Your personal treasury.
Gold, cash and coins in one wallet, under keys that never leave your device.
Website · Roadmap · Build from source · Security
Caribou is a free, open-source wallet for desktop and mobile that keeps tokenized gold, digital dollars and coins side by side in one portfolio. There is no account to create and no ID to show. Caribou is built by Bisoncraft LLC, the developers of Bison Wallet and DCRDEX.
Important
Caribou is pre-release software and has no tagged release yet. The first desktop alpha is planned for October 2026. Until then, build from source, and use small amounts.
| Assets | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| Gold | PAX Gold (PAXG), Tether Gold (XAUT) | On Ethereum. Each token is one troy ounce of an allocated bar, per its issuer. Send any fraction of an ounce. |
| Cash | USDC, USDT | On Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon and Solana; USDC also on the XRP Ledger. Each shows as one balance, however many networks it sits on. |
| Coins | Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, BNB, Litecoin, Hyperliquid (HYPE), Polygon (POL), Dash, Monero | The native money of each network. Monero is part of desktop release builds. |
| Investments | Tokenized stocks and ETFs | Planned; see the roadmap. |
- Only you hold the keys. Keys are generated and stored on your device. Lose the device, and the recovery phrase restores everything on a new one. Lose the phrase, and no one can restore it for you, Bisoncraft included.
- No account, no ID check. There is nothing to sign up for. The wallet's password unlocks it locally and is not an account.
- Native wallets. Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dash run as native wallets on your device, syncing through Electrum servers or compact block filters (BIP 157/158).
- Swaps built in. Swap between supported assets across chains through NEAR Intents. The fee and the amount received are itemized before you confirm. While a swap settles, the funds are held by NEAR Intents solvers and verifiers until delivery or refund.
- Scriptable. A token-authenticated API, bound to localhost, lets scripts, a CLI or an MCP server drive a running wallet (docs/automation.md).
Caribou runs locally and does not require a publisher account. It connects to blockchain networks and third-party services for balances, transactions, prices and swap availability. Those services can receive connection and request information. Swaps also depend on external settlement infrastructure.
Bisoncraft operates no server that the wallet reports to, and the wallet sends Bisoncraft no telemetry or crash reports.
Caribou is free. Sending pays only the network's transaction fee. Swaps carry an application fee, shown in the quote breakdown before you confirm.
- Self-custody. Your keys, your coins. Keys are generated and kept on your device, and funds are held at addresses the wallet controls. Caribou has no custodial accounts, and no funds are kept with Bisoncraft or any third party. Funds leave the wallet's control only when you send them or swap them across chains; during a cross-chain swap, the settlement network holds them until delivery or refund, secured by their own blockchain protocol.
- Privacy by default, disclosure by choice. Caribou requires no account or identity verification to hold, send, receive, or swap supported assets, and it collects no identifying information. Planned opt-in fiat and securities integrations may require verification directly with their providers.
Buying crypto with a card or bank transfer, and buying tokenized securities, depend on providers with their own verification rules. The planned Ramp Network integration requires identity verification with Ramp, and some issuers of tokenized securities verify buyers themselves. Caribou plans to offer these routes as opt-in modules, and each integration must meet four requirements:
- Opt-in, off by default. A module does nothing until the user turns it on. No default path through the wallet reaches one.
- Nothing depends on one. Holding, sending, receiving, and swapping remain available with all modules disabled.
- Disclosed at the point of use. A module that imposes identity verification, geographic restrictions, transfer restrictions, or its own terms says so before the user commits to it. The disclosure includes that the provider receives a wallet address and can link it to the identity it verified.
- Delivered to the wallet. Purchases and tokenized securities are delivered to addresses the wallet controls and spent from them. Providers that hold funds or securities on the user's behalf are not integrated.
| Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| Linux | Desktop alpha planned for October 2026: .deb and .tar.gz, amd64 |
| macOS | Desktop alpha planned for October 2026: notarized .dmg, Apple silicon and Intel |
| Windows | Desktop alpha planned for October 2026: signed installer and .zip, amd64 |
| Android | In development; alpha planned for November 2026 |
| iOS | In development; alpha planned for November 2026 |
Each release will publish a SHA256SUMS manifest with a GPG signature, and
the signing key's fingerprint, so a download can be verified before it is
run.
