The Ethos Universal Wallet is a much anticipated project and since it premiered in the Netherlands, Germany and now the USA I thought I would give this wallet a try to see whether it stands up to the hype.
UNIVERSAL WALLET
Ethos is a highly anticipated project because it aims to solve one of many crypto-enthusiast's problems: the fact you need dozens of different wallets and private keys in order to access all of your cryptocurrency. Ethos seeks to solve this by offering an all-in-one universal cryptocurrency wallet that will hold all (most) of your cryptocurrencies and combine them all into one single 'smart key' which is essentially a private key that contains all your other individual private keys.
Ethos is not only a universal wallet, but also offers an ecosystem where financial service providers can operate, as well as a social media aspect. Through this users will be able to, among other things, easily convert crypto from one type to another, or review cryptocurrencies and give scores to them.
Ethos claims to be an ethical project aiming to empower people, and markets itself als a 'people powered platform'.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Since it was first released in the Netherlands, and now in Germany and the USA, I thought it was time to give the Ethos wallet a try. Not too long ago I installed the Enjin Wallet on my mobile phone to carry some BTC around with me, and Ethos is a direct competitor to Enjin in that regard and it gives me a basis to compare it to.
My first impressions have been mixed. Installation was easy (had a few graphical bugs though) but I was quickly greeted by fields where I had to perform some minor KYC and agree to privacy policies. Not a great start, to be honest - these things would irk any crypto-enthusiast who sees the power of decentralization. Is Ethos centralized, after all?
After installation and setting up an account the wallet takes the user through a few easily understandable steps in order to set up the wallet. The 24 word recovery phrase is displayed on-screen to the user in a clear and understandable way and I was overall pleased to see that Ethos did indeed lower the bar of entry for new users through this wallet. It's pretty easy and user-friendly.
It is, however, very slow. It doesn't appear like the wallet app runs locally but instead loads things through the internet which results in some lag and an overall clunky feeling when switching between tabs or screens because it is not instant.
The wallet is pretty though. It is like a prettier version of Blockfolio, with all the unnecessary info removed and prettier graphics. You can view your overall balance, or each holding individually and there are nice graphs to accompany them. Within the 'profile' of each cryptocurrency there exists also a small text blurb that gives an explanation about the cryptocurrency, as well as the community-scored rating underneath.
NOT SO UNIVERSAL
Even though Ethos is supposed to be a universal wallet, it currently really isn't all that universal. It will currently only hold BTC, ETH and ERC-20 tokens. The portfolio tracker does offer you to track pretty much every other crypto though, and I imagine that actually adding them to the wallet is only a matter of time. For the time being though, the amount of crypto you can store on Ethos is limited.MISSING FEATURES
Overall the wallet is pretty simple - but perhaps too simple? After browsing through the screens a few times I quickly felt like I had quickly seen all there was to see. It has a basic send and receive function, holds some crypto and has nice graphics. But some features appear to be 'dumbed down' or missing. For example, I couldn't find any way to adjust the transaction fees myself and was forced to stick to three settings (slow, medium, fast), and because the charts offer so little information I quickly lost interest at looking at them. They sure are pretty though.SECURITY
Another concern of mine, perhaps this is because I've grown used to the Enjin Wallet, is security. Where Enjin has a ton of security features and will prompt me for a password when I unlock the app, I found that Ethos takes a much less strict approach to security. I can open my Ethos wallet straight away, no password needed, and look at my funds. Not great for privacy or security - although sending funds still requires the password obviously.VERDICT
It's... okay. I'm not too impressed, to be honest, after all the hype of Ethos being 'the Coinbase killer'. Obviously this is still a first implementation and many features and additions still need to be added, but as it is Ethos is 'just' a multi-currency wallet with a flashy graphical design.It doesn't hold that many crypto's, though this should be temporary, and after being spoilt by Enjin I suddenly don't feel as secure with Ethos since it's quite obvious that less attention went into security than with Enjin.
The graphics are nice at first glance, but after going through the app a few times and sending some BTC back and forth between it and Enjin I realized that I find the Enjin interface much easier and simpler and faster to use and despite it's simplicity, much nicer on the eyes too. It's like Ethos tries to impress with flashy graphics too much.
At the end of the day, I don't think I'll be using Ethos (yet). I might change my opinion later on if it turns out that more cryptocurrencies have been added that I sorely need to spend, or perhaps unique features that other wallets don't offer. As it stands, however, Ethos took a damn long time and a damn lot of hype to develop what is mostly 'just' a multi-currency wallet. I would recommend Enjin over Ethos, because of it's simpler use and higher security.
If you want to try out the Ethos wallet for yourself, it is for download on the Android/iOS app stores in the Netherlands, Germany and the USA.