3 questions about wallets and DEXs

[UnitedNot]

Bear with me please. I dont post much but I am a lurker who comes by from time to time. I have noticed that this is a place in the forum where people get the help they need.

I have 3 questions for you.

1. I have some bitcoin which I am planning to sell soon. I prefer real meetups and peer to peer deals. For that I need a good mobile wallet that I can send my coins to that I am about to sell. I have heard only good comments about Electrum but the Desktop version. The Mobile app lacks in the features department. What is a good Android phone wallet I can use for bitcoin? Trusted, non custodial, supports PIN or passwords to unlock, and no bugs.

2. My second question is not about bitcoin. For some reason people like tether where I live. It can be difficult to find a bitcoin trader. They prefer you convert your coins to tether and send them that instead of bitcoin. My guess is they fear volatility? I dont like it but I have to adapt. Can someone also suggest a good mobile and Android wallet that works with Tether and Tron? Same options like with the bitcoin one please.

3. The only DEX I have read about is BISQ. I know nothing about it except that some consider it too difficult and overcomplex to use. Is there something else where I could convert my bitcoin to tether if I need tether? Only good DEXs please. I have had accounts being locked for months on popular exchanges and I dont want that again. Even if I want to trade live with people maybe it is not a bad idea to be able to withdraw USD or EUR from a DEX if possible to my own bank account. Do they work like that?

That is all I have for you. I am hopeful people here are experienced enough to help.   

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[hosseinimr93]

As far as I know two features are missing in the mobile version of electrum. One is coin control and the other one is signing/verifying messages.
If you need coin control feature for your transactions, you can use bluewallet. It's non-custodial and open-source.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Trusted, non custodial, supports PIN or passwords to unlock, and no bugs.

Electrum meets these criteria. Other commonly used Android wallets include Mycelium and Schildbach wallet.

All three of these are also open source and reproducible: https://walletscrutiny.com/#tableofwallets

3. The only DEX I have read about is BISQ. I know nothing about it except that some consider it too difficult and overcomplex to use. Is there something else where I could convert my bitcoin to tether if I need tether? Only good DEXs please. I have had accounts being locked for months on popular exchanges and I dont want that again. Even if I want to trade live with people maybe it is not a bad idea to be able to withdraw USD or EUR from a DEX if possible to my own bank account. Do they work like that?

Bisq will certainly let you trade your bitcoin directly for USD or EUR, provided you can find someone to trade with. There is no denying that Bisq is somewhat more complex to use than a standard DEX, but it is also the more secure and private. There are some pretty in depth guides on how to use it available on their Wiki: https://bisq.wiki/Main_Page

Other good DEXs which support fiat trades are AgoraDesk or RoboSats.

[Charles-Tim]

The Mobile app lacks in the features department. What is a good Android phone wallet I can use for bitcoin? Trusted, non custodial, supports PIN or passwords to unlock, and no bugs.

The best Android wallet for that which I have used is still Electrum. The desktop Electrum is far better than mobile Electrum, but I see no issue while spending on mobile Electrum at times except when using coin control. Yet I can be able to use address freeze on mobile Electrum, but just not flexible and useful up to using coin control. My advice for this is Electrum, use it. The second wallet I have used in the past, but which I do not use again for now that I can recommend is Bluewallet. Mycelium is also good, but mycelium users do have the issue of bugs in a way your wallet will not display the actual balance, but deleting the wallet and import the seed phrase on newly downloaded mycelium wallet would be of help. I do not know about Schildbach, but I strongly believe in what o_e_l_e_o recommend.

As far as I know two features are missing in the mobile version of electrum. One is coin control and the other one is signing/verifying messages.

There are many other features on desktop Electrum that is not on mobile Electrum. You can no more generate legacy address on mobile Electrum and the absence of console on mobile Electrum make many things not to be done on mobile Electrum. Even as mobile Electrum can create multisig, he can only generate 5-of-5 multisig at maximum, it can not go up to 15-of-15. In addiction to signing a message, you can not also encrypt a message on mobile Electrum. I like how the fee is now estimated on mobile Electrum with lowest fee to be 1 sat/vbyte if the mempool is not congested, but fee customisation (I mean editing the fee and manually write the sat/vbyte in any number of your choice) is not yet possible on mobile Electrum, but I do not think this last one is necessary.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yet I can be able to use address freeze on mobile Electrum, but just not flexible and useful up to using coin control.

