Freewallet Defends Self-Hosted Wallets After Elon Musk Criticism, Says Installs Increased By 50% Following Tweets

Freewallet, a “multi-cryptocurrency” wallet with over 3.5 million users, said an incident with Elon Musk has “turned out to be staggering” for the company. 

What Happened: Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Musk on Wednesday criticized the wallet, tweeting “your app sucks."

Your app sucks

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2021

He further added, “Any crypto wallet that won’t give you your private keys should be avoided at all cost.”

It turned out Musk was using Freewallet, and his account was locked.

Please unlock my account

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2021

Why It Matters: Solomon Brown, head of PR at Freewallet, said the company was surprised to learn that Musk uses its app, and that Musk's comments highlight a debate that has been a sticking point in the industry.

“Elon was voicing an opinion that is common among hardcore crypto enthusiasts," Brown said. “While their concerns are valid, the opinion they have isn’t shared by everyone."

See also: How to Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)

Hosted wallets and other third-party service providers have been highly criticized in the crypto community, where the “not your keys, not your money” prevails.

But Brown said many users fear the risks that come with holding a private key. 

“Services like ours are indispensable to the average crypto users ... (who) do not want to have to worry about losing their assets forever due to misplacing or forgetting their private keys."

A recent Chainalysis study showed that around 20% of the total Bitcoin supply (over $175 billion) has been lost forever because of lost private keys and devices.

Solomon also said the company's app install numbers “experienced a 50% growth on Feb. 10” after Musk’s tweets.

Image: Courtesy of Freewallet