The number of Bitcoin wallets available today is absolutely amazing. Every platform has its own wallet, or even multiple offerings to choose from. However, not all Bitcoin wallets are created equal or focus on Bitcoin itself. It is clear that the Bitcoin.com wallet is purposefully misleading novice cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Bitcoin Cash is not Bitcoin, and this app’s listing should be modified to reflect the truth.
Beware of the “Fake” Bitcoin Wallet
It is evident that novice cryptocurrency users are looking for new Bitcoin wallet solutions every single day. In most cases, mobile wallets are in especially high demand. Both Android and iOS have a few different options to choose from these days. Some of these apps allow users to control their private keys, whereas others do not. There are also some wallets with support for altcoins, making it somewhat difficult for novice users to make a proper choice.
One option that will need to be avoided is the Bitcoin.com wallet app. Although there is nothing wrong with the code itself, this is not an actual Bitcoin wallet. Instead, the app supports Bitcoin Cash first and foremost, and it creates a BCH address by default. Considering that this altcoin uses the same address codebase as Bitcoin itself, this could cause a lot of people to buy Bitcoin and send it to an incompatible address. It’s a very deliberate scheme, by the look of things.
Unfortunately, a lot of novice users will overlook this problem and discover it the hard way. One could argue that people should read the app’s description properly. Then again, the name of the app is Bitcoin Wallet, and thus it is only to be expected that no one will read the description. It would be in everybody’s best interest to rename this wallet “Bitcoin Cash wallet”, as it would certainly make things clearer.
I can confirm that Bitcoin dot com’s wallet has BCash as default wallet. Don’t steer any noobs to the wallet or the site. It’s officially trying to hijack Bitcoin through smoke screen.
— Alan Silbert (@alansilbert) November 20, 2017
All of this goes to show that political shenanigans in the Bitcoin world are far from over. This is rather unfortunate, as Bitcoin Cash is not Bitcoin and vice versa. Purposefully trying to convert people to Bitcoin Cash when they are looking for a Bitcoin wallet solution is rather odd. While it is very possible that this was not intentional, something needs to be done to avoid unnecessary confusion before things get out of hand.
It is unclear whether anyone has lost funds due to this situation so far. The Bitcoin.com wallet is pretty popular and most people know that it supports Bitcoin Cash by default. However, with so much new money flooding into cryptocurrency and users showing up by the dozens, it is inevitable that someone may lose out eventually. The wallet has a Bitcoin option, mind you, but for people not accustomed to abbreviations such as BTC or BCH, this is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
Rest assured there will be a lot of complaints leveled against this “fake” Bitcoin wallet in the coming weeks. The overall Bitcoin community doesn’t take kindly to shenanigans like these, even though the wallet is not doing anything illegal. It is a clever way of taking advantage of Bitcoin’s popularity, although not everyone sees it that way. A small update in the description would certainly make things a lot easier, yet it’s doubtful such a change will ever be made.
How all of this will play out for Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash remains to be determined. Issues like this one need to be resolved rather than cause outrage over what various cryptocurrencies are trying to achieve. For the time being, this is a point of friction that will remain in place until this app’s name or description is changed. People looking for a Bitcoin wallet should get exactly that – not a wallet which uses Bitcoin as an afterthought. This is a problematic development in the cryptocurrency world, to say the least.