OP has said he is planning a face to face trade, and it is good security practice to only carry to such a trade the coins you are planning to sell, and not a wallet filled with extra coins. Given this, Electrum would be fine, as he can simply load up Electrum in advance with whatever he has agreed to sell. No coin control necessary.

And yeah, although a completely customizable fee setting on mobile Electrum would be better, the 1/2/5/10 sats/vbyte setting on the static slider is usually acceptable.

[Pmalek]

As far as I know two features are missing in the mobile version of electrum. One is coin control and the other one is signing/verifying messages.

My guess is that OP won't need those two. His coins are stored elsewhere, and if he is planning to only use the mobile wallet for his P2P trades, he will make one transaction and send those coins to the mobile wallet. There is now one UTXO there and hence no need for coin control. The only exception is if he agreed to make two or more deals with multiple people at the same day or around the same time. Electrum could potentially connect his UTXOs since there is no manual coin control option available.

Signing and verifying messages isn't needed for OP either

Yet I can be able to use address freeze on mobile Electrum, but just not flexible and useful up to using coin control.

If you think about it, it's sort of the same thing if your Electrum app doesn't have many UTXOs. If you have 2, just freeze one, and Electrum will spend from the other. If you have 4, freeze the 3 you don't want to spend from and the one that is left will be used in your new transaction.  

[o_e_l_e_o]

The only exception is if he agreed to make two or more deals with multiple people at the same day or around the same time. Electrum could potentially connect his UTXOs since there are is no manual coin control option available.

If he doesn't care about privacy between trades, then just send all the coins he is planning to trade that day in a single UTXO to Electrum. The change from his first trade becomes his output for his second trade. If he does care about privacy then create entirely separate wallets, one for each trade, as then there would be no risk of outputs accidentally being used together and no risk of any change from the first trade accidentally being included in the second trade.

Still, this involves carrying more bitcoin than necessary to each trade, which brings additional risk.

[Pmalek]

OP never mentioned how he stores his coins, but perhaps it would be possible to prepare the transaction beforehand, sign it, and broadcast it at the meeting when you get the money from the other party. Maybe https://coinb.in/#broadcast can be used for the broadcasting part. But in this case, OP needs to know the exact amount he will send to his trading partner, the correct address, and how much he will pay in fees.

With this method, UnitedNot could prepare multiple transactions and speed up the trade. Has there been any known issues with coinb.in or similar broadcast pushers where it wasn't possible to broadcast the transaction due to some bugs or the coins ended up on a different address? Only cases where the user didn't make mistakes during the transaction creation and signing process, of course.

No one seems to be addressing the question about USDT. I have some in a hardware wallet, so I can't really comment on other options.

@UnitedNot
Maybe you are going to be forced to drop your idea about using an open-source wallet for TRX and USDT and be satisfied with a multi-currency wallet that is closed-source. The one I know that belongs to the open-source category is Unstoppable Wallet. Unfortunately, their website doesn't have a list of supported assets (which should be available), so I can't tell if the tokens you need are supported.

[o_e_l_e_o]

OP never mentioned how he stores his coins, but perhaps it would be possible to prepare the transaction beforehand, sign it, and broadcast it at the meeting when you get the money from the other party.

I don't see what this adds. There is no benefit to security, since a $5 wrench attack can still force you to broadcast the transaction just as easily as it can empty your wallet of coins. However, you lose the ability to tweak the amount you are sending based on the current exchange rate or edit the fee based on the current mempool.

No one seems to be addressing the question about USDT.

Both Tether and Tron are centralized scam coins, and if a trading partner insisted I used either of them I would politely decline and find a new trading partner.

