Blockstream Green Wallet Review and Guide | Bitcoin wallet on mobile and desktop devices (2023)

Blockstream Green is a non-custodial* Bitcoin wallet developed by Blockstream. Blockstream is heavily involved in many aspects of the Bitcoin ecosystem and they have used their expertise to bring a well-polished Bitcoin wallet to life. Blockstream Green has a clean interface and a very comprehensive set of usability, security and some privacy features that provide a good user experience for both novice and advanced users.

Crypto testers reviewed the wallet and its features from the simplest to the most advanced. We cover usability, security, and privacy features.

Ease of use of the wallet

Blockstream Green can be downloaded on all major desktop and mobile operating systems (Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and Linux). The app is available internationally and has been translated into the following 11 languages: Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian.

Integration experience and first impressions

When launching the application for the first time, a simple and straightforward screen will appear asking you to create a new wallet or restore a previously created one. Some other more advanced features are accessible from this first screen, but they are hidden to keep the first screen uncluttered. We'll come back to these more advanced features like Bitcoin Testnet and Liquid Wallets later.

When you create a new wallet, the app prompts you to secure your wallet recovery seed first and provides a set of security best practices before prompting you to enter all 24 words. There is some debate in the cryptographic sphere as to whether this mandatory action should be presented to the user prior to accessing the wallet, which can detract from the user's onboarding experience, or later when the user is more comfortable with the wallet. Blockstream has taken the secure approach, but strived to keep the process short and smooth. Words are displayed in four groups of six, and once all have been displayed, the user is asked to retype some of the words to ensure they are spelled correctly.

Next, the user must configure the authentication methods that will be used to access the wallet on a daily basis. During wallet setup, entering a 6-digit wallet PIN is mandatory, while two-factor authentication methods (also known as 2FA) are optional. However, both can be enabled/disabled or changed later. Blockstream Green offers four different 2FA methods: Email, SMS, Call and Google Authenticator. Several options can be activated, which can be very useful in case one of the methods is no longer available (for example, if you lose your phone).

All in all, the overall onboarding process is smooth and easy, even for beginners who might not have used a bitcoin wallet before.

send receive

Once your wallet is set up, you will have access to the account screen which shows your current balance with the option to send or receive a payment. You can choose from 26 different fiat currencies to display your current balance amount, including USD, EUR, GBP or SGD, and you can choose from multiple pricing sources if you have a preferred exchange or find it to be a more reliable feed.

To send a transaction, you need to paste the destination bitcoin address or scan the QR code, a very common approach with cryptocurrency wallets. Then the user enters the amount and chooses the transaction priority. Blockstream Green automatically calculates the required rate for three priority levels. The first is "Fast" for a confirmation time of about 30 minutes, then "Medium" for 2 hours, and finally "Slow" for 4 hours. This is a nice touch of Blockstream as it reduces some of the complexity of choosing the right transaction fees and also prevents the user from automatically over- or under-paying for their transactions. Please note that the confirmation times above are estimates. Actual confirmation times may be longer or shorter depending on bitcoin network traffic.

To receive funds, the user can click on the "Receive" button, which displays a public address and the corresponding QR code. The Amount field is optional, but can be used to create an invoice and enter the requested amount in the QR code. Additionally, the wallet uses what is known as hierarchical deterministic (HD) key generation, which generates a new bitcoin address each time you wish to receive funds. It is a must in Bitcoin best practices and a very good point for Blockstream Green.

The send and receive functions are clear and straightforward. The UI sometimes looks a little outdated compared to other wallets currently on the market.

transaction notes

After sending or receiving a transaction, you can click on it from the main account screen to see some additional details. There, the user can add a note to the transaction, for example, to remind him where he came from or how much he paid later. This is useful because it's hard to remember the details of a transaction weeks later just because of the amount and the recipient's bitcoin address.

see portfolio only

This is a feature we would like to see in more bitcoin wallets. Watch-only wallets allow you to check your wallet's current balance and transactions independently of the private key, which does not allow for the send option. If you don't want to go through PIN and 2FA every time you just want to check your balance, create a less secure login for your watch-only wallet and make sure your wallet balance is safe. However, you cannot initiate transactions for this wallet, as its key is not imported: it simply reads the account balance from the blockchain and conveniently displays it in the Blockstream Green interface.

SegWit address

You may notice that when you click the Receive button, the address that Blockstream generates for you starts with a "3", which is characteristic of a Segregated Witness (or SegWit) address, one of the three types of Bitcoin addresses. The other two types of addresses are legacy addresses that start with "1" and native SegWit addresses that start with "bc1". Each type of address has a different way of storing transaction data, making them more or less efficient. A more efficient address means it takes up less space in a bitcoin block and therefore costs less fees. The Segwit address type is the second most efficient address type (just after native SegWit). While it's great that Blockstream Green has SegWit built in, it's not the latest in Bitcoin development and users can save a little more on transaction fees if the wallet upgrades address types to native SegWit.

