CakeWallet iOS Monero Wallet Gets Challenged by Community

Cakewallet is a mobile Monero wallet that was developed for iOS devices and was recently released for download.

The app was designed to be user friendly and it was released for free to cryptocurrency users with no advertisements being inserted in the app or other means of trying to monetise the app.

However, the Monero community is quite a tough one to please. Given the drive for security and privacy on the Monero network, the users are always on the lookout for scams and potential exploits.

The main issue that they have taken with this particular application is that it is not open source. This is essentially one of the most important requirements for crypto in general but even more so for a privacy coin.

Open Source is Key

One of the reasons that Monero has not been adopted to a large degree by more crypto users is because of the difficulty of using most of their wallets. Unlike many other cryptocurrencies, there is no mobile wallet as of yet.

This is why the developer jumped on the opportunity to build an application that would allow users to send and received their Monero on their phones. However, although they released the app for download, they did not release the code.

The Monero community is particularly concerned about scammers who develop malicious applications that will steal private keys or XMR funds. Hence, they zeroed in on the fact that the code base was not open for public scrutiny.

Moreover, if the developers made the application an open source project, they could actively request donations from the community. The Monero community is generally quite supportive when it comes to these projects and would happily donate. According to user snirpie on the subreddit

If you decide to switch to taking donations, this may work quite well for Monero. I'd be happy to donate to an open source project

Developers Publish Code

The developers behind cakewallet eventually decided that they would take the community's concerns into account and they decided to release it as open source.

This was something that did not go unnoticed as many expressed their thanks to the team for responding to their concerns. This allowed a few people in the community to use the app as well as initiated some new users into the Monero ecosystem.

The wallet also appears to be really functional with users being able to create new wallets as well as recovering old ones with seed words. There is also a QR scanner which can be used for quick payments.

For the more advanced users, the app also allows them to change the nodes that they will be connecting to as well adjust the application damon settings.

Concerns May Linger

Although the application source code is now open, there were still a number of users who worried about the possibility of the developers pushing malicios binaries onto the app store while showing clean code to the community. One user said

My security practice is: do not trust anything, assume that everything is malicious. I'd never use any mobile wallet for large amount

If the developers were somehow able to verify that the code that was uploaded to the app store was exactly the same as that which was displayed publicly then these fears would be assuaged.

Hence, until such a verification process is implemented, Monero users should limit the amount of funds they keep in the mobile wallet. For smaller day to day transactions, the application is still a breath of fresh air.

Other Mobile Options?

There was another mobile developer that was trying to launch his own version of a Monero iOS application. XWallet was announced to the community previously but has been getting a great deal of flak.

Apart from being rejected from the app store, many in the community pointed out that it increased the cost of transactions and threatened the security of the network.

More specifally, the wallet created a third output that would charge a fee of 0.0005 XMR for the transaction. This added cost also created a specific method by which the transaction could be clustered and immediately identified.

Traditional Alternatives

There are a number of Monero cold storage options that are available for the long term hodlers with substantial XMR holdings. These are probably the safest currently.

The Monero developers are currently hard at work to release support for Monero on the Ledger hardware wallet. This would no doubt be a great step for the community because it will allow Monero users to store their coins on the most popular hardware wallet to date.

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