[Pmalek]

There is no benefit to security, since a $5 wrench attack can still force you to broadcast the transaction just as easily as it can empty your wallet of coins. However, you lose the ability to tweak the amount you are sending based on the current exchange rate or edit the fee based on the current mempool.

I agree with you. But, I didn't have an upgrade in security in mind when I said that.

OP claims some people close to him prefer taking USDT instead of bitcoin. He mentioned volatility as one possible reason for that. Perhaps it is. Yes, it's possible to change the agreed amount just before the deal is competed, but maybe they fear that Bitcoin can lose a few percentages, so in the short-term, they got a bit less BTC then what they paid in cash for. Bitcoin going up or down by 4-5% is possible in a short amount of time.

The same thing can happen with stablecoins or worse (I am looking at you Terra), but they obviously don't take that seriously. Not to mention the centralized aspect of the token and the fact it can be frozen anywhere.     

[dkbit98]

1. I have some bitcoin which I am planning to sell soon. I prefer real meetups and peer to peer deals. For that I need a good mobile wallet that I can send my coins to that I am about to sell. I have heard only good comments about Electrum but the Desktop version. The Mobile app lacks in the features department. What is a good Android phone wallet I can use for bitcoin? Trusted, non custodial, supports PIN or passwords to unlock, and no bugs.

Some people still use Mycelium wallet, others use Blue wallet, but I think Unstoppable.money wallet is worth checking out.
It is open source and it can work in your case if you need to use it as multicoin wallet.
I would not use any mobile wallets for storing bigger amount of bitcoin, but you can also use them in combination with hardware wallets for improved security.

2. My second question is not about bitcoin. For some reason people like tether where I live. It can be difficult to find a bitcoin trader. They prefer you convert your coins to tether and send them that instead of bitcoin. My guess is they fear volatility? I dont like it but I have to adapt. Can someone also suggest a good mobile and Android wallet that works with Tether and Tron? Same options like with the bitcoin one please.

You can use the same one I mentioned above, Unstoppable wallet.
One more option is called atomicdex.io and you can use it to make atomic swaps between various coins.

3. The only DEX I have read about is BISQ. I know nothing about it except that some consider it too difficult and overcomplex to use. Is there something else where I could convert my bitcoin to tether if I need tether? Only good DEXs please. I have had accounts being locked for months on popular exchanges and I dont want that again. Even if I want to trade live with people maybe it is not a bad idea to be able to withdraw USD or EUR from a DEX if possible to my own bank account. Do they work like that?

There are no other real DEX exchanges that works and have trading volume, especially not if real fiat currencies are involved.
For converting coins to EUR you can only use P2P trading, or use some centralized exchanges, maybe you can check best rates on bestchange.com, but dyor before using anything.

[Pmalek]

Some people still use Mycelium wallet, others use Blue wallet, but I think Unstoppable.money wallet is worth checking out.

I would personally never keep bitcoin in a multicurrency wallet unless there is some particular reason that forces me to do it. We have several good standalone mobile wallets mentioned in this thread, and I would use multicurrency wallets only for altcoins.

One more option is called atomicdex.io and you can use it to make atomic swaps between various coins.

Have you tried atomicDEX personally, and how did you like it? What's the liquidity like and are there any limitations or hidden fees worth knowing about?

@OP
If you decide to go with atomicDEX, don't get confused after you click on the Google Play or iOS buttons to download the app. It opens a screen asking you to become a tester for an unreleased version of the service. It's actually a bad way they did this. You can't get the official link until you accept to become a product tester, and then on the next screen that pops up, you will see a hyperlink that allows you to download the official and public version of the app.

[UnitedNot]

Thanks everyone who is trying to help.

From the wallets you people mention I think I will try Blue Wallet. I have heard of Mycelium but never of Schildbach. That answers my question about bitcoin wallets.

For the tron and tether wallets. Unstoppable Wallet and atomicdex.io were mentioned. I have never used these. Sorry o_e_l_e_o. I would also not use tether if I dont have to. What can I do when people keep turning down my offers to use bitcoin? I will have no one to trade with unless I do what others do. Using Unstoppable Wallet or atomicdex.io for the swap seems ok. Anyone with some experience with these exchanges and wallets that can comment how good they work?
 

