plenty of scammers out there. We must stay vigilant and not fall for their tricks.

By the way, beware of fake Electrum wallets. Always download the wallet directly from their official website to avoid issues when creating or updating your wallet.

I’ve been a victim of this in the past and won’t make the same mistake again (for sure).
It was an experience I’ll never forget, but others still have the chance to avoid falling for this kind of phishing scam if they learn from the experiences of others.

All I can say to OP is that he needs to take his search seriously. Asking basic questions only shows he hasn’t put enough effort into researching (no offense to OP).

That's an interesting take, I must say. I remember when I was relatively new, I have considered electrum as beginner friendly and through out the years, have consistently seen bitcoiners recommending electrum as beginner friendly. I've seen similar pattern with electrum forks for altcoins like LTC, as well.

This brings me to an idea that beginners can be classified into different categories as well as some may be able to pick up stuff faster than the other beginners, for instance. Though, I'm not sure there will be a one size fits all solution that would cater to everyone without sacrificing good amount of security 🤔

The Electrum interface is extremely basic and bare-bones, almost DOS-like in appearance.
Unless they are comfortable working with a DOS, FTP or Linux type interface that alone is very off-putting to most newbies and non-tech people.

Bitcoin wallets are usually pretty dummy-friendly. Bitcoin Core is fairly easy to navigate around, and also to understand. Electrum is even easier to use for someone who has basic knowledge on how to click a few buttons. UX or UI are really not the focus of these apps because they're supposed to just do their job well and nothing more.

UI/UX for most banking apps, or transfer apps are mostly focused on their mobile applications, where its a lot more important given the demographics. They're fine in most regards, and I suspect OP is complaining about the terminology of Bitcoin rather than the application's user experience. I'm inclined to think that the problem stems from their unwillingness to understand how Bitcoin works.

I guess things would go smoothly if you're starting from the very basic while slowly proceeding to the next. Explanations will do. You don't have to actually review codes of open-source wallets, for example. If the transition isn't premature and the learning process is one small step after another, I guess there won't be unnecessary steep curves.

For newcomers, I guess the starting point is to learn to backup, send, and receive. The rest like wallet recovery, choosing the right fee, signing or verifying a message, coin management, consolidating UTXOs, and so on will follow later on.

I think crypto wallets are doing their thing properly. As a matter of fact, merely classifying transactions as slow, fast, or whatever is too newbie-friendly. Users should be able to determine the specific fee they wish to pay.

I agree that the looks can be improved and made to be more "modern looking" but still that is not really a criteria that decides if a wallet is "newbie friendly" or not, what you explained is all about cosmetics.

Being newbie friendly is about how easy it is to use the wallet like:
- easy to create, backup and restore a wallet
- easy to send/receive coins
- easy to set and modify the fee
- easy to perform coin control
- easy to setup a cold storage
- and more.
Electrum checks all the boxes.

Unless you choose to use complicated wallets, there are wide variety of opens source wallet that you can use which have a simple UI and very easy to understand with very fast sync functions so you don't have to wait before making a transaction. Examples are Electrum wallet, Blue wallet, Bitcoin core wallet and this wallet has available downloads for mobile device and also for your personal computer, you can also use Electrum for cold wallet if you do wish.

The problem now with some most of these developers is they are trying to make wallets to be fancy so they can attract users and get more downloads but wallets doesn't even need some of the things they integrate. You will see a wallet with Dapps, browser, and complex settings. You don't need all of this unless you are using altcoins which is understandable due to the use of decentralized finance but as for Bitcoin, they are not necessary.

Do we really need something so dumbed-down and polished to spoon feed crypto newbies so that they don't need to learn a thing how a wallet, a transaction, Bitcoin works? C'mon, give me a break...

I have the feeling the request for ultra easy wallets is an excuse to avoid having to learn about the crypto stuff you're "playing" with. Why exercise your brain muscle, totally overrated!?  ;)

What kind of attitude have newbies? Get rich quick, without understanding and effort? Usually doesn't work that way.


Addressing it from another perspective. I get it, that newbies prefer it to be easy, less challenging. In many cases this also means, less control. If you don't want or need more control, fine. If you become more experienced, a lack of control and advanced options is bad and frustrating.

And you shouldn't forget: it's not easy to program a wallet to offer and please all. The newbies with "toddler mode", the advanced users with full fledged all-you-can-dream-of options and control, all shiny and polished but still super functional.

Most if not all open-source wallets are for free. What exactly is the incentive to put a lot of work into UI so that the holy newbies are pleased? Feel free to join the devs and contribute to a better UI, it's not falling from the sky on its own.

If you find traces of irony and/or sarcasm, well, do what you want with it.

they just need to get used to it, most of desktop wallet are easy as heck if they know the basic, i'd even say modern banking app are more complicated, even plenty of wallet have a big receive and send button, I think this UX is already perfect, though that's just my 2 cents.

it's kinda different though if you're using wallet that provides multi blockchain support, that could become complicated since they need to cater to the different blockchain thus might have too much feature that might intimidate the newbies. but overall if they are willing to spend 10 minute to learn i'm sure they can understand it.