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Samourai Wallet

Privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet for Android, built around on-chain transaction privacy. The project was the origin of several privacy tools later adopted across the ecosystem.

Features (Historical)​

  • Whirlpool — CoinJoin implementation with forward-looking anonymity sets
  • Stonewall — Opt-in privacy for transactions that pool UTXOs without a trusted coordinator
  • Stowaway — Collaborative (PayJoin-style) transaction obfuscation between two users
  • PayNyms — Reusable payment codes (BIP-47) for private recipient reuse without address reuse
  • Ricochet — Transaction relay with decoy hops
  • Dojo — Self-hosted transaction broadcaster for Android wallet

Architecture​

  • On-chain only; no Lightning support
  • Designed to route through the user's own Dojo or their Samourai server for connectivity metadata privacy
  • CoinJoin coordinator required for Whirlpool (historically accessed via Samourai's infrastructure or self-hosted)

Status​

  • Samourai Wallet was available on the Google Play Store for several years
  • In April 2024, its co-founders were arrested and the app was delisted by Google
  • The wallet itself is still usable by existing installs, though new wallet creation may be limited
  • Whirlpool coordination shifted toward community-hosted or self-hosted instances
  • PayNyms remain a live standard usable by other wallets implementing BIP-47

Resources​