Frequently Asked Questions

I'm an accountant or tax preparer. Do I need an enterprise license?

No. Your clients use Clams Desktop directly to manage their Bitcoin accounting and generate reports to share with you. If a client's revenue exceeds $1M, they need an enterprise license—not you.

We're building a hosted service specifically for accounting firms with multi-client management features. Contact enterprise@clams.tech to learn more.

What personal information do I need to provide to use Clams Desktop?

None. No sign-up is required. We don't ask for or obtain personally identifiable information. Just download the app to get started.

Can I still use Clams Desktop if I don't see my wallet on the integration list?

Yes. The Custom Import feature lets you manually import transaction data from wallets we don't yet support. If there is a wallet that you would like us to support, jump into our Discord to let us know.

Where is my data stored?

Clams Desktop syncs transaction data from your Bitcoin wallets, derives double-entry accounting journals from that data, and automatically adds metadata. All of that data is stored directly on your device and remains private at all times.

Does Clams Desktop have access to spend funds from my wallets?

No. Clams Desktop requires only read access to your wallets and never has access to spending your funds.

Is the app open-source?

No, it isn't. We are major proponents of open source, and you can view all of our open-source work on our GitHub. We want to build Clams into a long-term sustainable business, and we think that open sourcing it at this time does not contribute to that. Since Clams Desktop does not have access to user funds, we do not think that open sourcing it is critical.

Does Clams Desktop leak metadata or make requests to external services that contain any of my private data?

In some cases, Clams Desktop does need to make requests to external services to maintain a complete data set for deriving journal entries. The current external requests that are made are the following:

• Older CoreLN on-chain transactions sometimes do not have a timestamp, so we need to look up a block by its height to get the timestamp. No real metadata is leaked here other than that you are interested in a particular block.
• LND nodes will often not have the on-chain transaction details of a channel close, so we need to look up the full transaction by its hash. This leaks that this hash is of interest to you.
• We retrieve historical Bitcoin price data from the Bitstamp API and fall back to the Coinbase API if the Bitstamp API request fails. We make a single request with a date range from the first to the last transaction in your data set. This does not really leak any specific information since we are not looking up specific timestamps.

For all required chain data lookups, for each request we randomly select from a list of public Electrum servers which is currently made up of mempool.space, blockstream and bitaroo. In a future update, we will allow users to input a custom list of Electrum servers they would like Clams Desktop to use instead. This would allow for using a locally running instance to prevent any metadata from leaving your device. We also recommend using a VPN while using the app so that the public Electrum servers cannot correlate your personal IP address with transaction metadata.

We will update this FAQ if we add any more requests to external services. We are also considering running our own Electrum instance for these lookups.

How can I verify that my data remains private and never leaves my device?

Watch this video showing how to monitor network activity with Clams Desktop, side by side with Little Snitch. More details about our commitment to user privacy can be found in this blog post.

Does Clams Desktop include any trackers or analytics scripts?

No. As much as we want to be able to gain insight into how people are using the app and where they are running into issues, we simply do not want to compromise on user privacy through tracking and analytics. Instead, we hope that you will jump into our Discord and provide us with feedback directly.

If you are not monetizing user data, have no ads, and the app is free, how is that sustainable long term?

Clams Desktop is free for individuals and small businesses under $1M in annual revenue. Organizations above that threshold require an enterprise license, which funds ongoing development while keeping Clams Desktop accessible to the Bitcoin community. We're building a sustainable business that aligns incentives between us and our customers without compromising our values.