In-depth Stacks Wallets Comparison
Comparing the strengths and drawbacks of existing Stacks wallets.
As a first-timer, sometimes it can take a lot of your time to research and decide on a wallet that you want to use to store your STX. Obviously, there are some wallets out there to discover. So, we’ve done the work for you and tested a few that are recommended by stacks.co. Finally, here is our insight into each of the wallets that may help you choose one.
Hiro Desktop Wallet
[Ella] The Hiro wallet is the simplest wallet I have tested, with no major confusion or difficulty when installing and signing up. Instruction is clear, non-ambiguous, and concise. In the desktop wallet, you will see a display of your total balance, transaction history, and choices of stacking — on your own, which requires a minimum amount of 90,100 STX or stack with others. The latter one, you can delegate it to a pool with others and with no minimum amount required. On top of that, Hiro wallet also has a link to discover pools on stacks.co if you choose delegated stacking. Before choosing one pool, always do the research and make sure you trust it. Besides that, this wallet also lets you view it on Explorer with an in-depth review of all transactions that happen inside Hiro’s ecosystem, updated numbers of recent blocks, and sandbox. By the time of writing, the latest version of v4.1.2 is available to download and is compatible with Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets.
[Thomas] The Hiro wallet is the standard wallet in the Stacks ecosystem. The open-source wallet is available on Linux, Mac, and Windows — I tested the Windows version which I downloaded directly from the Hiro.io website. The installation goes fast and easy. The first step is to create or load a Stacks wallet. The interface is very simple and clean. All basic functions such as transfers are available, as well as a solution for stacking. If you lack the minimum STX required to become a validator yourself you can join a stacking pool directly with this wallet.
Conclusion: The standard wallet for desktops is very simple and works just as intended. It lacks the features of other web wallets though, such as NFTs. If you are a fan of minimalistic designs you are right here.
Neptune Wallet (alpha)
[Ella] Neptune wallet is one of the wallets suggested by stacks.co, and it is a non-custodial web wallet. You will be able to use this wallet on your web as an add-on extension on Chrome or Brave and Firefox. This wallet can be connected to your original wallet in Hiro. To install this wallet, you can download the file from their website, and unzipped it before installing it. The file itself uses only 8.05MB of your disk and later on, you have to go to the web’s extension setting using developer mode toggle to unpack load. To connect your wallet, you are required to type/paste your 12/24 word seeds then create your own secret key. As a matter of fact, this wallet is still in alpha version and has not been audited yet. The features that they offer are not much different from other wallets, which are, sending/receiving Stacks, delegated stacking, and custom token support. If you choose to stack in Neptune pool, you can start with as small as 1 STX. However, they will not lock your token until the pool has reached the required amount necessary to start receiving rewards from the Stacks blockchain.
[Thomas] To use the browser-based Neptune wallet you need to have the Hiro wallet browser extension running. So if you don’t have this one set up already (on either Brave, Firefox or Chrome), there will be some extra effort for you to install it.
Once the extension is active and your wallet connected, the Neptune wallet connects super easily via the connect/disconnect switch directly on the Neptune wallet website (tested on Brave browser).
The interface is tidied up with a nice ‘Neptune’-blue color scheme. Tabs are available for trading, assets (for Stacks native tokens), stacking, the transaction history, and to claim rewards from your stacking. There is no tab for collectibles and I did not find any info if NFTs are or will be supported. The wallet has some direct links to stacks docs which is helpful.
Conclusion: A nice slim and easy-to-use web wallet supporting custom tokens and the use of stacking pools (currently Neptune stacking pool only though). Currently no NFT support. Very easy set up if the Hiro wallet extension is already installed.
Xverse Wallet (early access)
[Ella] If you prefer to access your wallet from your mobile phone, Xverse wallet is one option. It’s available both on Android and iOS in beta version (as we speak) that still undergoes continuous development. For this reason, using this wallet to store a considerable amount of cryptocurrency is not recommended. Nonetheless, it is super easy to install this wallet app just like any other apps on your phone. Also for you to note is that Xverse wallet can integrate with your Hiro wallet. However, you won’t be able to find on the app any instructions on how to do this or if it’s even possible. The lack of clarity and instruction makes the user experience confusing. So, we have to figure this out by ourselves, and here’s what we found: You can go to setting > reset wallet > restore wallet > enter your (Hiro) seed phrase. In addition, this app wallet doesn’t only store Stacks token but also your Bitcoin balance with a view of each transaction history. Although it’s able to send and receive these two cryptos, the current downside is you can’t draw BTC. Earning Bitcoin via Xverse delegated stacking pool is keenly possible. This may be quite an interesting offer for small investors as their minimum requirement is only 500 STX with an estimation of about 11% APY. Once you are rewarded with Bitcoin, a pool fee will be applied upon payout.
[Thomas] The Xverse wallet has a very simple easy to use, dark-themed user interface with 3 tabs:
- Transfer/Balance: for BTC and STX — all simple and easy to use.
- Stacking: (with valuable info such as a countdown to the next reward cycle, pool fees, and estimated yield)
- Settings: Choose your favored fiat currency to display the wallet value (USD, CNY, EUR, CAD), Pin update, wallet backup and reset functions.
Conclusion: Xverse wallet setup is very basic and is easy to use. A big plus is the auto-generated bitcoin address, which saves time. Apparently, the wallet is not covering NFTs and other STX-Tokens but works as intended.
Boom Wallet
[Ella] Boom wallet is another type of web wallet in alpha version (at the time of writing) that upon registration, a secret key is to be input. Basically, this wallet connects to your Hiro wallet which allows you to set a new password that works only for the device you’re using to sign up. The features you may find here are the fundamental receive/send both STX and NFTs with a display of its value in USD, transaction history, support for custom Stacks tokens, create custom NFTs and interestingly a QR code for your wallet. Unlike other wallets we’re writing here, I am quite impressed with their DApps discovery feature. You will see a long list of decentralized Apps with a wide array of categories ranging from art, business tools, chat, developer tools, documents & storage, education and news, financial services, games & digital assets, health & fitness, marketplaces, music, photo & video, social impact, social networking, utilities & productivity to wallets. While exploring this wallet with what they can do and offer, I found that the sign-up was super easy — no question asked. The user interface was concise and clear. I get what I see and response time is in a jiffy.
[Thomas] The Boom wallet is as far as I know the only Stacks wallet you can store, display and even mint NFTs. The Boom wallet team raised quite some attention in the last weeks, as it introduced some innovative yield-earning NFTs called Boomboxes.
The Boom wallet also has a DApp-Tab which gives a great overview of a large variety of Stacks-based DApps.
The interface is friendly and useful, the login is done with one click — if you have already installed the Hiro wallet extension for your browser.
Conclusion: Overall probably the most advanced Stacks wallet so far. Most of all the NFTs function makes this one very useful. The DApp Overview is great, but some links are not up to date.
About us:
Me and Thomas Heindl collaborated in this writing to compile useful information/details and present the necessary points for you to gauge. We both are a part of a Freehold community and are proud STX hodlers who would like to share and educate the concept of Stacks cryptocurrency and all that jazz. We believe in their mission to bring us to the advancement of future digital technology. Also, check Thomas’ page, and if you’re interested in joining the Freehold community, you have the option to use this via our Freehold referral code (which will earn you and us extra STX worth 25 USD): ZP6H2.
Happy stacking!