Furthermore, Blockstream Green does not offer the option to choose the type of address generated by the wallet. This is a clear disadvantage for power users who want that freedom of choice. In some situations, choosing the right type of address can help maintain good privacy. For example, if you need to send a payment to an old address, you can also send the transaction from an old address so that chain analysis software cannot easily identify the destination address in the transaction results.

Custom transaction fees

Users who are more familiar with how Bitcoin works and want to optimize their fees can do so using the custom transaction fee field when creating their transaction. The custom rate is expressed in satoshi/vbyte and can be set to any value, either very low to save fees and sacrifice some speed, or very high if they want a faster confirmation time than the 30 minutes offers. default quick option.

The wallet also enables Payment Override (RBF) by default. RBF is a feature that allows you to update transaction fees when your transaction is already in the storage pool but has not yet been validated by a miner. This will be highly appreciated by advanced users. Sometimes you find that you've tried to over-optimize your transaction fees and the miners never get the transaction back. In such a situation and without the RBF activated, raising your rates a little is impossible and you will have to wait. If the network is very active and there are many unconfirmed transactions, this can mean wait times of days or weeks. The team informed us that a future version of the wallet will allow users to enable/disable this option at will.

testnet wallet

The app allows the user to select a second account type that uses testnet bitcoin. Testnet Bitcoin is basically a clone of Bitcoin, it has exactly the same features as Bitcoin, but it is for testing purposes only. Testnet bitcoins are worthless and can be obtained from various faucets (cf.Testnet – Bitcoin-Wikifor more details). The purpose of a testnet account is to allow users to test all the functionality of the wallet without worrying about losing funds or paying fees or even having to deposit real money into the wallet.

It's a great feature and Blockstream made the right decision to include it in their portfolio. We've included this in the Advanced Features section simply because we don't want to confuse some new users. And that's the slightly ironic aspect of this feature. While it is intended for new users, it is also less understood by new users and can be confusing.

Hardware support with multisig account option

The wallet supports the most popular ones.hardware walletsi.e. Ledger Nano S/X and Trezor One/Model T. Please note however that not all account types support hardware wallets, not all hardware wallets support account types offered by Blockstream Green such as testnet or liquid (which we will see later). come back for later).

Blockstream Green wallets have 2 of 2 multi-signatures by default. This adds another layer of security to the wallet. A standard wallet stores one of two keys on the user's device and the second on the Blockstream Green server. For added security, hardware wallets can be used to store the first 2 of 2 multi-signature wallet keys instead of keeping them on the device.

Security

We mentioned the 6-digit PIN in the onboarding section above. Setting up your PIN is part of the initial wallet setup and is required whenever you want to access your funds. After setting up your wallet, you can remove the PIN entirely. In this case, you need the initial 24 words for each login. The wallet also has the option to log in using phone biometrics such as a fingerprint reader or FaceID.

The wallet also has a default logout feature that will automatically log you out after a certain period of time. The default value is set to 5 minutes, but can be changed by the user to 1, 2, 10, or 60 minutes.

Private key/seeded secure recovery

We also mentioned the recovery seed in the integration section. The wallet uses the popular 24-word mnemonic retrieval seed. You never have to worry about storing the private key of each public address generated by your wallet. The mnemonic recovery seed allows you to restore your entire balance if you lose your device or forget your wallet PIN.

Login 2FA Authentication: Email, SMS, Call, Google Auth

This security feature was also mentioned in the integration section. Not surprisingly, the three basic security features are shown to the user right from the start. This shows that Blockstream Green takes the security of its wallet very seriously and wants to ensure it is fully set up before depositing funds. As a reminder, Blockstream Green allows you to enable one or more 2FA methods between email, call, SMS or Google authentication. The first three are self-explanatory, but the fourth might not be familiar to you if you're new to security best practices. In short, Google Authentication is an app that generates a (usually) 6-digit code and updates it every 30 seconds. When enabling Google Auth on your wallet, you will be asked to enter this 6-digit code for every major action such as: B. logging in or, if you have an active Blockstream Green subscription, submitting a transaction (more on this later ). These 2FA methods are designed to make it difficult for thieves to access your funds, even if they have your phone or find your mnemonic phrase.

However, you should be careful when setting up 2FA methods on the same device where your wallet is installed. 2FA would prevent theft if someone got access to your mnemonic phrase and tried to access your wallet from another device. However, if someone has access to your phone and knows your PIN, none of these methods are likely to prevent theft if you have it on the same phone. Actually that would mean receiving the sms/call/email or having the Google authenticator app on the same device. As such, we recommend pointing your 2FA methods to another device, such as a backup phone or an email address that doesn't have your credentials stored on your phone, if you really want the best possible security.

multigrade green blockstream

The Blockstream Green multi-signature scheme is a unique feature developed by Blockstream to further protect user funds. In short, this feature creates two keys, both of which are required to approve a transaction and send funds from your wallet.

