Best Aptos wallets - Choosing an Aptos Wallet

Your wallet options for the Aptos blockchain

Have you heard of Aptos? If you haven’t, it’s time to study up, because Aptos is the most exciting new blockchain in crypto.

Developed by former Diem engineers, Aptos is built for industry-leading speed, security, and scalability (the three most important aspects of a Layer 1 blockchain). Aptos is built on Move, a new blockchain language that is both safe and extremely efficient.

Aptos is still only in its testnet phases, but the mainnet launch is expected in Autumn. Since Aptos is its own Layer 1, existing mainstream wallets like MetaMask are not compatible yet. But in order to meet the massive demand for Aptos, numerous wallet options have already been launched, including our own Pontem Wallet.

A note on mainnet, testnet, and devnet

Most Aptos wallets allow you to switch between several networks. You’ll probably be doing most of your swaps and NFT mints on the mainnet, but keep in mind that new dApps usually launch on devnet first, which is designated as an experimental network.Next, they release a testnet version, and only then do they go live on mainnet.

So if you’d like to be the first to find out about the most promising projects, we recommend that you interact with new dApps on devnet and testnet - especially since you don’t have to spend any real money. Get free APT coins from the official Aptos testnet faucet to use on these networks.

Pontem, Martian, Petra, Rise, Fewcha & Spika: Aptos wallets at a glance

Pontem Wallet  

Pontem Wallet was the first production-ready wallet for Aptos. Available on the Chrome Store, the Pontem Wallet extension is a great way to interact with the Aptoverse. Currently connected to the testnet and devnet, Pontem Wallet can store APT, BTC, USDT, USDC, MOVE, tAPT, and any other current and future assets issued on Aptos.

Like all Pontem Network dApps, Pontem Wallet is thoroughly audited to ensure user safety, with a simple interface that works similarly to your other favorite wallets. Plus, the wallet is non-custodial, meaning every transaction occurs through trustless smart contracts and only you have access to your private keys.

Creating a new Pontem Wallet works more or less the same as in other popular non-custodial wallets: you’ll need to save the secret recovery phrase and create a password. The first thing to do with your new wallet is request free tokens using the Faucet feature on the main screen.

Sometimes, the default testnet faucet gets swamped with requests; in these cases, you can use the alternative Aptos testnet faucet. You’ll need to register or connect with a Google account (to prevent spamming), but the faucet distributes 10 APT at a time, which is very convenient.

Once you have some devnet Aptos tokens, you can try sending them to another Aptos wallet address.

The most interesting feature of Pontem Wallet is its integration with Liquidswap, the premier automated market maker (AMM) for Aptos. This first-ever DEX for Aptos was also built by Pontem, Aptos’s leading partner in developing foundational dApps. As of October 2022, it already has over 170,000 unique users, averaging 2,000 unique swap transactions every day!.

To use Liquidswap directly from the wallet interface, click on Buy, then connect the wallet to the DEX. Currently, you can swap APTOS, USDT, USDC, MOVE (the token of the BlueMove NFT marketplace) and wrapped BTC. Liquidswap has its own faucet, where you can request devnet USDT and BTC.

Since everything happens on the testnet, relative prices can change fast and differ a lot from the ‘official’ market prices. You’ll need to confirm (register) both assets first, and then execute the swap. To see the resulting USDT (or BTC) balances in Pontem Wallet, import them using the following addresses:

USDT: 0x43417434fd869edee76cca2a4d2301e528a1551b1d719b75c350c3c97d15b8b9::coins::USDT

BTC: 0x43417434fd869edee76cca2a4d2301e528a1551b1d719b75c350c3c97d15b8b9::coins::BTC

You can also add liquidity to any of the pools on Liquidswap - or even create your own pool. Soon, swaps should be integrated natively into Pontem Wallet, so that you won’t even have to use the separate DEX interface anymore. The team is also considering native integrations of other DeFi functions, such as liquid staking.

Pontem Wallet is also integrated with Liquidswap Bridge, provided in partnership with LayerZero. It allows you to transfer ETH, WETH, and USDC from Ethereum to Aptos and back.

Pontem Wallet is also integrated to most key dApps in the Aptos ecosystem, for example:

• NFT marketplaces: Topaz, BlueMove, Souffl3, and It’s Rare; the wallet has a special NFT section where you can visualize everything you’ve bought or minted.
• Trading & swaps: Cetus, Hippo, Tsunami, Aries Market
• Liquid staking protocols: Tortuga Finance and Ditto Finance;
• Yield aggregator: Satay Finance
• Lending & borrowing on Aptos: Argo, Aptin, Mobius
• Launchpads: AptosLauncher, Aptos Launch
• Prediction Markets: Mojito

You’ll find many of these integrations in the dApp directory section of the wallet.

Petra  

Petra is a browser-based wallet made by the Aptos developer team itself. (It was not always called Petra, so you may see references to it as simply “Aptos wallet” or something similar.) The wallet was designed for the testnet and includes all of the basic functionality needed to start exploring Aptos, including transacting with test coins, creating NFTs, selecting networks, and connecting to dApps. This made it an ideal wallet choice for Aptos Incentivized Testnet participants. You can install Petra from the Chrome Store here.

