Tonhub Wallet Review
Tonhub Wallet Review
Tonhub is the mobile non-custodial wallet used by up to 20% of active TON holders
Introduction to TON
With difficult economic circumstances facing unprecedented numbers of people around the globe, more and more are turning to cryptocurrencies for ways of earning, saving and making payments without the bank middle-man.
The blockchain is a decentralized web that does not rely on one central web site or “web server” for accounts to be accessible, and thus is more reliable than centralized services such as bank websites.
The Open Network is the most advanced of the blockchains and also has the lowest fees: no matter how much is sent or received, blockchain fees on The Open Network (TON) are well under 1 cent per transaction.
Also among the fastest, TON payments take only seconds to arrive, and without registration of your ID, also known as “KYC” or “Know Your Customer”, anyone anywhere with an internet connection can use TON.
The most important app and usually the only app for anyone using TON is the wallet app, typically used on a mobile phone. A non-custodial wallet, also known as self-custodial, means that only you have access to it.
With this freedom comes great responsibility: unlike with bank accounts, if you lose your password and logout or lose your phone, you cannot regain access to your account without those passwords, and no one can help you.
Therefore it is important that in choosing a TON Wallet you select a wallet that takes these facts into consideration for newcomers, and common users, no only the “technologically savvy”, and provides education and support.
Tonhub Wallet: No Support
Among all the TON mobile wallets, Tonhub is the only one which does not provide any support. As it is a requirement of App Stores that support is provided, Tonhub supplies a support email address, but support emails are never answered, according to tests we conducted over several months.
The owner of Tonhub has also stated in open forums that he does not see any need to provide support for a “free service” such as the Tonhub wallet. Therefore users should be aware of this, you are very much on your own.
Earning with Tonhub
Tonhub and the company that owns it “Whales Corp” make money from “mining” and “staking”. Now that mining in general has finished on TON, “staking” is the main feature of Tonhub. So, what is staking?
Simply put, to “stake” you send your TON coins to Tonhub (Whales) for as long as you wish, and earn “interest” on the coins. To put this into perspective, if you stake the minimum possible amount of 50 TON you won’t earn anything if you withdraw again in less than 2 to 3 weeks.
This is because the deposit and withdrawal fees are much higher than normal TON payments. However, if you have thousands of TON and want to earn interest on them over a period of, say 1 year, you may earn 13% interest.
Tonhub User Interface
The Tonhub user interface is colorful but reminds us of something a bit childish and we feel it is too cluttered in general. That said, there are nice avatars that distinguish wallet addresses visually, but these are the same for both incoming and outgoing payments which lessens their utility.
There is an “anti-spam” feature that is meant to filter out “spam payments”, which are small payments that unscrupulous marketers or scammers send out to wallet addresses with advertising or scam messages.
In the previous version there was no option to see those messages, which could be from a friend or someone trying to contact you to ask for a return payment of funds sent in error, for example.
In the latest update there is now an option to show such message, only with a warning, and a filter to set the minimum payment level that does not trigger the spam label instead of the usual wallet avatars.
The problem is, it does not work: it flagged as spam all large payments we received including a 2000 TON payment, as spam, even when we set the filter to payments below 0.01 TON in the filter.
This reinforces a suspicion we have long held, having used Tonhub and other wallets for the past several months, that the owners of Tonhub don’t use their own wallet and lack any real testing and quality assurance.
In general, we prefer the bland but functional user interface of the Toncoin wallet and especially the advanced functional interface of the TonSafe wallet.
Safety Concerns
Although Tonhub is Open Source software, and we will come to this topic a little later, simply being open source does not mean there are not weaknesses in the application. A lack of concern for safety has long plagued Tonhub.
In the past, we received reports from users who complained of issues that were brought to the attention of the Whales CEO regarding Tonhub safety, which were dismissed or ignored, or responded to rudely and defensively.
Subsequently those issues have been fixed, but now a new one surfaces with this latest update, which is quite worrisome: not so much for the relatively small chances of savvy people losing their balance, but for the ethics.
The latest update contains a “delete” feature to allegedly delete your account.
This “delete” facility explains that you would need to transfer all your balance to another address, to “delete” it, the problem is, it pre-populates the address box with an address, which it turns out, is the Whales “Treasure Wallet”.
No doubt not many will do this but those that do and are not savvy, in an effort to delete their account, or thinking they’re transferring funds to a new account they’ll own and be rid of the past history, may be fooled into doing so.
When this issue was raised someone who claims to be “in the know” or “part of” or “close to” Whales, claimed this was to satisfy a requirement by Apple’s App Store, telling Tonhub that they need to implement a wallet delete facility.
He further claims that in order to satisfy Apple’s requirement, they were compelled to implement a “fake delete” into the Tonhub wallet.
None of this can be true: if Apple reviewers did say this, then the correct response of any responsible app developers would be to appeal. It may delay release, but in the end will be successful, as higher levels will intervene.
Further, the fact that every other cryptocurrency wallet out there does not have a “delete account” facility, and is happily sitting in App Store, shows this to be nonsense. Again, this does not inspire confidence as to the ethics of the Whales Corp.
Conclusion
Tonhub is a wallet that could be safely used by those more familiar with blockchain, and able to see which parts of the User Interface are irrelevant, as well as avoid making mistakes where safety features are lacking, or weak.
Without any real support provided (other than for getting into App Store, for “show” purposes only), and with support questions generally ignored in the Whales Telegram group, this is a wallet only for those familiar with blockchain technology and cryptocurrency in general.
For those who fit those descriptions and additionally want to earn from “staking”, then this is probably the only feature provided in Tonhub that is not available from within the wallet interfaces of other wallets.
Staking does not require a Tonhub wallet, but having it integrated just makes it a little easier and more satisfying to be able to monitor results, small as those earnings may be for most users, unless investing thousands of TON.
Being Open Source does not guarantee security or a good product, it just means that those with programing knowledge can look at the source code to verify that nothing is going on behind the scenes, that is not in your interest.
The most popular TON mobile wallet, Tonkeeper, is not open source, but this does not mean that it is insecure or doing anything against the users interests. Thus “Open Source” alone, is not criteria for good user experience.
Although this review has more negative points than positive for Tonhub, if the developers have good intentions, they can certainly easily rectify these issues, and bring the Tonhub wallet up to the expected standards of a TON Wallet.
The fact that the TON Foundation itself gives a verification check to this wallet, and continued high prominence, is also not encouraging for TON users: they would expect to be able to rely on the Foundation for guidance.
The Ton App website lists all manner of non-functional wallets, some of which work but not with TON and others which don’t work at all. An unsafe app such as Tonhub (which on its site claims to be still in Alpha development, meaning unsafe for public use), still receives a verification checkmark.
For those who are not interested in Staking, currently the best mobile TON Wallet for general and professional or business use would be TonSafe. For those interested in TON NFT and subscriptions, Tonkeeper would be best.
For those wanting a basic open source wallet which includes basic business functionality, the TON Foundation’s wallets such as the “Toncoin” wallet are best.
