Software review — Trust Wallet
Trust Wallet review: the widest net in crypto
If you hold something obscure, this is usually the app that supports it. More than a hundred chains, staking for around twenty assets at no platform fee, and the lowest overall fee profile of any full-featured mobile wallet. The breadth is also the risk.
- 100+ Chains supported
- ~20 Assets stakeable in-app
- $0 Platform fee on staking
- Lowest Fee profile among full-featured apps
At a glance
If you hold assets on chains nobody else supports, this is usually the app that has them.
Best for: Broadest chain coverage in one mobile app · Maker: Trust Wallet
The case for breadth
Most wallet comparisons treat "number of supported assets" as a vanity metric, and usually it is. Trust Wallet is the exception, because its coverage is deep rather than just wide — it does not merely list a hundred chains, it handles their address formats, transaction structures and staking mechanisms properly.
That matters in a specific and unglamorous way. If you hold something outside the top thirty assets, you will eventually hit a wallet that does not support it, and your options become finding a chain-specific wallet nobody has audited, or leaving the asset on an exchange. Both are worse than using Trust Wallet. This is the app that stops you having six wallets from six different developers of varying quality.
The second thing it does well is fees, in the sense of not charging many. Sending costs only the network fee. Staking carries no platform cut. Its swap pricing is the best of the full-featured mobile wallets, better than MetaMask's 0.875% and Phantom's 0.85%. For a wallet with this much capability given away free, the commercial restraint is notable.
Specifications
| Maker | Trust Wallet |
|---|---|
| Price | Free |
| Platforms | iOS, Android, browser extension |
| Custody | Non-custodial — keys generated and stored on device, never sent to Trust Wallet servers |
| Source code | Core libraries open source |
| Asset support | 100+ blockchains and a very large token set |
| Staking | In-app for ~20 assets including ETH, BNB, SOL, ADA, TRX, ATOM, DOT — no platform fee |
| Swap fees | Lowest overall profile of the full-featured mobile wallets |
| Hardware pairing | Limited |
| Backup | BIP39 recovery phrase, portable to any compatible wallet |
| Last verified | September 2026 |
Staking: one of the better deals in crypto
Trust Wallet supports in-app staking for roughly twenty assets, including Ethereum, BNB, Solana, Cardano, TRON, Cosmos and Polkadot, and takes no platform fee on the rewards. You delegate from your own wallet, the keys stay with you, and the coins never move to a company's control.
That last point is worth dwelling on for a New Zealand audience. The alternative most people default to is staking on an exchange, which means transferring custody to a platform in exchange for a yield. New Zealand's record here is instructive: Cryptopia was hacked for roughly NZ$30 million, and the Dasset liquidation found around NZ$6.3 million of customer cryptoassets unaccounted for. Delegating from a non-custodial wallet removes that counterparty entirely while earning the same protocol rewards.
What it does not remove is protocol risk. Slashing can destroy a portion of your stake if your validator misbehaves, which argues for choosing an established validator rather than the highest headline rate. And unbonding periods — days to weeks depending on the chain — mean your coins are illiquid while you wait to exit. Check the validator's commission before you confirm, because the app may pre-select one and the commission comes out of your rewards before you see them. Our staking wallets page covers all three layers of cost.
The approval problem, which is the real risk here
Trust Wallet's key storage has not been broken. What happens to its users, repeatedly, is approval drains — and the breadth that makes the app useful is exactly what makes this worse.
On smart-contract chains, letting an application move your tokens requires granting it a spending allowance. This is a normal, necessary operation, and a malicious contract simply asks for an unlimited one. You approve it because approving things is what using these applications involves, and at some later point — days, weeks, months — the contract exercises the allowance and empties that token from your wallet. Nothing was hacked. You authorised it.
A wallet that supports a hundred chains and an enormous token set gives you far more opportunities to do this than a Bitcoin-only wallet like BlueWallet, which is structurally immune because Bitcoin has no approval mechanism. And unlike Phantom, Trust Wallet does not simulate transactions to show you what a signature will do to your balances before you sign it.
The practical defences: treat every "connect wallet" prompt as a decision rather than a formality, use a small burner wallet for anything experimental, and periodically review and revoke allowances you no longer need. Full detail in our scams and wallet drains guide.
Install from the right place
Fake wallet apps appear on both app stores regularly, and paid search results for "Trust Wallet download" have been used to distribute them. Go to trustwallet.com, follow their link to the store listing, and install from there. It is one extra step and it removes an entire category of loss. The same applies to MetaMask, which is the most impersonated brand in crypto.
