This Photo Gallery App Is a BCH Light Wallet in Disguise
On March 27, a developer released a different kind of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) application called Bchgallery, an Android BCH wallet that is disguised as a generic photo gallery app. The platform aims to provide added security through obscurity by acting as a decoy application.
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Developer Launches Decoy Wallet Called Bchgallery
Last Wednesday, BCH fans were introduced to a wallet that is concealed by pretending to be a generic photo gallery application. The developer who designed the new BCH wallet, Bchgallery, calls himself ‘Pokkst’ and has been working on a number of platforms over the last few weeks. Bchgallery is an open source Android-based BCH light client that allows users to store funds while keeping the wallet hidden behind the veil of a fake application. Essentially the wallet uses a decoy home screen and the first time the wallet launches the user must set up a PIN. To make the wallet more masked, the application’s title bar must be tapped five times in order to access the PIN screen.
Bchgallery supports the BCH Cashaddr address format and also has BIP70 support so the wallet can be used to pay for things like Bitpay invoices. The wallet also features an offline mode for composing raw transaction hexes to NFC tags. Additionally, the wallet supports the Cash Accounts protocol designed by Jonathan Silverblood. The camouflaged nature of the Bchgallery wallet adds another effective privacy style wallet into the BCH ecosystem following the Electron Cash Cashshuffle release and the recent Neutrino launch. Moreover, Pokkst has been developing cryptocurrency applications for quite some time and is known for creating the BTC wallets Crescent Pay, Apollo Wallet, the Orion Client and server, and an app called Procedural Pass.
The Developers Move Over to Bitcoin Cash
Pokkst was a big BTC fan at one time and explained in a recent blog post that he “had high hopes for the Lightning Network.” However, Pokkst now considers the Lightning Network an “over-engineered mess.” First, Pokkst post details that attempting to walk someone through opening a channel and routing a large payment is a horrible experience. The developer’s post, called “Why I’m Moving to BCH,” highlights that Pokkst isn’t against the Lightning Network per se but thinks it could have been designed so much better.
“The biggest issue that stands out to me is stating we need to keep blocks small to keep nodes decentralized — I agree with that, unfortunately, the 1MB block size limit has become unbearable,” Pokkst’s blog post adds. The programmer’s critique further states:
They say it’s to keep the cost of running a node down, but at the same time we’re paying $50+ dollars in transaction fees (in 2017) and roughly $1.00 in transaction fees in 2019 — That simply does not make any sense.
Pokkst concludes that he doesn’t mean any harm to his Bitcoin friends but has decided to choose a different path. Even though Pokkst is moving to BCH, in the broader sense of the Bitcoin movement he is still there fighting the corrupt governments and central banks. Following the post, Pokkst demonstrated he meant business when he ported the photo gallery wallet over to Bitcoin Cash. Moreover, the developer has been working on his other project Crescent Pay which will use handles similarly to the Hand Cash wallet which is now solely for BSV. Crescent Pay aims to offer a simplified BCH wallet without the complicated and long alphanumeric string addresses.
What do you think about the Bchgallery application? What do you think about Pokkst’s decision to port his applications over to BCH? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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Image credits: Shutterstock, Bchgallery, Twitter, and Bitcoincash.org.
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