Basic info and features of Samourai wallet

[Satko]

I found this wallet very interesting, and so far the best I know when it comes to privacy. It has so many features that it needs a separate forum.

Samourai is a modern bitcoin wallet hand forged to keep your transactions private your identity masked and your funds secured.

Here is a tutorial:

App here, only for Android: https://samouraiwallet.com/download/google-play

In a nutshell​

Samourai Wallet is a free and open source (FOSS), non custodial bitcoin wallet software.

Designed to provide users increased privacy when interacting with the bitcoin network while also keeping them in full control of their private keys at all times.

Blockchain Privacy​

Just like curtains are privacy technology for windows and envelopes are privacy technology for letters, Samourai Wallet is privacy technology for bitcoin. With an emphasis on transactional privacy; multiple tools that compliement each other are offered to users in an effort to help them achieve greater blockchain privacy.

No Personally Indentifying Information​

Samourai Wallet doesn’t collect any PII (Personally Indentifying Information) such as Name, Email Address, or Phone Number to use the software.

Quick links​

The rest of the links are below in this thread.

• Creating a new wallet - Samourai Wallet private keys are generated offline on your device and are never known by anyone but yourself. Follow this guide to create a new Samourai Wallet...
• Receiving Bitcoin - Make your first deposit - First things first. You cannot buy bitcoin with Samourai Wallet. You can only store bitcoins you already own. In order to take full advantage of our....
• Sending bitcoin - There comes a point when you need to make an outgoing transaction from your Samourai Wallet. This is called a send...
• Mixing on Mobile with Whirlpool - Doing your first mix on mobile Ready to dive into Whirlpool and get mixing on mobile? Follow the steps below to get started. Make sure you have enough BTC to Mix Make sure you have enough BTC ready to...
• Restore your Samourai Wallet with your secret words - Your secret words are extremely important. When you combine your passphrase with your 12 secret words you get the "backup of last resort". This combination is an industry standard and can be considered a valid backup for almost all modern bitcoin wallets...

 

[Satko]

Features:​

Full Offline Mode - Samourai works under any network conditions. This is an attractive option for those interested in creating ultra secure cold storage systems, as well as those under hostile or cost prohibitive network conditions. More info...

Segregated Witness - Segregated Witness is a recent upgrade to the bitcoin network that helps keep miner fees as low as possible when transacting. Samourai Wallet was among the first to support SegWit, allowing users to create efficient transactions that keep miner fees as low as possible. More info...

Smart Miner Fees - Miner fees are the cost of doing business on the bitcoin blockchain. They are an incentive for the miner to add your transaction to a block, as well as a mechanism to prevent spam. Samourai Wallet has the best in class miner fee estimation to help make sure your transactions confirm quickly without you overpaying.
Best in class miner fee estimation
Stop overpaying on miner fees. Slide to set a priority level for your transaction with the knowledge you'll be paying the lowest fee possible.
Our larger than average mempool estimates miner fees on a shorter rolling average than most other wallets and fee estimators, keeping our miner fee estimates responsive based on current market conditions.
Top up low fees
Built in fee boosting allows you to increase the miner fee of a transaction even after you have sent it.
Network conditions can change quickly in Bitcoin. Fee boosting gives you the flexibility to respond to any changes in the miner fee market.
Replace By Fee
RBF is a method of fee boosting transactions that you have already sent.
Enable RBF to take advantage of the most flexibility in the bitcoin miner fee market
Child Pays for Parent
CPFP is a method of fee boosting transactions that you have sent or received
CPFP is enabled by default, and is applicable for most transactions you make.

Dojo - Unless you run your own full node, you are trusting someone at some point. Until now it has been difficult to run your own full node and still enjoy the convenience of a mobile wallet. Dojo changes everything. More info...

STONEWALL - Most bitcoin wallets leave a trail of meta-data that blockchain surveillance firms use to deanonymize you. STONEWALL helps guard against address clustering deanonymization attacks. More info...

PayNym - When you share a normal address publicly, you are giving surveillance firms a starting point to track you. PayNyms defend against this type of 'First Touch' attack by never revealing an address to anyone other than the sender and recipient of the transaction. More info...

Batch Spending - Batching is a way of composing a single transaction that contains many unrelated transactions. This can be advantageous when miner fees are high and you have multiple transactions to make at a given time. More info...