Petra’s interface is basic and functional. You can send and receive tokens, view your NFTs, view the activity log, etc.

When using Petra on testnet, keep in mind that the built-in APT faucet rarely works. It’s better to connect to the Aptos testnet faucet instead.

The Settings tab allows you to see the secret recovery phrase, add a new account, rename the wallet, and switch between the devnet and testnet.

Just like Pontem Wallet, Petra is integrated with many Aptos dApps. These include AMMs, all major NFT marketplaces, lending dApps, etc. For example, you can use Petra with Pontem’s Liquidswap DEX.

Martian  

Martian is another non-custodial Chrome extension wallet, though an iOS app is also in the works. It can interact with websites via Javascript and offers the ability to mint demo NFTs. Martian is backed by Toy Ventures, Aptos Labs, and others.

The wallet creation process is similar to Pontem Wallet. A handy feature is being able to see the secret phrase in the Settings tab, where you can also change the password, see the list of sites you’ve given Martian access to, and rotate the key pair for added security (coming soon on testnet).

Another handy feature is that clicking on the Airdrop button automatically opens a new browser tab with the Aptos testnet faucet.

You can use these testnet APT tokens to buy NFTs on marketplaces for Aptos, such as Topaz and Souffl3, to make swaps, borrow funds, and so on.

If you do want to test NFTs on Aptos, you can use Martian to mint yourself a Web3 identity at Aptos Names, a service similar to Ethereum Name Service (ENS). Connect the wallet, search for a name you like, and if it’s available, approve the mint. It’s free, apart from a small gas fee. The NFT will appear in Martian’s NFT section.

Like Pontem, Martian is integrated with LayerZero, so it will be able to bridge tokens between the Aptos mainnet and Ethereum from Day 1. If you’d like to test the bridging flow at no cost, you can connect Martian to Pontem Bridge.

Martian also has an integration with the Mover bridge, which for now connects Ethereum’s Goerli testnet and Aptos testnet. However, only users whose addresses have been whitelisted as part of Mover’s private alpha testing stage can bridge tokens as of October 2022.

Rise

Rise is a new wallet built by the same team as the Solflare wallet for Solana. At the time of writing, only APT was enabled without a way to import other tokens, but Rise has a number of features that most other Aptos wallets don’t – especially when it comes to NFTs.

For example, you can agree to receive NFTs from any Aptos address. This is handy, because in Aptos, you can only receive assets that you have approved, in order to avoid scammers from sending out malicious tokens and NFTs – as often happens on Solana, for example. But with Rise, you can avoid having to check if you’ve received any NFTs and manually approve each with your private key. You can also withdraw the permission to receive NFTs anytime.

Another quirky feature is the possibility to set any NFT as your Rise PFP (avatar).

Rise also has built-in token swaps (which were inactive at the time of writing ahead of the mainnet release), and a nice notifications tab. You can subscribe to those you’re interested in via Settings: the list of NFT notifications is impressive.

Rise is already integrated with many Aptos dApps, especially NFT collections. For example, it was the official mint partner of Aptos Monkeys and Alpha Alpacas.

Fewcha  

The cleverly named Fewcha is another good Aptos wallet. It can be used as either a Chrome extension or iOS app. Its security bona fides are enhanced by an independent audit from Verichains Lab. Their roadmap lists a Firefox extension in the future as well.

Importing new tokens into Fewcha is a bit more complicated than in Pontem Wallet or Martian. The same goes for NFTs: the collectibles section lets you claim (pre-approve) specific NFTs, though you’ll need to input quite a lot of information.

On the other hand, Fewcha is the only wallet (for now) that lets you add your name service information (name, country, birthday, etc.) and even an avatar URL (as opposed to using an NFT as an avatar).

Just like Martian, Fewcha allows you to fetch your secret recovery phrase and change the password in the Settings tab. You can also switch between the devnet and the testnet. By the way, Fewcha also supports Sui, another fast and scalable blockchain built with Move.

Also in the Settings, you’ll find an Address Book, where you can add Aptos wallet addresses of your friends - or your own, if you also use Pontem Wallet, for example.

Like Pontem and Martian, Fewcha  has a nice Explore section, where you’ll find all Aptos projects that support Fewcha, including NFT marketplaces and DeFi protocols.

Finally, Fewcha is also integrated with Keystone, a multichain hardware wallet that uses QR codes.

Spika

Of all the wallets we’ve reviewed, Spika feels most like a work in progress, with many of its features not working. For example, we weren’t able to switch between devnet and testnet, or to add any of the long list of (supposedly) available assets.

Once everything is working, you should be able to test token swaps and even create your own NFT or a whole collection. We’ll bring you more news on Spika as we update this article in the future.

Conclusion

All the wallets we’ve analyzed are still early releases with limited functionality. In the next few months, we will probably see Pontem Wallet, Petra, Martian, and Fewcha add more features - and new wallets will also probably appear. We will update our comparison regularly, and we’d be grateful for your feedback on Pontem Wallet and other wallets for Aptos. Please share it here in the comments, on Twitter, or on Telegram.