Before your first BCH payment: what should a wallet make clear?

Wallets
#1

For someone new to Bitcoin Cash, choosing a wallet is not only about which coins it supports. The first experience should make it easy to understand what the user controls and how to use it safely.

A few things seem especially important:

  • Self-custody: Is it clear that the user controls the recovery phrase and funds?
  • BCH address clarity: Does the wallet explain CashAddr, legacy addresses, and the difference between BCH and BTC addresses?
  • Simple first payment: Can a beginner receive and send a small amount without confusion about fees, confirmations, or QR codes?
  • Recovery: Are the backup and restore instructions clear enough to follow after losing or replacing a phone?
  • Watch-only safety: Is it obvious that importing an address lets someone view funds but does not give them control?
  • Optional features: If a wallet supports tokens, swaps, or other networks, are those features clearly separated from the basic BCH experience?
  • Help and scam protection: Can users find official support and recognize suspicious instructions before sending funds?

I’m involved with Gem Wallet, and these are areas I’m interested in improving from a newcomer’s perspective.

What do you think is the first thing a new BCH user usually misunderstands when choosing or using a wallet?

#2

Ideally, nothing. You can try our experience with Selene Wallet. Ultra fast download, home page opens, QR code, you can receive a transaction even before you really realised what’s happening. No instructions, no bothering them about seed phrases or scam advice or any other kind of friction, no nothing. This is quite deliberately by design, and it never fails to impress people when they are onboarded in person with this experience. That’s what we designed Selene wallet for. People should find things so easy to use they don’t even NEED any instructions or extra info, that’s how good design works. That said, it’s only because we use Selene to onboard people with $1 and if they lose the money it doesn’t matter. And we do follow up and explain about the seed phrase (the one other critical piece of information) after they have received the transaction. In future we plan to have better reminders and education about this aspect, as well as others (like scam prevention), but that dshouldn’t be someone’s first exposure to BCH as it just makes it scary & intimidating & overwhelming.

Note: this DOES depend on the wallet and its target audience. If you’re building a wallet designed for people to cold storage millions of dollars, none of this advice applies.

1 Like