Scrambled PIN - PIN access screen is randomized on every load and doesn't provide visual feedback, to thwart screen recording spyware and other common attacks.

Stealth Mode - Stealth Mode removes Samourai from the launcher and home screen of your Android device. To reveal the wallet just dial a secret code. More info...

Remote SMS Commands - Remote SMS commands are opt-in and allow you to remotely wipe and recover your wallet over SMS in case of a lost or stolen device. More info...

Ricochet - Toggle Ricochet when sending to a third party exchange or service such as Coinbase, Gemini, ShapeShift, or Localbitcoins to significantly reduce the risk of unjustified account closure by these services. More info...

Whirlpool - When you cycle your coins in the Whirlpool you are breaking the link between inputs and outputs of your bitcoin transactions. Cycle all your Bitcoin for the most privacy. More info...

OpenDime supported here - OpenDime is an offline USB hardware wallet. Samourai Wallet supports reading from OpenDime without needing access to the private keys. It can also sweep balances from an OpenDime with an exposed private key.

 

[Satko]

Restore & Recovery​

Restore and Recover your Samourai wallet.

Samourai backup​

• Restore your Samourai Wallet with your secret words - Your secret words are extremely important. When you combine your passphrase with your 12 secret words you get the "backup of last resort". This combination is an industry standard and can be considered a valid backup for almost all modern bitcoin wallets...
• Restore wallet from auto backup file - By default Samourai Wallet saves an encrypted backup of your entire wallet on your device. This allows you to easily restore your wallet from the latest auto backup in case you accidentally uninstall Samourai wallet...
• Test your current wallet passphrase and backup - Samourai Wallet has included some debugging tools in the Settings menu. You can use these tools to test your passphrase and the status of your current backup file. It is recommended to run this diagnostic periodically...
• Manually export wallet backup - In addition to automatically backing up your wallet you can choose to manually export an encrypted backup of your wallet at any time...

Forgotten details​

• Forgotten Passphrase - A forgotten passphrase is very serious as your passphrase is directly tied to your secret private keys that allow access to your funds...
• Forgotten Secret Words - If you forget your 12 secret words you can easily review them again from within the Samourai Wallet...
• Forgotten PIN Code - Video Guide After three unsuccessful PIN code attempts you will be asked to enter your wallet passphrase. If the passphrase is correct you will be presented with a PIN reminder. You may then use your ...

Private Keys​

• Reveal all individual private keys in the wallet - The purpose of this article is to explain how to derive individual private keys for every bitcoin address in your Samourai Wallet, using a Mnemonic Code Converter tool...

 

[Satko]

First Steps​

Basic articles to help you get started using Samourai Wallet.

Starting a new wallet​

• Importing a wallet from another app - Samourai Wallet is compatible with all modern bitcoin wallets that follow standards put forward and enforced by the bitcoin community. Follow this guide to import an existing wallet...
• Creating a new wallet - Samourai Wallet private keys are generated offline on your device and are never known by anyone but yourself. Follow this guide to create a new Samourai Wallet...

Exploring premium features​

• Creating your first payment code connection - Think of a payment code as a permanent and reusable code that you can share with anyone. It looks similar to a bitcoin address but it is longer and starts with 'PM8T'...
• Making your first Ricochet Send - A Ricochet Send is a Samourai exclusive transaction type. Ricochet defends against bitcoin blacklists by adding additional decoy transactions between the initial send and eventual recipient.

Receiving bitcoin​

• Receiving Bitcoin - Make your first deposit - First things first. You cannot buy bitcoin with Samourai Wallet. You can only store bitcoins you already own. In order to take full advantage of our....
• Sweep a private key - Advanced users can sweep any existing valid bitcoin private key into Samourai Wallet. This will send the balance of the single private key to an address in Samourai Wallet...
• Get your latest bitcoin address - Your Samourai Wallet contains an infinite amount of bitcoin addresses that get used once and then are archived. These archived addresses are never discarded, but they are not used again to protect your privacy and security...

Sending bitcoin​

• How to send bitcoin - There comes a point when you need to make an outgoing transaction from your Samourai Wallet. This is called a send...
• Understanding the different types of send transactions in Samourai Wallet - Ricochet Description Adds extra hops of history to your transaction Collaborative Tx (CoinJoin) No Conditions Fee 0.002 BTC Learn More - Making your first Ricochet spend STONEWALL Description Break t...
• Configure your wallet for lowest transaction fees - By default, Samourai Wallet errs on the side of increasing the blockchain privacy and plausible deniability of transactions. This focus has a side effect of increasing in the size of transactions crea...

