The former developer at Blockchain.info has recently introduced his own version of Bitcoin wallet in the form of ArcBit.io. The new ArcBit Bitcoin wallet is developed by Timothy Lee, who decided to quit his year old job at Blockchain.info to start his own venture.
According to Lee, he decided to quit Blockchain.info and create his own wallet as he didn’t like the way his former employer was going about with their wallet product. He felt that the company made some unnecessary design changes to the wallet, which resulted in compromising the privacy of wallet users.
In an interview with one of the online Bitcoin news magazines, Lee said:
“At Blockchain.info, I was the primary person working on the HD wallet for the iOS and Web wallet […] While I was there, the company was making some design decisions on the wallet that I wish weren’t made. One of those decisions ended up costing users some privacy, something I disagreed with.”
While Blockchain.info stores all private keys of user wallets on its secure server, ArcBit offers more control over the wallet by storing private keys on the client device. ArcBit available for iOS devices allows people to use it in stealth mode (stealth address) without signing up. Unlike other wallets ArcBit offers a range of security features including optional PIN protection (PIN protection is the default for Xapo wallet). In case the wallet user loses his wallet credentials, he or she can always recover it using a single recovery passkey. The recovery passkey remains the same and it is advisable for people to keep the keys in a safe place.
ArcBit’s stealth addresses is adopted from the publication of Peter Todd, with inputs from Gregory Maxell, Amir Taaki and Adam Back. Stealth address allows users to have a single fixed address which can be used as a reliable, private and efficient way to receive Bitcoin from senders.
ArcBit seems to be the next best thing which could give a stiff competition to Blockchain.info in the coming days.