The balance sheet
What we like, and what we don't
What it does well
- Broadest chain and token coverage of any mainstream wallet, by a wide margin
- Genuinely non-custodial with keys held on device and core libraries published as open source
- In-app staking for roughly twenty assets with no platform fee taken by Trust Wallet
- Lowest overall fee profile of the full-featured mobile wallets
- Browser extension alongside the mobile app, so one wallet covers phone and desktop dApp use
- Standard BIP39 recovery phrase, so you are never locked in
- Handles obscure chains competently, which is often the only reason people need a second wallet
What we hold against it
- The enormous token and contract surface makes approval drains materially more likely than in a narrow wallet
- Interface is dense compared with Phantom — more capability, less guidance
- No transaction simulation, so you do not see what a signature will do to your balances before approving
- In-app fiat purchase routes rely on third-party providers whose New Zealand pricing is generally worse than an exchange
- Limited hardware wallet pairing, so the upgrade path to cold storage means changing wallets
- Keys live on an internet-connected phone, which is the structural limit of any software wallet
Using Trust Wallet from New Zealand
Two practical points about operating this wallet from here.
Funding it. Trust Wallet has in-app purchase options through third-party providers, and we would generally avoid them. The all-in cost — provider fee plus spread, sometimes on top of a card fee — is typically worse than buying on an exchange and withdrawing, and you have less control over which network the asset arrives on. The better pattern is to buy on a venue with published licences, then withdraw to the receiving address Trust Wallet gives you. Our NZD funding guide covers the local rails now that Easy Crypto has closed and Kiwi-Coin has shut down.
Getting money out. There is no direct path from Trust Wallet to a New Zealand bank account, because Trust Wallet has no banking relationship. You send the crypto to an exchange that supports NZD withdrawals, sell there, and withdraw to your bank. Do it in a single session. Selling is a disposal, which may generate taxable income depending on your purpose in acquiring the asset — and from 1 April 2026, reporting platforms collect and report your transaction data to Inland Revenue under CARF, with the first reports due by 30 June 2027. Our cashing out guide covers the mechanics and the records you need. General information, not tax advice.
Interface: capable rather than gentle
We score Trust Wallet 8.8 on interface, which is high but half a point behind Phantom and a full point behind Exodus on desktop. The gap is not about polish, it is about guidance.
Trust Wallet's design assumes you know roughly what you are doing. Network selection is exposed rather than explained. The token list is vast and largely unfiltered. There is no simulation layer telling you what a signature means. For an experienced user that is exactly right — the app gets out of the way and lets you work. For a first-time user it is more surface than they can safely navigate, and the specific danger is sending an asset on the wrong network, which is the mistake our testers made most often across every wallet we handed them.
So the honest recommendation is ordering rather than exclusion: learn on something narrower, then add Trust Wallet when you need the coverage. It is a superb second wallet and a slightly risky first one.
From our testing notes
The most useful thing we did with Trust Wallet was audit the approvals on a wallet that had been used casually for a year. There were eleven active allowances, four of them unlimited, and the tester could identify the purpose of exactly three. Nothing had gone wrong — but four unlimited allowances to contracts you cannot name is four open doors. If you have been using any smart-contract wallet for a while, go and look at yours. It takes five minutes.
Trust Wallet FAQ
Trust Wallet — questions New Zealanders ask
Is Trust Wallet safe to use?
It is genuinely non-custodial — keys are generated and stored locally on your device and never transmitted to Trust Wallet's servers — and the core libraries are open source, which is more than several competitors offer. The risks are the ordinary hot-wallet ones: your phone is online, and the app's enormous chain coverage puts thousands of unvetted tokens and contracts one tap away. Use it for a working balance, be extremely careful about what you approve, and keep savings in cold storage.
How do I buy crypto in Trust Wallet from New Zealand?
The in-app purchase routes go through third-party providers whose New Zealand support and pricing vary, and the all-in cost — provider fee plus spread — is usually worse than buying on an exchange and withdrawing. Our recommendation is the boring one: buy on a venue with published licences, then withdraw to the receiving address Trust Wallet gives you. You control the network, you see the fee, and you are not stacking a card fee on top of a spread. See buying crypto with NZD.
How do I stake crypto on Trust Wallet?
Open the asset, choose stake, pick a validator and confirm. It supports roughly twenty assets including ETH, BNB, SOL, ADA, TRX, ATOM and DOT, and Trust Wallet charges no platform fee — you pay the validator's commission, typically 2% to 10% deducted from rewards, plus the network fee to submit the delegation. Check the validator's commission before confirming, because the app may pre-select one. Rewards are likely taxable income on receipt in New Zealand, so start records immediately — see our tax guide.
How do I cash out from Trust Wallet to a New Zealand bank account?
There is no direct route, because Trust Wallet has no banking relationship. You send the crypto to a deposit address at an exchange or broker that supports NZD withdrawals, sell it there, and withdraw New Zealand dollars to your bank. Do it in one session rather than leaving a balance parked. Selling is a disposal, so it may generate taxable income depending on your circumstances. Our cashing out guide walks through the whole path.
Can Trust Wallet be hacked?
The app's key storage has not been broken. What happens to Trust Wallet users, constantly, is approval drains: you connect to an application, approve a token allowance, and the contract you approved was malicious. The wallet signed exactly what you asked it to. Because Trust Wallet supports so many chains and tokens, the surface for this is larger than in a narrower wallet. Review and revoke old approvals periodically, and read our scams and drains guide.
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