For each transaction, two unique signatures are derived from their respective private keys. The first signature is derived from the private key stored locally on the user's device (this private key is encrypted and can only be decrypted using the PIN or quick login method). The second signature is derived and requested from the second private key stored on Blockstream's servers. Essentially, Blockstream Green automatically creates a multi-sig wallet with Blockstream as a co-signer. When 2FA is active, the wallet prompts the user to complete one of the 2FA methods and, upon successful completion, sends a request to Blockstream's servers to provide the missing piece. If 2FA is not active, the missing part will be shipped automatically.

This feature is enabled in the app by default and cannot be disabled. It's actually great for reducing the chances of getting hacked, but remember this takes control of your trust funds into trust as it presents a third party to approve the transaction.

However, Blockstream implemented this feature very cleverly by implementing something called "time blocks" on their transactions. This means that if you cannot access the second part of the subscription, you will still be able to access it after a certain period of time (90 days by default). This reduces the risk of getting completely locked out of your wallet if Blockstream's servers burn down or the company goes out of business. Note that this will force you to move your funds to a different wallet address (which you own) every time the timeout period expires; otherwise, your funds will no longer be protected by Blockstream Green's multisig.

Unfortunately, currently the time lock parameter cannot be changed in the mobile wallet, only in the desktop wallet. However, the development team informed us that a new version of the app is on the way, allowing users to change these settings in the app as well.

Blockstream Green's multisig engine also has a spending limit parameter. The user can select a transaction threshold below which the second signature is not required. You can think of it as a contactless bank card payment, which does not require a PIN for amounts under 20 euros.

VPS Sync

SPV stands for Simplified Payment Verification. An SPV wallet refers to a wallet that does not verify the Bitcoin blockchain itself, but relies on an external Bitcoin node to validate that each block contains valid transactions. Basically, it trusts this node to check the rules of the protocol and just checks if a transaction is contained in one of the local copies of the external blockchain node to validate that the transaction is valid.

This wallet architecture is adopted by the vast majority of wallets to make the wallets easier to use. As running a full node requires some technical knowledge and would be a major hurdle for most new users, an SPV wallet removes this complexity at the expense of the necessary trust between the wallet user and the SPV node.

The Blockstream Green wallet is an SPV wallet and is connected by default to one of Blockstream's Bitcoin nodes for validation. The SPV Sync feature allows users to choose other validation sources by connecting to different nodes (including your own if you've configured them) and specifying which sources you trust. This feature aims to reduce the level of trust the user must place in the Blockstream node and improve the security of their funds in the event their node is compromised.

wallet privacy

Tor Accessibility

Remember how we already mentioned that there were some advanced hidden options when creating a new wallet? Well, one of them is the Tor accessibility option. In case you're not familiar, Tor is basically a peer-to-peer network that lets you browse privately and hide your IP address by routing your traffic through what are known as "onion routers". This feature is a must for any wallet that claims to be aware of its users' privacy.

Blockstream Green Wallet allows the user to activate Tor with the simple click of a button (or toggle in this case). No configuration or additional software is required by the user, everything is integrated into the app! We recommend that you always enable Tor when using your wallet. The only downside to using Tor is a slightly longer login time as the request has to go through the Tor network nodes, but that's a small price to pay for increased privacy.

liquid support

Liquid is a Bitcoin sidechain developed by Blockstream. Sidechains are like "child" blockchains that enable some new functionality over the "parent" blockchain, usually with some security or decentralization trade-off.

The Liquid sidechain issues L-BTCs that are fully backed by real BTCs, meaning that for every L-BTC, one bitcoin equivalent is blocked. Liquid allows some additional features, for example, processing transactions between wallets and exchanges in just 2 minutes. It also offers some privacy features like confidential transactions which obfuscate the amount and type of asset sent in a transaction. Liquid also supports issuing new assets alongside L-BTC, all interacting on the same sidechain.

The Blockstream Green Wallet fully supports all assets issued on Liquid Network, including L-BTC. Most of the time, it shares all the functionality of the Bitcoin wallet with the additional liquid securities account for storing other types of tokens. See the official documentation for more details.net networkand Liquid Portfolio.

Support

While not directly related to wallet functionality, support is an important part of the user experience. Reactive and helpful support can mean the difference between a good portfolio and a great one. During this review, cryptocurrency testers contacted Blockstream Green Wallet to request additional information about the wallet's features. The support is not real-time but the team responded within a few business days and provided all the information clearly. Very good experience on our part!

Did you have other experiences? Tag us @cryptotesters on Twitter to share with us.

Diploma

The Blockstream Green Wallet is one of the most balanced Bitcoin-focused non-custodial wallets currently available on the market. It has a simple and intuitive UX/UI, some unique security features like standard multisig, and a good set of basic privacy features like Tor. Blockstream is heavily involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem and does a lot of work for it.lightning networkecosystem. They have implemented c-lightning and are actively contributing to Lightning development. We hope that one day this experience will come to life in Blockstream Green in the form of support for Lightning Payments. If they can implement this functionality, as well as some more advanced privacy features like coinjoin, as easily as what is currently available in their wallet, this could become the most advanced and beginner-friendly wallet yet.