{"id":46243,"date":"2026-06-23T18:12:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptomag.finance\/?p=46243"},"modified":"2026-06-23T18:12:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:12:53","slug":"craig-raw-built-one-of-bitcoins-best-wallets-for-free-apple-might-kill-it-by-june-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptomag.finance\/?p=46243","title":{"rendered":"Craig Raw Built One of Bitcoin\u2019s Best Wallets for Free. Apple Might Kill It by June 30."},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine<\/a>
\n
\nCraig Raw Built One of Bitcoin\u2019s Best Wallets for Free. Apple Might Kill It by June 30.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Craig Raw is a solo developer based in South Africa. In 2020, he built<\/a> Sparrow Wallet \u2014 a free, open-source Bitcoin desktop wallet \u2014 because he thought the existing options weren\u2019t good enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He has no company behind him, charges nothing for the software, and has kept building it for six years on the belief that it has value for people who want real control of their money.<\/p>\n

Sparrow<\/a> is a tool for people who take Bitcoin self-custody<\/a> seriously \u2014 the kind of users who want to see every detail of what their wallet is doing, manage their own transaction privacy, and hold their own keys rather than trust a third party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raw designed it to educate as much as to function, building in tool tips, UTXO visibility, and transaction detail that most wallets hide from users. It runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux. There is no mobile version, and Raw has been clear about that for years.<\/p>\n

That last point is now at the center of a fight with Apple that could end his ability to ship software on Mac entirely.<\/p>\n

Since 2023, fraudsters have published more than a dozen fake \u201cSparrow Wallet\u201d apps on the App Store, according to Raw.<\/p>\n

These apps impersonate Raw\u2019s software. When a user enters their seed phrase \u2014 the master key to a Bitcoin wallet \u2014 the app sends it to the attacker and the funds disappear. Raw holds registered US trademarks for the Sparrow name and logo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He has reported the fakes to Apple and warned the community since early 2024. Users have contacted him after losing their savings, in some cases their life savings. Apple has removed some fakes. More keep appearing.<\/p>\n

Raw\u2019s test for Apple<\/h2>\n

Raw tried something different. He submitted a placeholder app to the App Store \u2014 never published, no functionality \u2014 whose only purpose was to display a message: Sparrow is desktop-only, any mobile app claiming to be Sparrow is not his, do not trust it.<\/p>\n

Apple rejected the app for being placeholder content. Then it escalated. Raw\u2019s entire Apple Developer account is now flagged for termination, with a deadline of June 30. The stated reason: \u201cdishonest activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the man trying to warn users about fraudulent apps has been charged with dishonesty by the platform those apps live on.<\/p>\n

What makes this more than a bureaucratic frustration is what an Apple Developer account actually does. Sparrow is not sold through the Mac App Store \u2014 Raw distributes it from his own website.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But macOS requires all apps to be signed with a valid Apple Developer certificate, or the system blocks them. If Apple kills his account, the certificate dies with it. New installs of Sparrow on Mac fail. Existing users stop receiving updates.<\/p>\n

Raw posted<\/a> about the situation on X on Monday, writing that he is \u201cconfident this is an automated misclassification that Apple would reverse on review,\u201d but that he may be terminated before a human ever looks at his appeal. The June 30 deadline is one week away.<\/p>\n

If Apple follows through, users lose access to updates, new installs fail, and the door opens wider for the fakes Raw has spent two years trying to stop. Raw is asking people to repost his thread.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: <\/strong>On June 23, Craig Raw tweeted that Apple had reversed its decision to terminate his developer account following a successful appeal, though he said fake Sparrow Wallet apps remain on the App Store and continue to put users\u2019 funds at risk.<\/p>\n

This post Craig Raw Built One of Bitcoin\u2019s Best Wallets for Free. Apple Might Kill It by June 30.<\/a> first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine<\/a> and is written by Micah Zimmerman<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine Craig Raw Built One of Bitcoin\u2019s Best Wallets for Free. Apple Might Kill It by June 30. Craig Raw is a solo developer based in South Africa. In 2020, he built Sparrow Wallet \u2014 a free, open-source Bitcoin desktop wallet \u2014 because he thought the existing options weren\u2019t good enough.\u00a0 He has no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bitcoin"],"yoast_head":"\nCraig Raw Built One of Bitcoin\u2019s Best Wallets for Free. 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