[dkbit98]

Have you tried atomicDEX personally, and how did you like it? What's the liquidity like and are there any limitations or hidden fees worth knowing about?

Yes I did try AtomicDEX wallet and it was working fine for me, but don't expect to have big volume for swapping every possible shitcoins.
Thing I didn't like is that Bitcoin can only have old format addresses starting with 1, but I think this is limitation related with atomic swaps, not directly related with AtomicDex wallet.
Dex part of the wallet have TradingView style charts but there are not many offers for buy and sell, so better be careful when swapping coins.

Anyone with some experience with these exchanges and wallets that can comment how good they work?

Both wallets are open source, but you need to test them yourself and see if they work for you or not, don't expect to get everything on silver plate.

[n0nce]

no bugs

This is funny to me. Every system has bugs. But let's not digress. I would recommend you use Bisq; bring a laptop running Bisq and set up a face to face trade, or a USDT trade if you prefer that. You won't need any wallet except the one built into Bisq itself.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Sorry o_e_l_e_o. I would also not use tether if I dont have to.

No need to apologize. I was simply stating what I would do in such a situation. But that's the beauty of bitcoin - you are free to use it in any way you desire, and no one stop you.

What can I do when people keep turning down my offers to use bitcoin?

Don't forget that you are not limited to accepting trades which already exist; you can also post your own trades for others to accept. While you may want to accept some USDT trades now for the sake of speed, you could also post a couple of BTC offers simultaneously and wait for others to accept them in the meantime.

[NotATether]

I would recommend you use Bisq; bring a laptop running Bisq
~

Not just any laptop, it would have to have at least 8GB of memory if it is running Windows and you ever plan on using it for miscellaneous stuff, because you need Bitcoin Core to run Bisq, and Core itself uses 2GB, and then Bisq consumes another 1GB at most. If neither of the above are true, then you might get away with 4GB of memory.

Take this seriously - out-of-memory problems are no fun to deal with.

[n0nce]

I would recommend you use Bisq; bring a laptop running Bisq
~

Not just any laptop, it would have to have at least 8GB of memory if it is running Windows and you ever plan on using it for miscellaneous stuff, because you need Bitcoin Core to run Bisq, and Core itself uses 2GB, and then Bisq consumes another 1GB at most. If neither of the above are true, then you might get away with 4GB of memory.

Take this seriously - out-of-memory problems are no fun to deal with.

Wait, what? You don't need to run Bitcoin Core to run Bisq. I haven't tried Bisq on a machine with less than 8GB but it would be an interesting experiment. I will install Armbian with GUI on a 1GB Pi later and report back.

Edit: My old Raspberry power supply won't turn on anymore.. Experiments delayed.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Bisq will attempt to connect to your own node if you are running one, but will run perfectly well without a local node to connect to. You only need to run your own node if you want the additional security and verification that running your own node brings you. Otherwise you can use Bisq as an SPV wallet, connecting to other nodes on the network to receive the necessary data. You can also point it at a specific node, so you can install Bisq on your laptop and take it with you to do trades, while having it connected to your own node running at home.

More info here: https://bisq.wiki/Connecting_to_your_own_Bitcoin_node

[dkbit98]

Not just any laptop, it would have to have at least 8GB of memory if it is running Windows and you ever plan on using it for miscellaneous stuff, because you need Bitcoin Core to run Bisq, and Core itself uses 2GB, and then Bisq consumes another 1GB at most. If neither of the above are true, then you might get away with 4GB of memory.

I am sure it can run just fine with even below 8GB of memory (I don't know anyone who runs less in 2022) because you are not keeping it open and running all the time,
but you can also reduce memory usage following instructions on their website.
Combine that with closing all other applications you are not using and shutting down other processes, you will be just fine.
However, it's always good to upgrade RAM and if you are running older laptop with DDR3 or DDR4, than used RAM is very cheap.
https://bisq.wiki/Reducing_memory_usage

My old Raspberry power supply won't turn on anymore.. Experiments delayed.

RIP power supply?