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Bitmama

Latest release: 1.0.55 ( 4th October 2022 ) 🔍 Last analysed 10th November 2021 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys
3.6 ★★★★★
11 ratings
30th June 2021

Jump to verdict 

Help spread awareness for build reproducibility

Please help us spread the word discussing the risks of centralized custodians with Bitmama  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 

(Analysis from Android review)

App Description

  • Buy Bitcoin with a credit card, debit card, bank account or mobile money from over 150 countries.
  • SELL BITCOIN AT THE BEST MARKET PRICE AND GET INSTANT PAYOUTS (available for selected countries)
  • SEND MONEY WITH BITCOIN (SEND BITCOIN TO FRIENDS, FAMILY AND BUSINESS WHILE THEY RECEIVE FIAT)

The Site

  1. Sign up for a free account on our website or mobile Android or iOS apps.
  2. Link your bank account and choose your preferred payment method to add money.
  3. Choose from over 30+ cryptocurrencies to diversify your portfolio quickly and easily.

FAQs on Deposit and Withdrawal

How do I deposit cryptocurrency? Simply copy the address or scan the QR code for the crypto coin in Bitmama to complete a deposit from an external source

How do I withdraw cryptocurrency from my wallet? Simply enter the address or scan the QR code for the crypto coin in Bitmama to complete a withdrawal to an external source

P2P Trading on BitMama

Buy and Sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, cUSD and more with your bank account and +10 other payment methods.

Third Party Media

Bitmama has reportedly recently closed a substantial pre-seed fund from investors.

The App

We downloaded and installed the app. However, phone verification SMS did not arrive.

Verdict

We were not able to locate any information pertaining to seed, private key or mnemonics since we were not able to install the app. However, it should be noted that most self-custodial apps do provide tutorials on their how-to pages or FAQs. We contacted bitmama via twitter to ask whether the private keys are stored on their servers or on the users’ devices. While we await their response, it is evident that this is a custodial service, making the app 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.
The product cannot be independently verified. If the provider puts your funds at risk on purpose or by accident, you will probably not know about the issue before people start losing money. If the provider is more criminally inclined he might have collected all the backups of all the wallets, ready to be emptied at the press of a button. The product might have a formidable track record but out of distress or change in management turns out to be evil from some point on, with nobody outside ever knowing before it is too late.