Bitcoin Forum

A few days ago when I searching the App Store for a bitcoin wallet, I found Bither. It's just like the kind of wallet I've been waiting for. So I became excited, installed and tried it.

Bither has two modes, "hot wallet" and "cold wallet". You need to install Bither on two devices and both Android and iOS versions are available. The cold mode can't not run when the device is connected to the internet. Typically, you keep the hot wallet on your daily phone and the cold wallet on a backup device. I tried the cold wallet on my 3 years old Android phone, and the hot wallet on my iPhone 5s.

Hot wallet can monitor addresses generated on the cold wallet. You can spend your bitcoin from monitored addresses with the hot wallet. The hot wallet makes an unsigned transaction QR code which you can scan with your cold wallet. Then you sign it on your cold wallet which in turn makes a signed transaction QR code. After you scan it with your hot wallet, the transaction is sent to the network.

Even though the concept is a little complicated, it works well. And it seems really safe. I think Bither has found the balance between safety and convenience in keeping bitcoin. I can't see any easier solution as safe as this so far.

As I said, I'm excited about it.

And I found a demo video about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1DSrc7qkrs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1DSrc7qkrs)

Looks OK, and I like the concept of combining cold storage to secure large sums of money with a hot wallet for daily spending.

However, considering the fact that it's closed source and from a fairly unknown developer, I would not trust my money with this. Especially with large savings, I will only trust that to something I can either 100% understand and verify myself, or that the general public (and in particular, other independent developers worldwide) can understand and verify.

I hope the developer will make this open source, as I think it's definitely a step forward in term of usability, and finding a compromise between ease of use and strong security.

You can find our project topic here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=606238.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=606238.0)
 :D

Thanks for your interesting in our project.
We already opened android version's source code on github : https://github.com/bither/bither-android (https://github.com/bither/bither-android)
Currently we are working hard on Bither iOS v1.0.1, and we will commit the source code ASAP : https://github.com/bither/bither-ios (https://github.com/bither/bither-ios)

I saw their android version source code. As they said, their iOS version source code will be open soon. I think we'll just need to wait a little longer then.

Awesome! http://s29.postimg.org/3zusmofmr/thumb.png
I will install bither on both Android an iPhone, and check it out. I like to have multiple wallets on each device and play around with them.

Great work man!

Thanks again. After we commit the source code (iOS) on github, we will update the project topic (in next week).
Also we sugguest Bither users to use Android phone as Cold Wallet (iPhone for Hot Wallet), because there are lots of  cheap android phones (even < $30) and many android phones support SD Card. That means you can have extra backup device of your private keys (Bither Cold will automatically backup the encrypted private keys on SD Card).

You should try Bither with small amount of bitcoins first (e.g. several mBTCs). After you are more familiar with Bither, you can try a little more on the Cold Wallet.

Special notice: Never uninstall the Bither App, unless there are safe backups. The mobile OS (iOS, android) are not like the desktop system (Windows), uninstall will remove all App's data.

;)

So you should hurry to commit your source code. I'm watching.

I would say this is a pretty nice development in the world of bitcoin. 

I have always wanted to put my bitcoin into cold storage but felt bothered with installing Linux, then a wallet, then making sure that computer was always offline. 

If I could just download an old app to my old phone and then use my current phone to sign it, that would be pretty awesome. 

good stuff. I've always been surprised that there are not more crypto wallets in existence with the jailbreak community.

 ;) we will commit the code ASAP.

Thanks for your support.
 :D

Thanks  :)

Well done. This looks really promising.

Wish they have an android version of this. It is much easier to spare a cheap android as your 'cold wallet'

We already released Bither android v0.0.8 on Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.bither ,
and on our website http://bither.net
Thanks
 ;)

btw all ios devices are backdoored..so this is kind of stupid

This sounds amazing, but this is me trying to understand how it works.... https://p.gr-assets.com/540x540/fit/hostedimages/1380397958/768540.gif

This is an exciting BTC Wallet. Also, you can use android version. Android devices can backup private key to SD card automatically. For IOS devices, you'd better backup your private keys with QR code manually.

Android version is also available in Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.bither

Integration with a desktop version would eliminate the need for two separate mobile devices. It might be helpful to define a standard method for encoding raw transactions through QR codes. Has this ever been done through a BIP or other proposal?

