New, simple online wallet: www.instawallet.org - no signup required

[jav]

I'm happy to announce that https://www.instawallet.org is now live. It is an online wallet service which requires no signup. When you browse to
the website, a secret link is created for you, which is the only way to access your wallet.

This service is mostly targeted towards people who are curious about Bitcoin and want to give it a try. These people often don't want to download software (the Bitcoin client) or even sign up for some random website (e.g. MyBitcoin). Here they can try out Bitcoin without having to jump through any of these hoops.

To that end I have tried to keep everything very speedy. The balance auto-updates as soon as you receive a transaction. You can get your 0.05 BTC from the faucet and donate it to the EFF in a matter of seconds.

Feedback is much appreciated! :-)

[khal]

The link on your logo is not in https (just to avoid 1 redirection :p)

You may add the possibility to enter a password before accessing the wallet.

Otherwise, really simple, i like it (even if i won't use a shared wallet system :p).

[Timo Y]

Great idea.

I like the speed and simplicity of the whole thing.

It's bit like keeping some cash hidden under the doormat for emergencies.

[Mike Hearn]

That's really, really great!

I totally agree that this is a much superior solution to something like MyBitcoin for casual usage.

Are you going to extend it to have other features like address books, or are you going to keep it simple?

[Garrett Burgwardt]

This is excellent! Accounts don't expire, do they?

[jav]

Thx for your feedback!

@khal: Thx for spotting that http logo link, I will fix it in the next update.

@Garrett: That's correct, for now those wallets are permanent and don't expire (and I will announce it earlier enough if that should ever change).

I do plan to keep it fairly simple. But I'm toying with the idea of having a sort of "Instawallet Premium" option, where you can upgrade your secret link to a proper wallet with username and password and then have features like an address book and things like that. But I definitely want to keep the quickstart experience as uncluttered as possible.

[Alex Beckenham]

This instant deposit feature is great, but you might want to wait until the funds clear before letting people withdraw it back out again.

I just sent to instawallet and then immediately withdrew and I see the funds came back to my local client before the deposit even has a confirmation.

[AtlasONo]

Interesting.

[jimbobway]

Best bitcoin site I've seen in a while.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

The continuation of the sentence "The easiest way to get started with Bitcoin is..." has just changed. Congratulations!

[Grinder]

I guess it can't get much easier than this Do you know if your service can be used with this pool? http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6667.0

The reason why it might not is that it includes the transfer directly in the block, so it requires 120 confirmations. I see that you just show the incoming funds immediately. It would be nice if was possible to see the confirmation status for unconfirmed transfers.

[theymos]

I guess it can't get much easier than this Do you know if your service can be used with this pool? http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6667.0

Probably not, since bitcoind provides no way of getting the address/account a generation output was sent to. listtransactions and getreceivedbyaddress won't do it.

[Insti]

Very nice looking site.

[Anonymous]

Another site to launder your bitcoins

[Cusipzzz]

Nice looking implementation, well done.

[skittixch]

obligatory questioning of transparency follows:

Where are the wallet files kept?
who has access to the physical equipment that the wallets are stored on?
What kind of encryption does instawallet use?
can we see the source code?

Sorry if any/all of these are answered somewhere on the site, but I can't find it yet.

Seems like a wonderful service as long as security measures are taken, and transparency is transparent.

[pc]

Yeah, this seems rather nifty, but I'd want a lot more details about how the unique URL is generated, what protections there are against people trying to brute-force URLs to stumble upon money, and how the server/wallets are secured before using it for anything serious.

Definitely useful for introducing people, and the various "dropbox" and "business card" kind of scenarios that people have talked about. You can transfer money to somebody just by giving them the URL where you put their money.

[bitlotto]

Pretty cool! Can't be more simple. I don't know much about website programming but isn't it possible for website's to sometimes see where you were just browsing and thereby get the address?

[pc]

Pretty cool! Can't be more simple. I don't know much about website programming but isn't it possible for website's to sometimes see where you were just browsing and thereby get the address?

It uses SSL, which should be good enough. The only computers that should be able to see the URL are yours and the server, and the server already has the money. Certainly it's possible that some specially-written malware on your computer could monitor for accesses to this site and steal the URL, but it could do that with the name and password of any e-wallet service, or any private keys stored on your own computer.

[spenvo]

Slick implementation!  I don't see any major issues on the security-side, so long as friends aren't using my computer.

Nice work!