Your wallet contains your private keys and various transaction related metadata. It is stored in app-private storage:
Mainnet: /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet/files/wallet-protobuf
Testnet: /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet_test/files/wallet-protobuf-testnet
The wallet file format is not compatible to wallet.dat (Satoshi client). Rather, it uses a custom protobuf format which should be compatible between clients using bitcoinj.
Certain actions cause automatic rolling backups of your wallet to app-private storage:
Mainnet: /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet/files/key-backup-protobuf
Testnet: /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet_test/files/key-backup-protobuf-testnet
Your wallet can be manually backed up to and restored from a share of the storage access framework (likely Google Drive):
Mainnet: bitcoin-wallet-backup-<yyyy-MM-dd>
Testnet: bitcoin-wallet-backup-testnet-<yyyy-MM-dd>
If you want to recover coins from manual backups and for whatever reason you cannot use the app itself to restore from the backup, see the separate README.recover.md guide.
The current fee rate for each of the fee categories (economic, normal, priority) is cached in app-private storage:
Mainnet: /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet/files/fees.txt
Testnet: /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet_test/files/fees-testnet.txt
Wallet file for Testnet can be pulled from an (even un-rooted) device using:
adb pull /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet_test/files/wallet-protobuf-testnet
Log messages can be viewed by:
adb logcat
The app can send extensive debug information. Use Options > Settings > Report Issue and follow the dialog. In the generated e-mail, replace the support address with yours.
It's important to know that the development version uses Testnet, is debuggable and the wallet file is world readable/writeable. The goal is to be able to debug easily.
You can probably skip some steps, especially if you built Android apps before.
You'll need git, a Java6 SDK (or later) and Gradle 3.4 (or later) for this. I'll assume Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) for the package installs, which comes with slightly more recent versions.
# first time only
sudo apt install git gradle openjdk-8-jdk
Create a directory for the Android SDK (e.g. android-sdk) and point the ANDROID_HOME variable to it.
Download the Android SDK Tools
and unpack it to $ANDROID_HOME/.
Install the NDK:
# first time only
$ANDROID_HOME/bin/tools/sdkmanager ndk-bundle
Finally, you can build Bitcoin Wallet and sign it with your development key. Again in your workspace, use:
# first time only
git clone -b master https://github.com/bitcoin-wallet/bitcoin-wallet.git bitcoin-wallet
# each time
cd bitcoin-wallet
git pull
gradle clean test build
To install the app on your Android device, use:
# each time
gradle installDebug
If installation fails, make sure "Developer options" and "USB debugging" are enabled on your Android device, and an ADB connection is established.
At this point I'd like to remind that you continue on your own risk. According to the license, there is basically no warranty and liability. It's your responsibility to audit the source code for security issues and build, install and run the application in a secure way.
The production version uses Mainnet, is built non-debuggable, space-optimized with ProGuard and the wallet file is protected against access from non-root users. In the code repository, it lives in a separate 'prod' branch that gets rebased against master with each released version.
# each time
cd bitcoin-wallet
git fetch origin
git checkout origin/prod
gradle clean test build
You should be able to import the project into Android Studio, as it uses Gradle for building.
The source language is English. Translations for all languages except German happen on Transifex.
The English resources are pushed to Transifex. Changes are pulled and committed to the git
repository from time to time. It can be done by manually downloading the files, but using the tx
command line client is more convenient:
# first time only
sudo apt install transifex-client
If strings resources are added or changed, the source language files need to be pushed to Transifex. This step will probably only be executed by the maintainer of the project, as special permission is needed:
# push source files to Transifex
tx push -s
As soon as a translation is ready, it can be pulled:
# pull translation from Transifex
tx pull -f -l <language code>
Note that after pulling, any bugs introduced by either translators or Transifex itself need to be corrected manually.
Bitcoin Wallet supports reading Bitcoin requests via NFC, either from a passive NFC tag or from another NFC capable Android device that is requesting coins.
For this to work, just enable NFC in your phone and hold your phone to the tag or device (with the "Request coins" dialog open). The "Send coins" dialog will open with fields populated.
Instructions for preparing an NFC tag with your address:
-
We have successfully tested this NFC tag writer. Other writers should work as well, let us know if you succeed.
-
Some tags have less than 50 bytes capacity, those won't work. 1 KB tags recommended.
-
The tag needs to contain a Bitcoin URI. You can construct one with the "Request coins" dialog, then share with messaging or email. You can also construct the URI manually. Mainnet example:
bitcoin:1G2Y2jP5YFZ5RGk2PXaeWwbeA5y1ZtFhoL -
The type of the message needs to be URI or URL (not Text).
-
If you put your tag at a public place, don't forget to enable write protect. Otherwise, someone could overwrite the tag with his own Bitcoin address.
Bitcoin Wallet uses bitcoinj for Bitcoin specific logic.
Bitcoin Wallet reads this feed from "BitcoinAverage" for getting exchange rates:
https://apiv2.bitcoinaverage.com/indices/global/ticker/short?crypto=BTC
We chose this feed because it is not dependent on a single exchange. This feature can be disabled with the compile-time flag
Constants.ENABLE_EXCHANGE_RATES
When sweeping wallets, Bitcoin Wallet uses a set of Electrum servers to query for unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs). This feature can be disabled with the compile-time flag:
Constants.ENABLE_SWEEP_WALLET