Arqma Wallet vs Proton Wallet — comparison
Both are pitched as a ‘private crypto wallet’, but the architectures could not be more different. One encrypts a Bitcoin wallet in the cloud; the other keeps cryptographically private ARQ keys on your own device. Here is the honest 2026 comparison.
The short answer
Proton Wallet is a Bitcoin wallet from the makers of Proton Mail. It is self-custodial in principle, but the encrypted wallet data is synced through Proton’s servers so you can recover it with your Proton account password. The privacy story is about the operator: Proton cannot read your wallet, your email, or your transaction notes.
Arqma Wallet is a desktop and mobile wallet for the Arqma (ARQ) blockchain. Your keys are generated and stored on your device only — nothing is uploaded. The privacy story is about the chain itself: senders, receivers, and amounts are hidden on-chain by ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT.
So they answer different questions. Proton Wallet asks “can I trust the provider with my wallet file?” Arqma Wallet asks “can anyone watching the blockchain see what I am doing?”
Side-by-side
| Arqma Wallet | Proton Wallet | |
|---|---|---|
| Chain | Arqma (ARQ) | Bitcoin (BTC) |
| On-chain privacy | Strong — amounts, sender, and receiver hidden by default (how it works) | None — Bitcoin is a fully public ledger |
| Where keys live | On your device only | Encrypted on Proton servers, decrypted on your devices |
| Account required | No | Yes — a Proton account |
| Recovery model | 25-word seed phrase + optional .keys file backup | Proton account password + recovery phrase |
| Self-custodial | Yes — nothing leaves the device | Yes in the cryptographic sense; provider-dependent in practice |
| Run your own node | Yes, fully supported (remote node guide) | No — connects through Proton infrastructure |
| Open source | Yes — all code on GitHub | Clients open source; the privacy-relevant server pieces are partly closed |
| IP / metadata exposure | You choose: local node, remote node, or Tor | Provider sees connection metadata by definition |
| What it is good at | Truly private spend & receive of ARQ | Easy, polished Bitcoin storage that survives a lost laptop |
What ‘private crypto wallet’ really means
The phrase is overloaded. There are two very different things people mean by it, and Arqma and Proton solve different ones.
- Provider privacy — nobody who runs the wallet service can read your data. This is Proton’s strength: end-to-end encryption against the operator. It does not hide your transactions from the world; Bitcoin remains transparent.
- On-chain privacy — nobody watching the blockchain can see who paid whom or how much. This is Arqma’s strength: ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT hide it at the protocol level.
If you care about both, you generally want a wallet whose chain is private and whose client runs on your own machine. That is Arqma Wallet by design.
Which one for what
- You want a private BTC wallet you can recover from any device using a password: Proton Wallet fits that workflow.
- You want transactions that are unreadable on the blockchain itself: Arqma Wallet — that is the entire point of the Arqma protocol.
- You do not want an account, email, or phone number attached to your wallet: Arqma Wallet. No sign-up exists.
- You want a wallet vendor who can never see your data, but you accept a public ledger: Proton Wallet is a reasonable answer for Bitcoin specifically.
- You want both on-chain privacy and to run your own node: Arqma Wallet — see the remote node setup.
Security posture
Both projects are self-custodial in the sense that nobody else can spend your funds. The risk profiles are different:
- Proton Wallet: the main risks are account compromise (Proton password & 2FA), Proton infrastructure incidents, and the inherent transparency of Bitcoin — addresses and amounts are visible forever, even with a careful client.
- Arqma Wallet: the main risks are losing or exposing the 25-word seed, downloading a fake build, and metadata leakage at the node level. See is Arqma Wallet safe and phishing protection for the practical habits that mitigate each.
Neither approach removes the user’s responsibility — just shifts where the failure modes live.
Can you use both?
Yes. They cover different chains and different threat models. A common pattern is Proton Wallet for occasional Bitcoin storage and Arqma Wallet for everyday private payments in ARQ. Each wallet has its own seed; back each one up separately and never reuse a seed across systems.