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Lastbit Lite

Latest release: Varies with device ( 11th May 2021 ) 🔍 Last analysed 25th April 2022 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys Not functioning anymore
1 thousand

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Help spread awareness for build reproducibility

Please help us spread the word discussing the risks of centralized custodians with Lastbit Lite  via their Twitter!

Do your own research!

Try out searching for "lost bitcoins", "stole my money" or "scammers" together with the wallet's name, even if you think the wallet is generally trustworthy. For all the bigger wallets you will find accusations. Make sure you understand why they were made and if you are comfortable with the provider's reaction.

If you find something we should include, you can create an issue or edit this analysis yourself and create a merge request for your changes.

The Analysis 

Update 2022-04-01: This app is not available anymore.

App Description

Lastbit Lite Android are built on the bitcoin lightning network and allows anyone, anywhere to buy, sell, pay or get paid directly in bitcoin or euros, instantly.

From a note at the “What’s New” section:

Lastbit is now split into two applications - Lastbit Lite and Lastbit Cards.

With Lastbit Lite you can -

  • Buy or Sell Bitcoin instantly over lightning
  • Send or Receive Euros instantly over lightning
  • Pay or get paid in Bitcoin or Euros with your own lastbit.me profile

We were not able to install the app as Play Store said it was not available for any of our devices.

The Site

From Terms and Conditions, section 9, we find information about how Private Keys are managed on this platform:

Our Partners securely store all supported Cryptocurrency private keys (“Private Keys”) associated with the Wallet in Your Bitlocus Account. You accept and agree that they shall retain full ownership and control of such Private Keys and that You shall have no control of, access to, or the ability to use, such Private Keys.

In section 19, TERMINATION OR SUSPENSION OF THE LASTBIT SERVICES, Lastbit states that it has the ability to suspend your account.

We may terminate your use of the lastbit Services or any part with prior notice of at least two months.

Verdict

This app is custodial and as such not verifiable.

(dg)

Verdict Explained

As the provider of this product holds the keys, verifiability of the product is not relevant to the security of the funds!

As part of our Methodology, we ask:

Custodial!

Is the product self-custodial?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Custodial: The provider holds the keys".

A custodial service is a service where the funds are held by a third party like the provider. The custodial service can at any point steal all the funds of all the users at their discretion. Our investigations stop there.

Some services might claim their setup is super secure, that they don’t actually have access to the funds, or that the access is shared between multiple parties. For our evaluation of it being a wallet, these details are irrelevant. They might be a trustworthy Bitcoin bank and they might be a better fit for certain users than being your own bank but our investigation still stops there as we are only interested in wallets.

Products that claim to be non-custodial but feature custodial accounts without very clearly marking those as custodial are also considered “custodial” as a whole to avoid misguiding users that follow our assessment.

This verdict means that the provider might or might not publish source code and maybe it is even possible to reproduce the build from the source code but as it is custodial, the provider already has control over the funds, so it is not a wallet where you would be in exclusive control of your funds.

We have to acknowledge that a huge majority of Bitcoiners are currently using custodial Bitcoin banks. If you do, please:

  • Do your own research if the provider is trust-worthy!
  • Check if you know at least enough about them so you can sue them when you have to!
  • Check if the provider is under a jurisdiction that will allow them to release your funds when you need them?
  • Check if the provider is taking security measures proportional to the amount of funds secured? If they have a million users and don’t use cold storage, that hot wallet is a million times more valuable for hackers to attack. A million times more effort will be taken by hackers to infiltrate their security systems.

But we also ask:

Defunct!

Is the product still supported by the still existing provider?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Not functioning anymore".

Discontinued products or worse, products of providers that are not active anymore, are problematic, especially if they were not formerly reproducible and well audited to be self-custodial following open standards. If the provider hasn’t answered inquiries for a year but their server is still running or similar circumstances might get this verdict, too.