I first wrote Clear Wallet in 2022. Somewhere around August 2022, it was in the Chrome Store. I wrote it because back then, I loathed what Meta Mask offered. It was sluggish, especially when using many accounts, and it lacked the features I wanted, so I set out to write the wallet I needed.
At first, I wanted an easy way to import/export accounts, manage many accounts, encrypt and decrypt private keys by prompting the user on every sign, and expose only the address of the selected account.
Many features that never existed in wallets before, were implemented in this obscure wallet. After years have passed the wallet market has exploded.
Mind you that even in 2022 Clear Wallet was implemented using manifest V3.
I thought Ionic would be a good fit because I could turn the code base into a mobile app in probably two to three days.
But what happened is that the wallet had a bit of success. Some thousands of ppl, only from Chrome stats, many more might have used it without me having a clue by building it, I was amazed that people installed a wallet made by a single developer, but I guess most were curious and some of them like me used it as main wallet.
I realized the main focus was me because I made it for myself first and shared it with the world. As such, it morphed into a reflection of what I thought was essential, so I focused most on privacy, lightness, and developer experience.
That's why this wallet has no monetization scheme, no analytics, and no tracking, only features I like and need. I don't know about you, but I don't think there are many similar wallets. The explosion of 400+ wallets that happened is all because there are monetization schemes behind them.
From where I stand, if you want privacy, choosing a wallet that doesn't build from a single command (Clear Wallet builds in less than 10 seconds) without needing to add build env vars is not the pinnacle of privacy.
I got a lot of requests to monetize the extensions I built; I never considered any request because if it were up to me, I would make ads and tracking illegal.
And I am worried about the potential future legislation that wants to kill software like this that promotes anonymity. I think crypto without self-custodied is not crypto anymore.
In the last period, I have seen new attempts at creating privacy-focused wallets, and I think some of what I saw is not great.
For starters, it's hard to have a privacy-focused wallet on mobile. Because, unlike desktop OSs, phones are much less private, apps have IDs known by store providers, and there's a ton of tracking happening on mobile. On the other hand, on a desktop OS, you have much more control over tracking. These circumstances have led me to determine I will never update the code to work on mobile. Because even if that increases growth(which I don't care too deeply) it sacrifices privacy.
Secondly, I've noticed wallets that establish a TOR connection. Such practice is privacy deficient because a wallet should not be delegated with network connections. A privacy pro would like to self-manage the connection with the outside world and not let that be to the mercy of a wallet.
Plus, many of the so-called privacy wallets are owned by companies with real legal responsibilities and compliance requirements; call me skeptical, but I don't think that's the medium where you can build privacy-focused software.
Back to Clear Wallet, even after so much wallet development that has happened in this space, it's still a unique piece of software. It allows storage of ABIs, and you can execute any arbitrary interaction with a contract without the requirement to use any external UI outside of the wallet.
To explore all features, you should access the documentation website:
https://clear-wallet.flashsoft.eu.
If you're an advanced EVM user or a web3 builder you might want to give it a go.