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Zengo Wallet Review 2024
Zengo Wallet is a non-custodial mobile cryptocurrency wallet that replaces the use of private keys in favor of threshold signatures to create two ‘mathematical secret shares’ – one stored on your mobile device, the other on their servers.
What this means is that there’s no single point of failure and no risk of irretrievably losing your coins in the event of hacking or wallet loss. It’s an interesting new means of dispensing with seed phrases, but there are some downsides to this level of convenience which we will go over.
Additionally you can buy, trade, send and receive crypto directly from the Zengo wallet. If you are looking for a mobile crypto wallet our Zengo review will help determine if it is right for your needs.
Zengo Wallet Overview
- No passwords, no seed phrases, no private keys = no lost funds to a lost passwords
- A hybrid of a custodial and non-custodial wallet
- Free to download and set up takes just 21 seconds
- Streamlined user interface that’s easy to understand for crypto users
Zengo Pros & Cons
Pros
Streamlined user interface
Buy and sell within app
One of the easiest wallets to set up
Cons
No recovery phrase provided
Not fully non-custodial
Best Features of Zengo
There are three main features of Zengo that make it a good choice for those looking for a mobile crypto wallet. The first is the ease of set up for new users, especially those with little crypto experience, because unlike most digital asset wallets, Zeno does not require users to write down a seed phrase somewhere in order to recover their wallet in case their device is lost or stolen. Instead they use something called encrypted secret key share. One key is stored on your device, and one on their server, which allows your wallet to be unlocked and used with just a face scan.
Another feature which make Zengo a good mobile wallet choice is the ability to buy and sell supported cryptocurrencies directly within the app, providing convenience for users and a way for Zengo to generate revenue for their wallet which is free. The downside is that sell is currently available for BTC only with ETH coming soon. Sell is supported in 28 countries throughout the world.
Zengo also offers full NFT functionality so users can store and view their Web3 assets via the wallet.
Finally Zengo also has an above-average support team that is available 24/7, which is especially useful for new crypto users.
Cryptocurrencies Supported
Zengo Wallet supports a wide array of cryptocurrencies, with 120+ coins and tokens currently supported and more support on the way. Here are some of the cryptos supported by Zengo Wallet:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Tether (USDT)
- Binance Coin (BNB)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Polygon (MATIC)
- Chainlink (LINK)
- Uniswap (UNI)
- Aave (AAVE)
- Tezos (XTZ)
- Synthetix (SNX)
- SushiSwap Token (SUSHI)
- Basic Attention Token (BAT)
- DAI (DAI)
- 0x (ZRX)
- TrueUSD (TUSD)
For a full list of supported and unsupported crypto assets click here.
Zengo Fees
Zengo is one of the rare crypto wallets where you can buy cryptocurrency directly from the wallet (depending on your jurisdiction). We found the fees to competitive with the rest of the industry (if slightly higher).
Interestingly Zengo is one of the only crypto buying services where you can choose a custom network fee (economy, regular and fast). That means that you have some flexibility in how much you’ll pay in fees, so long as you are willing to wait. You can even speed up or cancel transactions outright after they’ve been submitted (but not after they are confirmed by the blockchain).
Is Zengo Wallet Safe?
Zengo wallet is very safe. They use Zoom’s facial recognition software and even provide a test within the application for those thinking someone could just use a photo of their face to get into their wallet (it does not work with Zengo). This is incredibly important because in order to use the functionality of the wallet all that is required is a scan of your face, so if it were easy to circumvent this the wallet would be pretty useless.
By providing two separate decryption codes stored in two places (your device and their servers) it makes it incredibly difficult for your wallet to be hacked, if not impossible. Zengo even put out a hacking challenge for a wallet with 1 Bitcoin in it, and no one was able to hack into it, further showing the strength of the wallet’s security.
Supported Operating Systems
Zengo Wallet is only available for mobile, you can download it for Android, iOS in their respective app stores, or have Zengo text you a download link.
What is Zengo Pro
Zengo Pro is a premium set of security features offered by the Zengo team that starts as low as $20 month.
The idea behind Zengo Pro was to remove some of the risk and difficulty in securing crypto. Zengo Pro essentially get access to dedicated team that provides 24/7 support. It’s an extra level of security that advanced crypto users will likely appreciate. It also might be good for new crypto users who don’t feel comfortable with self-custody yet.
Some of the highlights of Zengo Pro include:
- Legacy Transfer: This is a new feature that gives beneficiaries access to your cryptocurrency in the case of death or prolonged absence. Quite often crypto gets locked away with a single person so this is an important recovery feature.
- Asset Withdrawal Protection: Users can prevent unauthorized withdrawals with 3D FaceLock biometric verification.
- Advanced Web3 Firewall: Real-time risk assessments and alerts that protect you against Web3 attacks
- Priority 24/7 Support: The team has a typical response time of under 3 minutes, with support for 180 languages
Potential Dealbreakers
Zengo utilizes a novel approach to streamline the process of securing your wallet but there are always going to be crypto purists who prefer the combination of a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor and a traditional recovery seed.
It’s important to note, however, that millions of dollars in crypto is lost due to user error and having access to cloud recovery systems can be a life saver in those situations. Thanks to Zengo’s straightforward operation it’s less likely that customers will lose funds due to user error.
Therefore it’s important to take all these factor into consideration when deciding on a crypto wallet.
Zengo Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, Zengo is a legitimate crypto wallet company founded by Gary Benattar, Omer Shlomovits, Ouriel Ohayon, Tal Be’ery in 2018. The Zengo project raise $20 million seed investment including the backing of Samsung, giving further legitimacy to the project.
Yes, you can store Bitcoin and over 120 other crypto coins and tokens on Zengo. For a full list of supported cryptocurrencies check out this page.
The main advantage of Zengo over Ledger is that you do not need a seed phrase to set up your wallet. It’s a tradeoff because seed phrases are arguably better for securing your crypto but easier to misplace. In addition hardware wallets cost money while Zengo is free software.
No, Zengo wallet has never been hacked. They actually even put out a hacking challenge, where hackers were encouraged to try and hack into a Zengo wallet with 1 BTC holdings, and no one was able to do it. There have been no hacking incidents at all.
