Bitcointalk username: Avirunes
(!) This is supposed to be Mixin Safe review but there are some things that I didn't liked
straight off the bat -
Improper organizing of Mixin products. I feel a project/company should have all things linked at one site so that their users can feel it easy to scroll through their products or can find related help and FAQ's easily. With Mixin, I saw their Mixin Safe being at
https://safe.mixin.zone, while their about Mixin network being at
https://mixin.network and Mixin Messenger at
https://mixin.one/messenger . Another thing, while I can find about Mixin Messenger and Mixin Network from
https://mixin.one, there is nothing to find about Mixin Safe there. It will be great if Mixin team organizes their products properly in a way that their users can find everything at one spot like safe.mixin.one, messenger.mixin.one and network.mixin.one. I hope team is able to understand what I am highlighting here.
Mixin Messenger:
Installation & further setups: Installation was pretty easy as it was simple download from Google Play store on my Android phone. While scrolling and checking through the application I stumbled upon desktop version of Mixin Messenger.
Suggestion:
(*) It would be really good to have web version of Mixin messenger also.
After installing the application, I was asked to register myself with name and phone no. (verified with OTP). Once it was all set, I was asked to set a 6 digit bin PIN during which I was asked to verify 4 times!! (bit annoying but can understand). Once everything was all done with initial setup, I made a deposit of 0.001 BTC
[txid] in Mixin Messenger Wallet.
Adding Contacts & Emergency Contacts: Before I move to next step of sending to someone and/or address, I opened another Mixin Messenger Account with my other phone no. and added each other as contact. For setting of Emergency Contacts, I went to
Settings>Account>Security>Emergency Contact which then gives me a dialog box of the nature of Emergency Contacts after which I am asked for my 6 digit PIN and after then I am asked to select the emergency contact from the list which I selected my other account. A 4 digit code was sent to the other account on Mixin Messenger which I filled up and confirmed to enable the Emergency Contact.
I find setting up of Emergency contact as really good feature as in case of phone stolen/or lost/ or inaccessible a user can ask for emergency contact to help with accessing his Mixin Messenger back again. Mixin team has explained it in their article [
LINK] .
Transfer of Coins between Contacts & to Address[1][2][3]: First of all, I initiated
transaction between contacts wherein I clicked on "+" at the bottom left hand side and selected "
Transfer" and type in 0.001 BTC as amount in next step and authenticated the transaction by putting in my 6 digit PIN.
It was smooth, easy and no fee was required.
Next for
sending coin to address[4][5], I went to my Mixin Messenger Wallet and simply clicked "
Send" and then selected "Address" and then sent 0.00064 BTC (excluding 0.00033 BTC fee)
[6] to back to my wallet address. The whole process was very smooth but the fee was very high for the transaction. The real transaction however was sent with 0.00002495 BTC fee.
Gallery: (Mixin Messenger)(
click to enlarge)
Review: I didn't experienced any problems while using Mixin Messenger but I really do hope they can tune down the fees a little for sending a transaction to another bitcoin address. It would be much better if they provide a way for their users to adjust fees according to them.
Mixin Safe:
Now next up I started trying out Mixin Safe. While trying to login from Mixin Messenger, the site showed me Login failed error. I tried wiping up the site data but it still showed me the error so I shut down my Windows system and booted into my other OS Manjaro Linux and tried signing in and it
worked this time.
Interface was good . During the setup it requires other third party wallets like Mornin Key or Ledger Wallet or Bitcoin Core. I had my Ledger wallet but due to its broken display (realized after starting up for the review), I had to move over to Mornin Key. Mornin Key installation was smooth and I had no problem with it.
Next up, I started creating a new safe by going to
Safe>>New Safe. Site asks for simple Safe Name and Network (Bitcoin, Litecoin#) and in next page asks for the wallet- Bitcoin Core/Mornin Key/Ledger. After selecting Mornin Key, it asks for no. of Members for the safe and no. of members approval needed to authorize any transaction from the safe later on. I added my second account but forgot to update it to "2" so by default I selected "1" as no. of members for the safe. On the next step, it was pretty much the information about the safe and nothing to do but more like a review about the safe.
Funding & Transaction: After creating the safe, I added 0.00029603 (8.65$) into the safe
[1] direct from the Mixin Messenger Wallet. After depositing, I clicked on send transaction against the safe
[2] and it asked me the bitcoin address to where I want to send it to and the amount, on the next page it gave me a simple overview of the transaction. On the next stage, it asked me for Member's Approval and then Owner's approval
[3] . It was all easy as my safe needed one approval but since it needed one approval, I had to approve it from my other account
[4] . After approval, all it required was approving the transaction from Owner's end which is done by scanning the QR on
Mornin Key [5] . The transaction was made after then and it was all smooth
[6][7] .
Gallery: (Mixin Safe)(
click to enlarge)
My review: I liked how smooth experience I had throughout the process. Mixin has really designed it carefully talking from the security point of view. There are certain things that I would like to add on:
- During log-in I encountered issues with login. It consistently showed me "Login failed". It would be great if you can check on that.
- Plus, apart from that^^^ I would like to suggest making some kind of mirror site to give users an alternate way to access their safes also. Like gambling sites have mirror sites just in case main sites doesn't works. It doesn't have to be lot, just 2 or 3 at best should be enough. Users tend to panic when they are unable to access their funds and in that situation they can bombard your mail or support chat box so it is good to have a mirror site.
- It would be great to have more coin options (currently Bitcoin and Litecoin) while creating a Safe. I am sure you guys @MixinTeam are working on that since it is just in Beta Phase.