Bitcoin is not anonymous to use and this no more news. But many of us were disappointed when we initially found this out.
Since then, I have tried many ways to be anonymous while using Bitcoin. Some of these ways are listed here: 6 Ways To Make Untraceable Transactions With Bitcoin.
But these ways are cumbersome and require some groundwork to be done before using Bitcoin.
Which led me to research on anonymous Bitcoin wallets at the beginning of my Bitcoin journey but no such thing existed then.
Today, however, we have some excellent anonymous Bitcoin wallets in the market. Amongst the many, one wallet that really stands out is the Samourai Bitcoin wallet.
In this article, I will review the Samourai wallet and evaluate everything you need to know about it based on the following points:
- What Is Samourai Wallet?
- Team Behind Samourai Wallet
- Samourai Features
- Supported Currencies
- Supported Platforms
- Conclusion
What Is Samourai Wallet?
Samourai wallet is the most secure and privacy-centric Bitcoin wallet currently available in the market.
The wallet continuous to be under development, but the team has released a stable version that can be used over mobile phones.
What I like about this wallet is that it fills in for shortcomings that Bitcoin has, for example, lack of anonymity, privacy etc.
It provides you the option of using the most secure cryptocurrency without compromising your identity which in itself is commendable.
How that happens will be discussed further in this article.
Team Behind Samourai Wallet
The actual team members aren’t quite vocal about their presence but looking at the product one can say there is some serious talent in the background.
Their statement on their website reiterates my point:
We are privacy activists who have dedicated our lives to creating the software that Silicon Valley will never build, the regulators will never allow, and the VC’s will never invest in. We build the software that Bitcoin deserves.
The statement “software that Silicon Valley will never build, the regulators will never allow” impresses me and speaks a lot about the level of democratization they want their product to reach.
Samourai Wallet Features
I was blown away by the list of features that Samourai wallet has incorporated in such a compact fashion. Some of the features that I really liked are:
Security Encryption & BIPs
The Samourai wallet follows all the industry standards of security and in some cases more. It has client-side AES-256 encryption as well as BIP32, BIP44, BIP49 etc implemented in its wallet infrastructure, so you need not panic in terms of security.
Strong Protection For Address Reuse
Samourai wallet is an HD wallet that never reuses a Bitcoin address and also has a mechanism in place to alert you if you are about to use a previously used Bitcoin address.
Clustering Analysis Protection with STONEWALL
Samourai provides by default a transaction that increases the difficulty of linking inputs to outputs of a transaction, making clustering wallet addresses and associated metadata more difficult. (Source: somouraiwallet.com)
Smarter Miner Fee & Custom Miner Fee
You can select low, normal, and priority fee model and get your transaction verified under 60, 30, 0-1 blocks respectively. Also, you can set your own custom fee for your transaction to get completed if you are not in a hurry.
High Entropy Transactions
Samourai transactions with STONEWALL enabled produce much higher entropy than standard bitcoin transactions and often resemble CoinJoin transactions on the blockchain. (Source: somouraiwallet.com)
Tor & VPN Enabled
The most amazing thing about this wallet is that it is Tor and VPN enabled so you can obscure your transaction IPs and enjoy the privacy feature in the wallet itself.
Replace By Fee
You can use this feature for the stuck BTC transaction due to the traffic on the blockchain, but for this, you need to tag your transaction as RBF.
PaymentNyms
PaymentNyms allows you to send and receive Bitcoin stealthily with a publicly shareable code. This is done by using BIP47 which wasn’t possible with normal BTC addresses considering they are auditable over the blockchain.
Ricochet
Those of you who understand Bitcoin well know that it is not fungible, but Samourai wallet is making that possible too. Fungibility is one of the main characteristics of sound money. Samourai’s Ricochet promotes fungibility in Bitcoin by actively working to disrupt the way blockchain spies attempt to create lists of “clean” and “dirty” coins. All coins are equal. (Source: somouraiwallet.com)
Sealth Mode & Remote Commands
You can use this feature to hide the Bitcoin wallet on your mobile as well as use it to retrieve your seed remotely by dialing a special code. Also, you can remotely clean swipe your mobile remotely if you have lost your mobile.
Supported Currencies by Samourai wallet
Samourai wallet only supports Bitcoin cryptocurrency directly.
But it, however, supports many fiat currency pair conversions so that you can see the amount of BTC you are sending or receiving in your native currency.
Supported Platforms
Samourai Bitcoin wallet is for the streets, which means it is for rough and tough use. Hence, if you know how to use this wallet properly, you will never compromise your security of BTC transactions.
Samourai wallet is currently supported on Android platform. The iOS version will be out soon.
Customer Support
Samourai wallet support is unlike any other wallets I have used. Their turn around time is beyond belief – within 6 hours.
You can contact them for customer support via sending requests from here and also look into their detailed knowledge bank of questions and answers.
Conclusion: Samourai wallet review
The market needs bold Bitcoin wallets like Samourai to make a statement. I must say Samourai wallet fits right in because it is setting a new benchmark.
I have used this wallet a few times now. I also faced a stuck transaction due to low transaction fees. The RBF feature (mentioned above) came to my rescue. Pretty smooth!
Moreover, unlike other BTC wallets, the Samourai wallet is open-source wallet which makes it more reliable and usable for further innovation.
Also, apart from the fact that the Samourai team is developing more crypto products apart from Samourai wallet gives a level of confidence to the users. And these products are complementary to Samourai which are ultimately making Samourai wallet only more stronger.
Here is the list of those products:
Also, I have not found any major critics over forums for this wallet and I intend to keep using Samourai wallet for time being until I find something as superior as Samourai wallet for private BTC transactions.
If I had to point out one aspect where they need to work harder, it would be their UI, but if privacy is of utmost importance to you, it should be as difficult to use.
That’s all from my side in this article.
Now you tell me: If you have used Samourai wallet before? How has your experience been? Do you know of any BTC wallet that is more privacy-centric than this? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. I will be waiting 🙂
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Here are a few other hand-picked articles for you to read next:
- How To Start Investing in Bitcoins – The Beginners Guide
- Bitcoin Wallets That Support Custom Transaction Fees
- 3 Smart Ways To Keep Your Cryptocurrency Wallet Secure
- How Much Bitcoin Transaction Fees Should You Pay For Confirmed Transaction?
Product Name: Samourai Bitcoin Wallet
Product Description: Samourai Wallet- One of the best privacy centric Bitcoin wallets available in the cryptosphere
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Privacy
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Summary
Samourai Wallet- One of the best privacy-centric Bitcoin wallets available in the cryptosphere.
In order to clean some bitcoins, is it a good approach to shift BTC funds from TREZOR or Ledger to Samourai Wallet (CoinJoin, etc.) and shift the funds back from Samourai to TREZOR with a different address?
Other question: if there’s no connexion between all my public addresses, is it still possible for analytic companies to deduce they’re all in fact coming from the same “author” or same HD wallet seed even though they don’t know my seed…