 

[Satko]

UTXO Management​

• Like-type change outputs - When a bitcoin transaction is created, the bitcoin wallet searches for available unspent outputs in the wallet and uses them to send the specified amount to the specified destination. The entire unsp...
• View a UTXO private key - Samourai Wallet is an HD wallet. This means that when you combine your 12 secret words with your passphrase you can generate every private key for every address your wallet will ever create. However t...
• Sign a message with a UTXO - Samourai Wallet has built-in signature generation to prove control of a bitcoin address private key without revealing the private key to anyone. The list of current unspent outputs contains a list of ...
• Displaying unspent outputs - Unspent outputs are simply put, bitcoin in your wallet that can be spent as an input in a new transaction. The combined amount of unspent outputs is equal to your total spendable balance. How to disp...

 

[Satko]

STONEWALL​

• What is STONEWALL? - STONEWALL is a unique way of building transactions that increases the deniability of the link between sender and recipient of a transaction. A STONEWALL is designed to improve your privacy on the bloc...
• What is Boltzmann? - What is Boltzmann? Boltzmann is a script that returns the entropy of a given transaction. This script measures the linkability of inputs to outputs of a given transaction, by determining the number of...

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Cahoots​

• How to create a STONEWALLx2 Transaction - NOTE: These are temporary steps for power users who wish to help test the bleeding edge of privacy transactions within Samourai Wallet. This functionality is provided without a completed UI. Use STON...
• Creating a Stowaway Transaction - NOTE: These are temporary steps for power users who wish to help test the bleeding edge of privacy transactions within Samourai Wallet. This functionality is provided without a completed UI. Use Stow...

 

[Satko]

Whirlpool​

• Mixing on Mobile with Whirlpool - Doing your first mix on mobile Ready to dive into Whirlpool and get mixing on mobile? Follow the steps below to get started. Make sure you have enough BTC to Mix Make sure you have enough BTC ready to...
• Privacy considerations when Spending cycled UTXOs - Whirlpool has been designed with extensive privacy enhancing strategies that help make sure you do not undo the privacy gains of Whirlpool when you go to spend your UTXOs. It is advised that you keep ...
• View your post-mix UTXOs in Samourai - Just as you can view any of the Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs) for your wallet's main account via the UTXOs Screen, you can also easily view, manage, and interact with your wallet's Whirlpool pos...
• Pairing Samourai Wallet to Whirlpool Desktop - In order to use the desktop version of Whirlpool you need a Samourai Wallet with the latest version of Samourai Wallet installed and configured. Follow these instructions to pair your Samourai Wallet ...
• Fund your deposit account on Whirlpool Desktop - Now that you have configured the desktop client to your liking the next step is to choose or add coins to begin cycling in Whirlpool. The desktop client will detect bech32 addresses within your Samour...
• Whirlpool FAQs - Q: Do I need to keep Whirlpool running on my desktop to keep getting new cycles? A: If you want to cycle your coins then Whirlpool needs to be running. If you have already cycled your coins (meaning t...
• Understanding Deposit, Premix, and Postmix accounts - Whirlpool is completely non-custodial. The term account refers to an address space covered by your recovery words and passphrase. Within Whirlpool there are two areas of this address space that are se...
• Understanding pools and pool fees - Whirlpool is different than other CoinJoin services, in that you do not pay a volume based fee per anonymity set, but instead you pay a one time flat fee for an unlimited anonymity set. To put it simp...
• Understanding Whirlpool Desktop Configuration Options - When you have paired your wallet to whirlpool you should stop the client (by pressing STOP in the top right) and familiarise yourself with the available configuration options. While the default config...
• Adding your UTXOs to a pool with Whirlpool Desktop - Samourai offers multiple liquidity pools depending on the size of the UTXO you wish to cycle through Whirlpool. Once you have funded your deposit account and the transaction has confirmed, it is time ...
• Common Issues (Desktop) - Errors Common error messages, what they mean, and how to resolve them. Message More Information Error spawn java ENOENT Make sure Java is installed on your device and is correctly included in your PAT...
• Add a discount code (SCODE) to Whirlpool - Occasionally we will announce promotional SCODE's - or Samourai Discount Codes - that you can apply to your Whirlpool client for reduced price or even free mixes. Keep an eye on our Twitter account an...

