A sneak peek at the new Blockchain HD wallet

Blockchain.info is working on a new bitcoin wallet, and we had the opportunity to get an exclusive look at the new wallet which is currently in alpha invite only stage.

Blockchain, which is the leading wallet and blockchain explorer service provider in the space, has been working on a new and improved wallet completely revamping their current wallet. From what we see, there is a big focus on a clean user experience and security.

In the new Blockchain wallet, the structure is Hierarchical Deterministic (HD). Just like the name sounds, hierarchical wallets and addresses are ordered in a hierarchy and determined from a single wallet seed. This allows users to create new addresses on the fly which are all derived from the parent seed, which helps stop users from reusing addresses and promotes better user privacy. In the HD wallet, users can create “accounts” and each account has an xpub key; then users can create new addresses as part of that account.

In the screen above, you can see our public bitcoin address [for the alpha wallet], tied to the “My Bitcoin Wallet” account. Please do not send bitcoins to this address, it’s only for testing.

In the screen above, you can see the Security Center. There are several security features which are configurable. As you can see, my security settings are low (red) because I haven’t configured them for testing. However, there are several features such as wallet backup, password hints, enabling two-factor authentication, and blocking Tor.

There additional screens and settings which have your unique Wallet ID, mobile app pairing code, and other sub menus such as Preferences, Security, and Accounts & Addresses. You can create new “accounts” and addresses. You can also get the xPub key for each account, and transfer funds between accounts.

Have you tried the new alpha Blockchain HD wallet yet? If so, let us know what you think about it in the comments below.

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.