Wallet Scrutiny \ stacker news ~bitcoin

254 sats \ 12 comments \ @andi5 6 Feb 2023 bitcoin

Is walletscrutiny.com a legit source? They seem to have legit points, otherwise they constantly hating on samourai wallet and pushing for their crappy mycelium wallet makes me wondering how trustworthy they are

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248 sats \ 0 replies \ @cointastical 6 Feb 2023

Tell me what's worse.

Leaving your bitcoin on a custodial exchange, or using a wallet app that was installed using a binary that cannot be reproduced?

I would say the risks are about the same. Except most people don't even know that their wallet app is not reproducible.

Who is raising awareness on this or doing anything about it? Well, ... Wallet Scrutiny is, for one.

pushing for their crappy mycelium wallet

Is the following really considered "pushing for" mycelium?

I would not put my life savings in any Android wallet but for smaller amounts, I still love my Mycelium, although I wish it wasn't so shitcoiny. I'm tempted to strip out fio and eth and bitcoin vault and ... but license would not allow to share my effort.

https://twitter.com/LeoWandersleb/status/1543395075362885635 [Nitter]

WalletScrutiny guy here. I was a developer for Mycelium Android until May [2021]. Since then, I only work for WalletScrutiny. I don't know of a "new" Mycelium but can poke my former colleagues if you want.

https://twitter.com/LeoWandersleb/status/1606797801236713473 [Nitter]

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @cointastical 6 Feb 2023

For additional information and comments on this topic, see also an earlier post found here on SN:

Reproducible Build Proofs: Wallet Scrutiny and BitcoinBinary #55733

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 6 Feb 2023

https://i.postimg.cc/q7jxD3jw/nvk-wallet-scrutinity.jpg

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @dannybuntu 7 Feb 2023

We are not pushing for Mycelium Wallet. In fact, in Leo's AdoptingBitcoin talk, he explicitly says that he does not recommend it.
Anyone is free to contribute to the reviews if they want to. https://gitlab.com/walletscrutiny/walletScrutinyCom
Do not trust us. Dispute the data.
Technical points or counter-assertions are acceptable.

Disclosure: I'm Daniel and a WalletScrutiny contributor.

2 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin 6 Feb 2023

Your question is indeed very on point.

The answer: No they are not. NVK also "discovered" and posted some months ago on twitter that they are literally begging for money in order to put an app on review. Also their methods to "review" are quite shady, like everything is paid-to-review, money corrupts and you will not have anymore an objective review.

And yes, they are the devs (or members of the team) of the shitcoin Mycelium app.

Walletscrutiny is just a garbage review web.

234 sats \ 0 replies \ @02775f5757 6 Feb 2023 freebie

No, no and no.

NVK was pissed that his product was listed as not reproducible. His own website - bitcoinbinary - does not list versions of products if they are not reproducible. So when you go to his website and see "oh, product X is reproducible" and then head to the download page, you might get a binary that is to the best knowledge of all experts not reproducible.

WalletScrutiny on the other hand warns visitors and followers on Twitter when a new update of any product fails to be reproducible.

WS never requested money for a review. On the contrary: The order in which reviews are done is determined in the methodology of the project. WS did ask for money and did receive money as laid out on the donations page but not once was the product of a donor reviewed as a consequence of donating.

All claims at WalletScrutiny are verifiable. Mycelium happens to value highly to be reproducible but doesn't get any favored treatment.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @gbks 6 Feb 2023

Could you please provide a link to those claims/findings?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 6 Feb 2023

Search all the discussion between nvk and scrutinity guys back in May 2022. Also on their webpage are comments about that case (if they don't delete it).

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @dannybuntu 7 Feb 2023

Disclosure: I have been a walletscrutiny.com contributor for 1 year and 6 months now. But I am soon going to be with another project.

Most of these assertions are false. Except for one:

Leo did work with Mycelium, but no longer.
Leo in his AdoptingBitcoin2022 talk (It's on YT) explicitly said he does not recommend it.

We did do a donation campaign on twitter and facebook - but not targeted towards wallet developers, but towards the general Bitcoin community. Leo explicitly asked us to not to accept anything from wallet developers/providers. For good cause.

WS did receive a grant from Spiral
WS did receive a grant from another organization that has nothing to do with wallets. (Will announce once they announce first)

NVK blocked all our social media accounts and continued disparaging us, while not offering constructive reasoning why. Personally, I do not understand his beef with us, when he could just offer a sound technical perspective.

I think he believes that we're working with Foundation whom he accuses of pirating ColdCard's source. Which is not true. He's been all over social media and acting very unreasonable, attacking our identities.

Check up on ColdCard's history with Foundation. NVK's tweets about "Closed-source winning", how it was a mistake to use the GPL license, the change in ColdCard's license, etc.

NVK, and friends, I, personally have no beef with you. I'm sorry that you feel that way about us. It is truly unfortunate.

If it is true that a provider did copy from you, at a time, when the license for the ColdCard was GPL - then, I don't know what to say.

1 Timothy 6:10 says, "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."