Cryptocurrencies: One Desktop Wallet to rule them all

Disclaimer: This is my first Steem article, not have an introduceyourself, yet. I´m holding and using bitcoin and some popular other altcoins (ether, monero, factom…) . I have no ties to the exodus team, except being in their slack channel from time to time and asking about exodus features and roadmap. All screenshots are from the official web sites i´ve referenced.  

In this article i´ll introduce exodus.io, a brand new multi crypto currency wallet, developed by an experienced team of user interface developers. At the end of this article you find a short version (tl;dr).

Remember the days when someone told you about bitcoin? Do you also remember how hard It was to get into the concepts of "private keys", "cold wallet", wallet software etc.?  

Eventually you find out about "altcoins" (don't like the term, i refer them as crypto currencies or assets here) like ethereum, dash or monero and everything got even more complicated: Downloading their software, try to get the wallet running… Some didn't (and still don't have) a nice GUI wallet with features, which you really need.  

How are you gonna convince other people with GUIs like this to get into cryptocurrencies? (my "favorite" anti-user-experience wallet so far):  

(from the factom GUI Guide, yeah you really need this guide...)

To be clear: this is not just some scam coin. It´s Factom which recently had some pretty big announcements and is collecting money from U.S. administrations like the department of homeland security (see here)! They´re solving real world issues with the blockchain tech. Market value is also rising pretty fast (and way undervalued if you ask me).  

I was asking Factom, if they gonna provide some serious GUI wallet, and they told me they were working with 3rd party usability experts and soon™ there will be a new wallet. Some days later it was also confirmed in this video.

So eventually i found out that the new wallet will be exodus.io! (e.g. see also this tweet) I really had to check out this new multi asset wallet i´ve never heard of.  And to be honest i´m not dissapointed - its the best multi-asset wallet i´ve seen so far for desktops (at least for everyday users!)  

Lets head into the multi-asset wallet and its features:  

1. Assets / Coins support:
   Currently Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum (forked, classic being considered), Dash, Dodge (okay whatever) are supported. Monero (!) is on its way and others (like Factom ;-) ). This is quite nice for a 2 week old software.
   
   
   CHECK!
   
2. Operating System support: MAC, WIN, LINUX. According to daniel mobile versions for iOS and Android on the way:
   
   "A mobile version is on the horizon - Exodus will expand platforms to include a handheld experience on both Apple iOS and Android. We do not have a ETA on it yet, however - JP and I are excited about the possibilities and we know it will expand market reach."
   
   CHECK!
   
3. Assets and general overview: You can check your portfolio wealth and distribution on one clean page. The colors also help to distinguish your assets. quite nice and simple.
   
   
   
   CHECK!
   
4. Wallet handling: Simple Send/Receive Buttons. For Sending funds you can use QR Code, Email or Copy Paste your wallet address. The transaction history is very clean.
   
   
   
   CHECK!
   
   So far so good. But ist getting better...  
    
5.  Exchange assets: Exodus is cooperating with shapeshift! They've integrated shapeshift with a very nice user interface - imho better than the shapeshift original.
   
   
   
6. Backup: There is a built-in Backup mechanism. You should checkout the video from the team, to see how it works: Exodus Step-By-Step Backup. I've been through the steps and it was really easy.

You can also change your theme, but i don't consider it as a major feature, but it's quite nice. So as i was using exodus, some questions/issues came into my mind. While these features are quite good for "normal" users, experienced user may miss some things: 

Where are my Private Keys?

Well, right now every complex aspect of crypto assets are abstracted away from the user. But there is a secret way to get access to your private keys. Neither me nor the exodus team recommends fiddling around here, so beware what you doing!

There is a debug mode which you can enter by CTRL+SHIFT+D (windows). By pressing that keys in exodus, a menu appears from where you can navigate to you private keys. Again: IT IS NOT RECOMMENDED!     

Backup: Providing an email adress. Wait a minute…

As you might watching the vimeo video about the backup process, you might wondering why you have to provide an email address (privacy?). 

So i asked about this in their slack channel https://exodusmovement.slack.com/ and jp from exodus stated: 

"Regarding the email, originally I was adamant about not having that, but I still wanted to be sure people got their links. @daniel_castagnoli and I talked about allowing people to export to a text file, but people lose text files and we tried to strike a balance against protecting people and privacy. That’s why we encourage protonmail, for those who want that extra degree of privacy. We’re open to other solutions though, as we don’t think it’s ideal either."

Personally, I´m good with that. If you have serious doubts here, you don't need to use that backup feature, you can backup your private key with the method i´ve just decribed above. (again: EXPERIENCED USER ONLY!)   

I strongly recommend the exodus Slack channel, where daniel and jp answers every question you might still have after reading my article. They are also open for any feedback. 

I also recommend to see for yourself and download the exodus wallet here: https://www.exodus.io/releases/  

tl;dr: I think this piece of software is a very user friendly multi currency wallet with a lot of new features incoming next months. Also more currencies on the horizon. Hard core users may have privacy concerns and will miss some features, which may be addressed in the future.