The Best iPhone Wallets
Check out BitReview's picks of the top wallets to use on your iphone.
Breadwallet
Bread Wallet
Breadwallet is made for mobile, and the user experience feels native to the devices. Excellent entry-level product, which does not cheap out on security.
- Easy to use but robust enough to be your go-to iphone wallet
- Breadwallet is an SPV wallet which sets it apart from much of the competition
- Continuous to integrate new and important cryptos
Bitcoin
Ethereum
Bitcoin Cash
- iOS, Android
If you are looking for an easy to use, secure bitcoin wallet for your iphone, we recommend going with BreadWallet. The interface is simple enough for intuitive use by first timers. Three buttons! Send allows you to paste and address or scan a barcode. Receive generates a QR code or provides a long address you can send along. The address is changed every time you receive money to maintain your privacy – but of course, from within the breadwallet app, you will see your entire balance within the same wallet.
Under the security settings (found in settings) you may easily set up Touch ID both to open the app as well as to send bitcoin, and your private key is available for offline recording. Note that the private key is stored locally there, on your mobile device and nowhere else. Note that if you lose your mobile phone and have not recorded your private key, Breadwallet will be unable to restore your wallet and you will lose the bitcoin you held.
Breadwallet is an SPV wallet, which means it downloads the block headers (not the entire blockchain), which is as good as it gets for a mobile wallet. Note also that breadwallet performed very well during the bitcoin gold and bitcoin cash chain splits, offering their customers a simple way of retrieving their coin. The alternative entry level mobile wallet, Mycelium, did not offer a way from within the wallet to reclaim the new altcoins. Additionally, Mycelium uses trusted servers for blockchain data, which is a less decentralized method than SPV. (And remember, you are in this for the decentralization, right?!)
GreenAddress
GreenAddress
GreenAddress is an HD, multisig wallet available using chrome extension on desktop or on native iOS or Android apps.
- Green Address is one of the signatures required for multisig functionality
- you can sync your iphone wallet with their chrome extension to access from multiple platforms
- HD wallet means you are backed up from one seed
- Bitcoin
- iOS, Android, Desktop, Web
- Multisig
GreenAddress is an easy to use 2 of 3 multisig wallet made specially for iphone devices. Each transaction is signed by both the user and GreenAddress, who checks a number of parameters for each bitcoin withdrawal – IP, country, other stuff they don’t share – to determine whether the transaction is suspect. If it is flagged, the bitcoin is not sent until further confirmation is received by the wallet holder. A third key, held also by the wallet holder, is held to ensure ownership of the coins should, for instance, Green Address disappear one day.
This sounds quite secure, but please note – the security depends entirely on GreenAddress’s internal processes, which we rightly know nothing about. Bitfinex also had a similar 2 of 2 system, and that did not stop a massive hack attack of the hot wallets that, really, should have been stopped by a proper multisig methodology.
Blockchain.info
blockchain.info
If you seek a simple wallet that you can access from multiple platforms - web, ios/android apps - blockchain.info is a great solution.
- Probably the most popular wallet in the business
- Excellent block explorer and interesting blockchain data
- Can get a bit too nosy with your information
- Bitcoin
- Ethereum
- Bitcoin Cash
- iOS, Android, Web
Well, blockchain.info is definitely popular and well-funded, but really that might be more a result of it being quite an early market participant rather than a superior wallet. It has made some important strides over the past year or two, most notably integrating HD functionality. Getting started is a bit more cumbersome than other entry level wallets like breadwallet, for instance. You need to verify your email address, which seems unnecessarily intrusive. On the plus side, the interface is very simple for and bitcoin and ethereum wallets. You can convert between bitcoin and ethereum right from the wallet thanks to the blockchain.info integration with Shapeshift, which is quite convenient. Blockchain also runs the most popular block explorer program in the market from the web based wallet.
Copay
Copay
Super m-of-n multisig wallet, brought to you by BitPay. This is the best multisig mobile wallet out there.
- Our favorite multisig wallet with custom signature methodologies
- Really great user interface
- Owned by bitpay which will turn off some
- Bitcoin
- iOS, Android, Desktop, Web
- Multisig
Copay is a multisig wallet owned by bitpay. Bitpay is two things: the industry’s leading merchant processing company, and consistently on the wrong side of issues concerning the bitcoin network. Remember the abysmal failure of the segway2X launch, which crashed due to zero user support and incompetent developers? Bitpay was behind that. Roger Ver’s bitcoin cash ego trip, which now seems to be propped up almost entirely due to a troll farm and a few really wealthy bitcoin holders? Bitpay is an active supporter, Ver is an early investor. Bitpay also has consistently sided with mining power over the views of the user base, which could have real world consequences. Jihan Wu, Bitmain’s CEO, controls much of the industry’s mining power – if he decides to go full force behind a fork against the wishes of the community, what will Copay/bitpay do with their wallet infrastructure?
Any event, they are a 2 of 3 to 4 of 6 multisig wallet, which should provide superior security. Basically, you can designate multiple friends/family/lovers to hold additional private keys needed to unlock certain wallets. Would be thieves need to hack more than one computer now to get their hands on all your keys. The interface is pretty simple and intuitive, and copay does a good job hand holding users throughout the process of setting up a multisig wallet.
Airbitz
Airbitz
Airbitz is a great iOS and Android wallet with an integrated business directory showing bitcoin merchants in your vicinity.
- Has an integrated business directory so you can see exactly where to spend your bitcoin!
- Airbitz is integrated with exchanges so you may buy bitcoin directly from the wallet
- A good place to store spending cash but not your entire nest egg
- Bitcoin
- iOS, Android
Airbitz’s hook is their integration of bitcoin accepting businesses into a directory. If you enable to GPS, Airbitz will display on a geolocated map all the nearby places where you can buy stuff in bitcoin. For those who subsist on bitcoin, this is a big help. You can buy directly from purse and bitrefill right from the home screen and gift cards to target and starbucks are offered through fold. (20% off!) and buy/sell options are integrated via plugin from Glidera in the US and Bity in Europe.
Your username and password encrypts the private key which is stored on airbitz servers. This means that, should you lose your device, you can download the app elsewhere and get access to your wallet should you remember your user and pass. It also means that your encrypted private key is on a third party server, protected by your user and password, which will make some uncomfortable. Anyway, it is a good option for your spare satoshis you want to spend on starbucks or target through Fold.