5 ms·

Hey, I tried figuring out what the most recent official Ethereum wallet is, but the wallets which the website lists all seem like third-party ones. The previou

Hey, I tried figuring out what the most recent official Ethereum wallet is, but the wallets which the website lists all seem like third-party ones. The previous official wallet's repository says "Mist and Ethereum Wallet have been deprecated.". Is it true that the Ethereum foundation isn't providing a wallet software anymore? Why is that? I would consider it as quite unsolvable as a user to determine which of the 24 third-party wallets is the most trustworthy, hence I'd prefer to just use one developed by the same people as Ethereum.

pietjepuk88 6y ago
With the advent of hardware wallets, and so many competing wallets/interfaces out there (tailored to different user bases), I feel it makes little sense for the Ethereum Foundation to pour their own (human) resources into this. They will support the ecosystems as necessary though, e.g. Metamask got funding way back in 2016.
- eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
  > I feel it makes little sense for the Ethereum Foundation to pour their own (human) resources into this. Well, they received $ 18.3 million in crowdfunding [1], so I would dare to say it's not only "their" resources but also the resources of the community which they're spending, isn't it? Given that the central thing a user needs to use a cryptocurrency is the wallet it would seem a bit weird to collect $ 18M from their users to develop a cryptocurrency and then not develop the software which the users need to use the currency? I mean they're a non-profit organization, if they don't hand anything out for the $ 18.3 M then they have profited quite a bit by taking in money but not delivering effectively usable goods from it? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-funded_crowdfunding_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-funded_crowdfu...
  - PretzelPirate 6y ago
    It’s odd to accuse the Ethereum Foundation of not delivering and it would be hard to back that claim. Developing yet another Ethereum wallet when there are so many on the market would be a waste. It’s better for the foundation to provide a list of high quality wallets that already exist.
    - eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
      > It’s odd to accuse the Ethereum Foundation of not delivering and it would be hard to back that claim. It's actually quite easy: I opened the websites of all the 24 wallets they list and checked the imprint of each. None says it was developed by the foundation. > Developing yet another Ethereum wallet when there are so many on the market would be a waste. > It’s better for the foundation to provide a list of high quality wallets that already exist. What would you think of me if I raised $18M to build a non-profit children's hospital and then used it to instead build a website which lists children's hospitals which were built by other people, most of which being for-profit companies, some even proclaiming themselves as registered in shady tax-haven countries, and most not even clearly showing where their company is registered?
      - brian_cloutier 6y ago
        A better analogy would be, it's a fully-functioning hospital but they don't provide their own shuttle service, you have to arrange transportation to the hospital yourself.
      - Sargos 6y ago
        The Ethereum Foundation's purpose is to fund and coordinate the building of the protocol and infrastructure surrounding it. That does include funding of wallet developers which it has done in the past but it's better for the ecosystem and decentralization if there are lots of high quality wallets instead of one default wallet everyone uses.
      - DennisP 6y ago
        They delivered ETH1 on July 30 2015, with several clients including Geth which is still popular today. That covered their promise to presale investors. They also made the Mist wallet/GUI, which was ultimately abandoned because competitors were better. Now they've delivered the first part of ETH2 today.
  - pietjepuk88 6y ago
    I guess I shouldn't have put the "human" in parentheses. I did give an example of how the EF is spending their money on development of the ecosystem though, hoping that'd make it clear what I meant. I even chose a grant to a wallet as the example. I personally prefer the role of the EF as a facilitator more than monolithic employer. And they can (and do) do facilitate in more ways than just handing out grants. It's just they experience has shown that helping out this way for wallet development (or even more generically software development) works better. To add, they did start out providing the software as you say. After a certain point though, their efforts were outpaced by community effort or business opportunities arising in the Ethereum ecosystem. At this point it took a while for them to figure out what new role to take on with their ("our") funds, eventually settling on what they're doing now.
    - eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
      Thanks for your further reply! :) > It's just they experience has shown that helping out this way for wallet development (or even more generically software development) works better. Does it really work better from the perspective of a user though? Because as a user I am now sitting in front of 24 websites which look equally "meh" in terms of trustworthiness (fancy design and huge claims), each of them trying to get me to hand out money to their software (that's what a wallet is about!), and almost all of them seemingly being for-profit companies which avoid listing their address. A single 1 well-known website (EDIT: I meant wallet, not website) of a non-profit would "work better" for me as a user in terms of trusting my choice to keep my money safe. (If I had any, not buying ETH in this situation :) > To add, they did start out providing the software as you say. After a certain point though, their efforts were outpaced by community effort or business opportunities arising in the Ethereum ecosystem. Do you notice that you're actually arguing in favor of my point? :) You say that their efforts were "outpaced", i.e. they failed. That's not a good thing to yield for $ 18 M :(
      - literallycancer 6y ago
        How does being a non-profit make their product more secure?
    - 6y ago
phyalow 6y ago
Just use Metamask!
- eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
  Thanks, what distinguishes it from the other 23?
  - colecut 6y ago
    It has the highest dapp compatibility
    - eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
      > It has the highest dapp compatibility Mmh thanks, well security is more relevant to me, but I nevertheless went to their website. Apparently it's a browser plugin. That's a big security no-no from my side, too much attack surface - sorry.
      - cdiddy2 6y ago
        What you really want is a hardware wallet(trezor) that hooks into metamask. That way you have the usability of the plugin without the risk that it can take all your money
        eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
        Thanks. Hardware wallets are extremely insecure IMHO: The people who sell them - and many people in their supply-chain! - are handed the very dangerous combination of: A) Being able to hard-code software into the silicon whose source code you will be completely unable to inspect unless you own an electron microscope and a very large amount of knowledge on hardware reverse engineering. What if the hardware forces the PRNG to be predictable so they can remotely know my crypto's private keys without any internet connectivity whatsoever? B) Knowing 100% for sure that the device they sell will be used to store money. They don't need to first find victims, they know ALL of their customers can be. It's like writing "MONEY INSIDE" on your house IMHO. Better use a general purpose PC whose vendor doesn't know what it'll be used for.
JohnTHaller 6y ago
Honestly, I'm in the same boat. I have the full Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin core clients installed and with a full blockchain on my PC. With Ethereum, I always found the base client much buggier than the others (browser-based apps do that). And now, it's just 'pick one of these 24 random wallets'. Really? I went from mining Ethereum and even releasing a minimal mining GUI for folks who wanted to support PortableApps.com to feeling uneasy about it. I don't even have an ETH client on my PC now, so I can't even access the fraction of an ETH I own. I'll probably ditch ETH donations to PortableApps.com as well.
- pfundstein 6y ago
  Sorry for the tangent but isn't litecoin and dogecoin one and the same now? Why separate clients?
  - shp0ngle 6y ago
    It is not and never was
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Nope one was started as a joke and the other one, the founder sold literally his entire holdings at the top of the market for $600/LTC, 8x current price (and ran away to an island somewhere, I assume) years ago, leaving the foundation on the brink of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy claim which to be fair they denied in 2019. Smart man!
    - caffeinatedgoat 6y ago
      Honestly I'm surprised the coin is still around after that. What exactly does LTC bring to the table to support it's position as a top 5 cryptocurrency?
    - jeppebemad 6y ago
      Not sure where you get your facts, but Litecoin all-time-high was around $360. The founder, Charlie Lee, stayed and is still a visible and active advocate for litecoin to this day.

