RED Wallet: the tiny, simple, fast and secure wallet!

We are proud to announce the release of the first alpha of the RED Wallet, our secure wallet app for the Ethereum network! The source code was released more than two months ago, and since then, the wallet has been used daily by the Red Team and contributors. We are now providing prebuilt binaries for easier access by the general public. The RED Wallet is one of the most secure crypto-wallets in the world, as it requires a hardware key to run. The main features of the first alpha release are:

• Secure ETH and RED token transactions.
• Support for the world's leading hardware key: the Ledger Nano S.
• HD derivation path support: access up to 50 public addresses with the same key.
• Fast address loading.
• Fast balance retrieval (thanks to nodes provided by the Red Foundation).
• Fully open source on Github.
• Runs on Windows 7/8/10 and macOS 10.1x.
• Only 269 KB (on Windows), no installation, no setup, no external dependency!
• Tiny wallet source code: ~500 LOC of Red (plus ~110 KB of Red libs).
• Custom USB drivers for hardware keys, written in the Red/System DSL.
• Easy binary checking service to verify that your wallet app is a legit one!
• Source code under audit by third-party security experts.

The RED Wallet can only be used with a hardware key (currently only the Ledger Nano S, other models will be supported in the future). This provides the highest level of security you can currently have, as the private key is stored in a secure element inside the key, and never leaves it. Signing transactions is done by sending the data to the secure element, visually confirming the target address and amount to transfer. Then the secure element proceeds with the transaction signing inside the hardware key. Once your transaction is signed, it cannot be altered in any way. This means that the hardware key is the weak link of our wallet (after the user, of course 😉), rather than the wallet code itself. Even if the wallet app is compromised, the hardware key and visual checking, provide the ultimate protection. If the user verifies information correctly on signing, a compromised wallet app cannot route your tokens to a corrupted or incorrect target address.

Here is a video showing how the RED Wallet works: (shortly after posting the video, we realized a late edit duplicated a section of audio. We'll fix that as soon as we can.)

Download the RED Wallet application

Windows 7/8/10 [269 KB] macOS 10.1x [273 KB]

Just click on the executable to run it (extract the .app file first on macOS), no installation or setup process required. Plug in your Ledger Nano S key and enjoy a smooth and simple experience!

We are looking to provide more options to retrieve the app such as Homebrew support on MacOS or chocolatey support on Windows.

For Linux, we have working USB drivers, but Red's GUI support (using a GTK backend) is not yet capable-enough to run the app. We are looking into a fallback command-line UI in future releases, which will allow easy transaction scripting from the shell or other apps.

If you want to check if your RED Wallet binary has been tampered with in any way, you can simply drag'n drop the wallet executable on our binary checking service. If it's legit, the screen will turn green. If it turns red with a warning message, please notify us on Gitter or Twitter at once.

Only download the RED Wallet app from this page, do not trust any other website for that.


Get a Ledger Nano S key

You can order a Ledger Nano S key from the Ledger site (or just click the image below):

We also plan, in the future, to offer a customized RED version of the Ledger Nano S key. Stay tuned!

NOTE: The RED token contract is not yet referenced by the Ethereum app in the Ledger Nano S key, so be careful with your transactions, as on-key visual checking won't work until Ledger adds RED token support (integration in the Ledger Ethereum app is pending). The address you see, until they update the Ethereum app with RED's information, won't match what you entered in the wallet UI (it will just show the RED token contract address every time). We'll announce as soon as they update the Ledger app.


A bit of history...

The RED Wallet app was part of our plan since last year, as one of the initial steps for introducing RED token use into the Red community. It will facilitate balance checking and transfers between community members, very few of whom have experience with crypto-currencies. It is meant to be very easy and safe to use. (as we have created in this first alpha). We may even integrate it into the Red console, via a console plugin extension.

Since having the first usable version of the wallet a couple of months ago, for internal use, we realized that such an app has great potential. Not just for showing off what can be achieved with Red, but to highlight in the market of wallet apps that we can have lighter, easier to use, and more secure alternatives.

Since then, we have brainstormed about many possible features that other wallets are not proposing, to improve usability, even a possible command-line version for CLI-only users.


Feature list for RED Wallet alpha 2

• TREZOR hardware key support.
• Batch processing of a list of transactions (can be imported from a CSV file).
• Wider ERC-20 token support (using the MEW list).
• Faster balance lookups (by parallelizing queries).
• Simplified transaction fee selection.
• Signed binaries for Windows (macOS binaries are signed already).

Feature list for RED Wallet alpha 3

• New tab-oriented UI design.
• Support for cancelling a transaction (Ethereum network).
• Support for Infura or local nodes, in addition to the Red Foundation nodes.
• BTC support.
• ETC support.

Feature list for RED Wallet 1.0

This is our non-exhaustive wish-list for 1.0, we still need to consider the feasability and resources required to support all of those features, so some of them might get postponed to a post-1.0 version.

• ENS support.
• Custom HD derivation paths.
• Linux support.
• Android support.
• Block explorer integration:
• Follow transaction outcomes from the wallet itself.
• List past transactions for any address.
• Secure identification of a target address:
• Contact management (encrypted on IPFS or Swarm)
• Display identicons.
• Custom handshake using micro-transactions
• Command-line version with scripting abilities.
• QR code generation for sharing your public addresses.
• Multi-sig support (probably post 1.0).
• An alternative flat UI skin.
• A good name. 😄

We're noting these features here, rather than keeping them confidential, because we believe users will benefit if other wallets implement them as well. Helping people navigate the new world of crypto safely and securely is our goal.

If you have ideas about how to make the RED Wallet even better, you are welcome to join us on Gitter, to discuss it with the Red user community. If you want to report issues with the current wallet version, please fill a ticket on Github, or drop us a message on Gitter.

The RED Wallet application was made with ❤ by the Red Team. Enjoy! 😊