Open Bitcoin Privacy Project (OBPP) released their bitcoin wallet privacy report second edition, which is a review of twenty bitcoin wallets and how their services rank in terms of customer privacy. This is an important report in the bitcoin field as it demonstrates which bitcoin wallets are more focused on privacy for their customers versus wallets that may be focused on other areas of bitcoin development and customer satisfaction.

In the report, which was contributed to by several people including Kristov Atlas, Justus Ranvier, Andreas Antonopoulos, and others, it says that they are seeing more wallets adopt Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) architecture, which is an important feature to privacy focused wallets, which helps customers avoid address reuse. The report also said,

Wallets seem to be mostly in a holding pattern, waiting for their competitors to take the lead on innovating. Improvements are desperately needed to keep Bitcoin independent and safe. If you’re like me, and you want to see more progress in this area in 2016, it’s time to vote with your wallet. Let companies know that you care about privacy, and choose the wallets that respond to this demand.

The top five wallets in the OBPP 2016 report

Out of the twenty wallets reviewed, here are the top five wallets that came out with the best privacy ratings. This doesn’t mean the rest of the wallets in the report are bad, but if privacy is an important feature to you for the wallet you use, these five should be considered. It’s also good to note that only twenty wallets in total were reviewed, but by our count there are over seventy-five bitcoin wallet service providers on the market to choose from.

1. Ledger: the top rated wallet for privacy was the Ledger hardware wallet, with a score of 50/100. In the report it said that the hardware wallet outperformed its competitors in handling privacy basics.
2. Breadwallet: the second best wallet for privacy was Breadwallet, which scored 49/100. In the report it says due to Breadwallets SPV architecture it avoids leaking information commonly transmitted from mobile clients to wallet providers.
3. Airbitz: coming up in third is Airbitz, which scored 47/100. The report highlights that Airbitz uses HD architecture to protect user privacy in combination with multiple account support.
4. Darkwallet: in the fourth top rated privacy focused wallets is Darkwallet, which scored 45/100. One of the main features that the report highlights is CoinJoin (mixing) support, as well as the HD architecture and multiple account support.
5. ArcBit: and in the fifth top spot for privacy-centric focused wallets is ArcBit, which scored 45/100. ArcBit makes use of ECDHM addresses which helps users avoid address reuse.

For the full report, you can read and download it here.

Tags in this story

Bitcoin Wallets, OBPP, Privacy, Security, Top 5 Wallets

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David Shares

David is a writer, researcher, and developer who is passionate about bitcoin and blockchain. He writes for Bitcoin.com, Blockchain.com, and is the founder of Bitcoinx.io (which was acquired by Bitcoin.com). David previously used to write and curate for Myspace and has worked in the fintech and payments space for over 15 years.