Perhaps you would be so kind as to list some known losses attributable to this 'iOS backdoor'?

IDK if I would feel comfortable using a mobile device as a cold wallet. I think simply speaking mobile devices are too volatile and susceptible to crashing to be good enough to serve as a cold wallet. From what I can see from the OP it looks like if the screen of your cold wallet were to be cracked to the point that a camera cannot read a QR code displayed on it then you would not be able to sign transactions with it (I guess you could technically sign them, but you would have no way of getting the TX onto the network without connecting it to the internet). Another concern is how frequent it is that people will steal phones, and the number of reasons people have to steal your phone. If someone were to steal your cold wallet phone then you would essentially lose your private keys, regardless if the thief is able to steal your money or not.

Thanks  :)

You can watch our demo video http://youtu.be/Q1DSrc7qkrs for a little more information about Bither.
Thanks for your support.
 :D

It's a rumor  ;)

Thanks  ;D

We suggest users to play with Bither with small amount of bitcoins (several mBTCs) first.
After have been familiar with Bither and have prepared enough backup devices or methods, users can try a little more.

Apple does have the ability to force you to upgrade an app or to download and install a new version of an app so they could easily put in some kind of backdoor in any new version. They can also force an app to be deleted from your phone although this is rare.

The biggest problem is that the version you download from the App Store cannot be inspected in any way and is sandboxed.

Mobile phone OS (Android, iOS) is much easier to use and also more secure than desktop OS (Windows). e.g. :
1. All installed applications on your desktop computer can easily access your Bitcoin wallet file, but on your mobile phone other Apps can't access Bither's data.
2. Mobile phones can easily scan the QR Code, but it's difficult on desktop computers.
3. The UE of modern mobile phones are much better than desktop computers.

For these reasons, currently we are just working hard on Bither Android and iOS versions. Maybe we will consider to develop desktop version in future.

Thanks for your advice. It's very nice of you.

:D

Actually mobile devices like iPhone or Android phones are not too easy to crash. The manufactures like Apple, Samsung, Moto are following higher industry standards to provide stable devices for people's daily use. Also because you should keep your Bither Cold Wallet phone in much safer environments, for example in your home but not in your pocket, it will be much safer.

Bither Cold also supports two kinds of backups:
1. You can easily clone the Cold Wallet private keys on a new phone, the only thing you need to do is scan the clone QR Codes.
2. With many Android phones supporting SD cards, you can buy some SD Cards, Bither cold will automatically backup encrypted private keys on SD card.

Bither also support advanced options for private key managements, you can backup the private keys in your own way.

Thanks for your support, :)

bitheri : https://github.com/bither/bitheri
bither-ios : https://github.com/bither/bither-ios
:)

Bitheri : the first Bitcoin library implemented with Objective-C
https://github.com/bither/bitheri

Also, we released the souce code of bither-ios:
https://github.com/bither/bither-ios

https://i.imgur.com/WA4hmCY.jpg

I said crack not crash. As in the screen getting cracked when you drop it (this is very easy to happen and happens all the time). I think it is a fair point that you would likely keep your phone in a safer environment then a phone you would not use for cold storage, but the risk is still there.

Ok, crack. :)
Even the screen of mobile phone getting cracked, there are still many ways to recover the data from ROM. Also, you should have other backups, e.g. SD card.
The solution of Bither are not to avoid crack, and who can avoid crack?
Bither users can easily have one Cold Wallet device (an offline phone) plus one backup device (a SD Card) with an simple and cheap way. If you need more safety ensurance, you can prepare more backup devices, and that is also easy when you are using Bither Wallet.

A car has run over my phone. Its screen has been broken. And it still works well as a cold wallet. Here is a photo of my phone. ;D
https://i.imgur.com/gNXT581.jpg

We just released Bither iOS v1.0.2 on App Store.
 ;)

I like this version Bither!

I would highly doubt that your phone would work as a cold wallet. If you need to display a QR code to be able to spend your coins then it will likely be difficult/impossible for the camera to be able to read what is being displayed on your phone.

I am sure that  can scan qr code

Why is this post moved from 'Bitcoin Discussion' to here??

The phone doesn't need to scam a QR code, it needs to display a QR code that is to be scanned by another phone/camera