Interoperability is an essential aspect of owning your digital identity. This means that you should be able to move your avatars and assets between different platforms, allowing you to maintain your digital identity across multiple platforms and ensuring that your investments in virtual worlds and social networks are not lost if you decide to switch platforms. The New Frontier Presents (NFP) Store is a great example of a platform that offers interoperable assets. They accept thousands of different tokens across…
Samourai Wallet – A Bitcoin Wallet To Keep Your Transactions Private
The Samourai Wallet is a well established Bitcoin-only mobile wallet option for Android users. The platform combines many different features and unique functions to deliver a well-designed and useful wallet for the average user. Today, Samourai has a reputation for its ability to send and receive secure and private transactions. Additionally, it was one of the first mobile wallets to support SegWit transactions in the market. This pioneering spirit is another reason this project continues to gain momentum.
Benefits of the Samourai Wallet
The developers behind the Samourai Wallet focused on user privacy and funds’ security as their primary goals. This desire led to introducing various proprietary systems to create a robust and difficult to track wallet. Notably, Samourai is loaded with powerful features for more advanced users. Still, all of the core actions are set up so that anyone could easily complete transactions without instructions.
How Does the Samourai Wallet Work
The Samourai Wallet is an open-source project that has undergone significant peer-based review since its introduction to the market. The platform was coded in Java, one of the most popular coding languages in the sector. When you look at the system, the first thing you notice is that the developers went to great lengths to deliver users an anonymous Bitcoin experience through various methods. As such, Samourai users gain access to some really unique features not found anywhere else in the market.
Discretion is Step #1
One of these cool features is Stealth Mode. When you initiate this mode, the shortcut for Samourai disappears from your mobile’s display. If someone steals your phone or happens to be prying into your affairs, they will be no wiser to the fact your Bitcoin, or more accurately, your private keys, are stored there. Critically, this security feature is helpful but won’t stop anyone with the knowledge to directly search your phone’s directory.
When you want to access Samourai Wallet when in Stealth Mode, you need to dial your PIN like a phone number into the window. It’s swift and adds an extra layer of security. Ideally, this powerful feature helps to keep phone thieves out of your crypto doings.
Privacy is King
Samourai’s privacy-centric approach to Bitcoin storage is evident in every system. Each transaction allows you to choose exactly how many of the privacy features to include. Impressively, the network obscures your blockchain transaction history using BIP 126. In turn, this strategy minimizes references to past transactions from the Samourai wallet. Additionally, a new wallet address is created for every incoming transaction. In this way, Samourai manages to keep your Bitcoins hidden from hackers and thieves.
VPN and Tor Support
Samourai Wallet users can also cloak their IP addresses using VPN and TOR technologies. This technology is crucial because Bitcoin thieves are now coming to people’s homes and violently requesting a withdrawal. The combination of these technologies is very effective at keeping any unwanted guests out of your front yard.
Batch Spending
The introduction of batch spending features is another advantage that Samourai has over the competition. Batch spending protocols combine many smaller transactions into one large transaction. Combining transactions can save you as much as 30% on mining fees. Notably, Samourai was the first wallet to offer this type of transaction batching to the public.
PayNyms
The PayNyms feature allows users to receive payments without revealing their exact address. The protocol masks the details of the receiver and replaces it with a PayNyms address. Impressively, this address can be reused multiple times without harming your privacy. Developers claim that there’s no way to link it to any specific address on the blockchain.
Remote Commands
The Remote Commands feature is another advanced feature meant for only the stealthiest users. If your phone is ever lost or stolen, you can send an SMS to your wallet directly. The code will require your Samourai PIN. Once in, you can then delegate if you want to get a response with your backup wallet seed phrase or if you prefer to self-destruct the wallet all together.
This system allows you to retrieve your funds, send them to safety, and then destroy the Samourai wallet on the lost/stolen phone in minutes. Insanely, this can be set up to function even if the SIM card is removed. When you utilize this feature, the main thing to consider is that your seed phrase will be visible to anyone who may be monitoring your cell.
Ricochet feature
Suppose all of these James Bond-like features are still not enough for you. You can pay an additional charge of $2.50 plus additional mining fees to use the Ricochet feature. This protocol will route your transaction through a series of additional addresses for extra peace of mind.
Smart Fees
Samourai includes a Smart Fees feature that allows you to determine the exact fee amount you wish to pay per transaction. Nicely, the system continuously monitors network congestion to suggest an appropriate fee for the amount you want to send. Conveniently, if you mess up and send your transactions with a too low fee, you can always use the Replace by Fee feature, which allows you to bump up your fees.
How To Get the Samourai Wallet
Currently, the Samourai Wallet is only available on Android devices. You can download the Dapp directly from the GooglePlay Store for Free. Download and setup is a breeze. You will need to take a note of your seed recovery phrase and keep it safe.
How to Use the Samourai Wallet
The Samourai Wallet is designed in a manner to simplify the most important functions for Bitcoin users. You can easily send and receive payments via an address or QR code. When you send a transaction, a prompt will verify how many privacy protocols you wish to utilize. The more you choose, the harder it is to track your transactions. However, they do add a little more time to your transaction.
The Samourai Wallet is Needed
The Samourai Wallet upholds the core fundamentals of Bitcoin. It provides true fungibility, security, transparency, financial privacy, and decentralization in an intuitive interface. Now more than ever, the value of privacy is at an all-time high. Samourai remains committed to this cause through its unique toolset designed to keep your Bitcoin’s safe.