pietjepuk88 6y ago

With the advent of hardware wallets, and so many competing wallets/interfaces out there (tailored to different user bases), I feel it makes little sense for the Ethereum Foundation to pour their own (human) resources into this. They will support the ecosystems as necessary though, e.g. Metamask got funding way back in 2016.

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
> I feel it makes little sense for the Ethereum Foundation to pour their own (human) resources into this. Well, they received $ 18.3 million in crowdfunding [1], so I would dare to say it's not only "their" resources but also the resources of the community which they're spending, isn't it? Given that the central thing a user needs to use a cryptocurrency is the wallet it would seem a bit weird to collect $ 18M from their users to develop a cryptocurrency and then not develop the software which the users need to use the currency? I mean they're a non-profit organization, if they don't hand anything out for the $ 18.3 M then they have profited quite a bit by taking in money but not delivering effectively usable goods from it? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-funded_crowdfunding_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-funded_crowdfu...
- PretzelPirate 6y ago
  It’s odd to accuse the Ethereum Foundation of not delivering and it would be hard to back that claim. Developing yet another Ethereum wallet when there are so many on the market would be a waste. It’s better for the foundation to provide a list of high quality wallets that already exist.
  - eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
    > It’s odd to accuse the Ethereum Foundation of not delivering and it would be hard to back that claim. It's actually quite easy: I opened the websites of all the 24 wallets they list and checked the imprint of each. None says it was developed by the foundation. > Developing yet another Ethereum wallet when there are so many on the market would be a waste. > It’s better for the foundation to provide a list of high quality wallets that already exist. What would you think of me if I raised $18M to build a non-profit children's hospital and then used it to instead build a website which lists children's hospitals which were built by other people, most of which being for-profit companies, some even proclaiming themselves as registered in shady tax-haven countries, and most not even clearly showing where their company is registered?
    - brian_cloutier 6y ago
      A better analogy would be, it's a fully-functioning hospital but they don't provide their own shuttle service, you have to arrange transportation to the hospital yourself.
    - Sargos 6y ago
      The Ethereum Foundation's purpose is to fund and coordinate the building of the protocol and infrastructure surrounding it. That does include funding of wallet developers which it has done in the past but it's better for the ecosystem and decentralization if there are lots of high quality wallets instead of one default wallet everyone uses.
    - DennisP 6y ago
      They delivered ETH1 on July 30 2015, with several clients including Geth which is still popular today. That covered their promise to presale investors. They also made the Mist wallet/GUI, which was ultimately abandoned because competitors were better. Now they've delivered the first part of ETH2 today.
- pietjepuk88 6y ago
  I guess I shouldn't have put the "human" in parentheses. I did give an example of how the EF is spending their money on development of the ecosystem though, hoping that'd make it clear what I meant. I even chose a grant to a wallet as the example. I personally prefer the role of the EF as a facilitator more than monolithic employer. And they can (and do) do facilitate in more ways than just handing out grants. It's just they experience has shown that helping out this way for wallet development (or even more generically software development) works better. To add, they did start out providing the software as you say. After a certain point though, their efforts were outpaced by community effort or business opportunities arising in the Ethereum ecosystem. At this point it took a while for them to figure out what new role to take on with their ("our") funds, eventually settling on what they're doing now.
  - eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
    Thanks for your further reply! :) > It's just they experience has shown that helping out this way for wallet development (or even more generically software development) works better. Does it really work better from the perspective of a user though? Because as a user I am now sitting in front of 24 websites which look equally "meh" in terms of trustworthiness (fancy design and huge claims), each of them trying to get me to hand out money to their software (that's what a wallet is about!), and almost all of them seemingly being for-profit companies which avoid listing their address. A single 1 well-known website (EDIT: I meant wallet, not website) of a non-profit would "work better" for me as a user in terms of trusting my choice to keep my money safe. (If I had any, not buying ETH in this situation :) > To add, they did start out providing the software as you say. After a certain point though, their efforts were outpaced by community effort or business opportunities arising in the Ethereum ecosystem. Do you notice that you're actually arguing in favor of my point? :) You say that their efforts were "outpaced", i.e. they failed. That's not a good thing to yield for $ 18 M :(
    - literallycancer 6y ago
      How does being a non-profit make their product more secure?
  - 6y ago

phyalow 6y ago

Just use Metamask!

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
Thanks, what distinguishes it from the other 23?
- colecut 6y ago
  It has the highest dapp compatibility
  - eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
    > It has the highest dapp compatibility Mmh thanks, well security is more relevant to me, but I nevertheless went to their website. Apparently it's a browser plugin. That's a big security no-no from my side, too much attack surface - sorry.
    - cdiddy2 6y ago
      What you really want is a hardware wallet(trezor) that hooks into metamask. That way you have the usability of the plugin without the risk that it can take all your money
      - eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
        Thanks. Hardware wallets are extremely insecure IMHO: The people who sell them - and many people in their supply-chain! - are handed the very dangerous combination of: A) Being able to hard-code software into the silicon whose source code you will be completely unable to inspect unless you own an electron microscope and a very large amount of knowledge on hardware reverse engineering. What if the hardware forces the PRNG to be predictable so they can remotely know my crypto's private keys without any internet connectivity whatsoever? B) Knowing 100% for sure that the device they sell will be used to store money. They don't need to first find victims, they know ALL of their customers can be. It's like writing "MONEY INSIDE" on your house IMHO. Better use a general purpose PC whose vendor doesn't know what it'll be used for.

JohnTHaller 6y ago

Honestly, I'm in the same boat. I have the full Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin core clients installed and with a full blockchain on my PC. With Ethereum, I always found the base client much buggier than the others (browser-based apps do that). And now, it's just 'pick one of these 24 random wallets'. Really? I went from mining Ethereum and even releasing a minimal mining GUI for folks who wanted to support PortableApps.com to feeling uneasy about it. I don't even have an ETH client on my PC now, so I can't even access the fraction of an ETH I own. I'll probably ditch ETH donations to PortableApps.com as well.

pfundstein 6y ago
Sorry for the tangent but isn't litecoin and dogecoin one and the same now? Why separate clients?
- shp0ngle 6y ago
  It is not and never was
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Nope one was started as a joke and the other one, the founder sold literally his entire holdings at the top of the market for $600/LTC, 8x current price (and ran away to an island somewhere, I assume) years ago, leaving the foundation on the brink of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy claim which to be fair they denied in 2019. Smart man!
  - caffeinatedgoat 6y ago
    Honestly I'm surprised the coin is still around after that. What exactly does LTC bring to the table to support it's position as a top 5 cryptocurrency?
  - jeppebemad 6y ago
    Not sure where you get your facts, but Litecoin all-time-high was around $360. The founder, Charlie Lee, stayed and is still a visible and active advocate for litecoin to this day.