 

[Satko]

PayNyms​

• Introduction to payment codes - A payment code is a permanent and reusable code that you can share with anyone. It is tied to your secret words. It looks similar to a bitcoin address but it is longer and starts with 'PM8T' Payment C...
• What are PayNyms? - What are PayNyms? PayNyms are a secure and private way of sending and receiving bitcoin using BIP47 Reusable Payment Codes. PayNyms allow you to add your friends to your wallet contact list for regula...
• Understanding PayNym fees - How much does a PayNym connection cost? Samourai Wallet charges a one time fee of 0.00015 BTC + normal miner fee paid at time of connection. Once a PayNym connection is active, there are no further co...
• Connecting to a PayNym contact - Prerequisites: In order to create a connection you will need a small amount of bitcoin in your wallet to cover the connection fee. You also need the Payment code you would like to connect to in either...
• Claiming your PayNym Bot - Wallet users can claim their unique PayNym bot from within the latest version of Samourai Wallet. A PayNym bot is a unique graphical representation of your PayNym code. Navigate to the PayNym screen f...
• Send bitcoin to a connected PayNym - This guide assumes you have already connected to a PayNym and now you would like to send some bitcoin to that PayNym's wallet. There are two ways to send to a connected payment code: Method 1: From th...
• Find and share my payment code - Unlike a static bitcoin address you can share your payment code publicly without revealing your entire balance or transaction history. Step 1 - Open the PayNyms screen From the main screen of the wal..

 

[Satko]

Dojo - Unless you run your own full node, you are trusting someone at some point. Until now it has been difficult to run your own full node and still enjoy the convenience of a mobile wallet. Dojo changes everything

 

[Satko]

Batch Spending​

• What is a Batch Spending? - The Batch Spend feature allows users to combine (or batch) multiple unrelated spends into one single transaction that gets broadcasted to the network. The benefit to creating these combined transacti...
• How to make a Batch Spend - Making a Batch Spend is straightforward and much like making a normal send. The difference is instead of simply choosing one destination address and amount for a transaction, you are allowed to add as...

 

[Satko]

Fees​

Miner Fees​

• How are miner fees calculated? - Bitcoin transactions are sent to the network with an extra fee attached. This fee is paid directly to the miner who adds the transaction to a block. Miner fees are based on the size of the transaction...
• Increasing the miner fee on unconfirmed transactions I have sent - Samourai is one of the only Bitcoin wallets to allow you to top-up the miner fee of transactions even after you have already sent them. This can be useful if you sent the transaction with a low custom...
• Increasing the miner fee on unconfirmed transactions I have received - Samourai is one of the only Bitcoin wallets to allow you to top-up the miner fee of transaction that has been sent to you. This can be useful if the sender included such a low fee that the transaction...
• Choosing the right miner fee profile - Samourai Wallet provides users with dynamic fee profiles based on current network conditions. From the send screen you are able to modify the fee profile used on a per-transaction basis using the fee ...

Premium Transaction Fees​

• How much does a payment code connection cost? - Samourai Wallet charges a one time fee of 0.00015 BTC + normal miner fee paid at time of connection. Once a connection is active, there are no further connection fees with that payment code. The fee ...
• How much does Ricochet cost? - Samourai Wallet charges 0.002 BTC + normal miner fees for every 4- hop Ricochet transaction. The fee is automatically paid by your wallet as part of the Ricochet transaction. You will be asked to revi...

 

[Satko]

General Help & Support​

• Frequently asked questions about Samourai Wallet

Bitcoin Basics​

• BIP 44, BIP 49, and BIP84 - BIP44 refers to the accepted common standard to derive non segwit addresses. These addresses always begin with a 1. BIP49 refers to the accepted common standard of deriving segwit compatibility addres...
• Segregated Witness - Segwit - Segwit is short for Segregated Witnesses which is a soft fork upgrade to the Bitcoin network that was activated on August 24, 2017. The actual technical workings are fairly complicated but well docum...
• XPUB's, YPUB's, ZPUB's... - What is a XPUB? An Extended Public Key - also known as an XPUB - is a part of a bitcoin standard (BIP32) that can be thought of as a 'read only' view into a wallet. An XPUB allows full view to all tr...