My Wallet - Bitcoins Made Easy

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:42:04 GMT  <== Digital Money ==> 

BlockChain.info - an online Bitcoin wallet that claims to do all the crypto in JavaScript in your browser. I was able to create an account on my PC, and access it both there and on my iPhone. I saw evidence of crypto in the JavaScript code, but it would take lots of analysis to convince myself that no unencrypted private keys are ever sent to their server. Nice to have the blockchain on their server instead of needing to download over a gigabyte to my phone, so could be useful for small transactions. Also nice that transactions go out from their server, making it harder to track them back to me. My big worry is that I see no evidence of a business plan. Free service. Only a handful of possibly paid external links. Where does their money come from?

Their code is posted at github.com/zootreeves/blockchain.info, and they have a JavaScript Verifier plugin for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari that compares the running code against GitHub to ensure that their server has not been compromised with code that will steal your wallet passphrase.

Blockchain.info

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Comments (3):

Sent bitcoin.info a message

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:52:55 GMT

I sent the following via their feedback page:

Nice-looking service (My Wallet). Would be good to have some independent auditing of your JavaScript code, validating that it sends no unencrypted private keys to your server. Bravo for making the code public on GitHub! Would also be good to see some evidence of a business plan. Free services don't survive long without some way of making money.

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Got a response from BlockChain.info

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:55:43 GMT

Got a response from BlockChain.info

We are starting to rollout some paid services now. https://blockchain.info/wallet/sms-phone-deposits

Sponsorship from crypto exchange covers our running costs so the site is not going anywhere soon.

Thank You,
Ben Reeves

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