Coinbase Wallet adds support for Bitcoin (BTC) and SegWit transactions

Coinbase has finally announced support for Bitcoin and SegWit transactions on their iOS and Android wallet apps.

In a launch blog post on Tuesday, the exchange said that the “new wallet update with Bitcoin support will roll out to all users on iOS and Android over the next week. Bitcoin support is activated by default – all you need to do is tap ‘Receive’ on the main wallet tab and select Bitcoin to send BTC to your Coinbase Wallet.”

The Coinbase Wallet app already supports Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and over 100,000 different ERC-20 tokens and ERC-721 collectables tokens (on the Ethereum network).

Self-sovereignty on Coinbase

The Coinbase Wallet app is Coinbase’s user-controlled cryptocurrency wallet. Users can buy and store crypto directly on Coinbase.com, but with the Coinbase Wallet app, users can store their crypto off-site on their own smartphones. This works as the private keys are generated and stored directly on your phone.

Using the Coinbase Wallet app, your private keys are encrypted on your phone using Coinbase’s ‘secure enclave technology.’ The exchange claim that “this specialized hardware is considered the most secure way to safeguard private data on mobile devices.”

From what Coinbase has said, it does not seem that the exchange has access to funds stored on the mobile wallet app, and therefore these funds are fully custodial to the user (and therefore not insured by the exchange).

Supporting SegWit and Legacy address formats

Coinbase went on to say that the new Coinbase Wallet app supports both new SegWit addresses (with lower transaction fees) as well as Legacy addresses for backwards compatibility with all applications.

The wallet also supports the Bitcoin testnet to aid developers and power users. You can switch to the testnet using the advanced settings section in the settings tab on the app.

Coinbase concluded that it is looking to add support for Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and other popular cryptocurrencies soon.

Nawaz Sulemanji

Nawaz has been hooked on crypto since buying his first Bitcoin’s in 2013. After studying maths in London, Nawaz initially spent the first eight years of his career working globally across corporate supply chain’s before transitioning into the decentralised finance industry as a margin-trader and consultant. He’s a fan of open-blockchains because “it enables self-sovereignty”.