Caribou is under active development. These are target milestones; timing may shift based on testing, funding, and partner onboarding.
- Make the repository public.
- Release the desktop alpha for Linux, macOS, and Windows, with a signed release manifest.
- Recruit alpha testers.
- Begin onboarding with Ramp Network.
- Zcash phase 0 — Funding and FFI validation
- Submit a funding proposal to Zcash Community Grants.
- Demonstrate the foreign function interface (FFI) with passing tests.
- Dash staking phase 0 — Funding and backend
- Submit a funding proposal to the Dash DAO.
- Implement the staking backend, including key handling and custom transaction handling.
- Implement a simulated server for testing on simnet.
- Open the alpha to Android and iOS testers through TestFlight and a Google Play closed test.
- Target funding decisions from Zcash Community Grants and the Dash DAO.
- Zcash phase 1 — Go integration: Implement the Go wrapper and its tests.
- Dash staking phase 1 — Mainnet and user experience: Test on mainnet and implement the staking UI/UX.
- Move swaps behind a provider interface that ranks quotes across venues, with NEAR Intents as the first provider.
- Add memo-bearing sends for UTXO chains, EVM chains, and XRP, as required by protocol-vault swap venues.
- Release the beta on all five platforms.
- Publish to the App Store and Google Play.
- Ship the Zcash shielded light wallet.
- Ship Dash staking.
- Offer card purchases through Ramp Network as an opt-in module.
- Add THORChain as a second cross-chain swap venue for BTC, LTC, ETH, and XRP, with quote ranking and failover between venues. Monero follows when THORChain activates its Monero vault.
- Add same-chain swaps on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain through the Uniswap Trading API, including PAXG.
- Offer tokenized stocks as an opt-in module outside the United States, where issuers permit, with eligibility checks by jurisdiction.
- Add same-chain swaps on Solana through Jupiter and on BNB Smart Chain through PancakeSwapX.
- Add Chainflip as a third cross-chain swap venue.
- Subject to a suitable issuer partnership, offer tokenized stocks in the United States as an opt-in module, through an issuer that performs its own identity verification and delivers to the user's wallet.
- Add swap venues where coverage data shows gaps.
Requirements:
- Go 1.25 or later.
- Node.js 20.19+ or 22.13+ with npm, for the web UI.
- For the desktop app: cgo, plus the GTK and WebKitGTK development packages
on Linux (
libgtk-3-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev).
The desktop and mobile UIs are React and TypeScript bundles in one npm
workspace under wallet/appserver (shared, desktop and mobile). The Go
binaries embed the built bundle with go:embed, so build it before building
a binary:
cd wallet/appserver && npm ci && npm run buildA binary built without this step compiles against a placeholder and serves no UI.
go build -o caribou-desktop ./wallet/cmd/caribou-desktop
./caribou-desktopRelease builds add the xmr tag, which links the Monero library
libmonero_wallet2_api_c from wallet/asset/xmr/lib/<platform>/. The
libraries are not committed; wallet/asset/xmr/lib/README.md
covers obtaining or building them. With the libraries in place:
go build -tags xmr -o caribou-desktop ./wallet/cmd/caribou-desktopcaribou runs the wallet as a local server and serves the UI to a browser.
The systray tag adds a tray icon.
go build -o caribou ./wallet/cmd/caribouThe Android and iOS apps are thin native shells that host the mobile UI over
a loopback server, around the Go core bound with gomobile from
wallet/mobile. See wallet/android/README.md and
wallet/ios/README.md.
Desktop installers and command-line archives for Linux, Windows and macOS
are built, signed and packaged from a Linux host by the scripts in
release/; see release/README.md.
# Full suite
./run_tests.sh
# Fast unit tests with race detection
go test -race -short ./...
# Single asset package
go test -race -short ./wallet/asset/btc/...
# Web UI lint and tests
(cd wallet/appserver && npm run lint && npm run test)Some tests need real networks or running nodes and are gated by build tags:
live, rpclive and harness. The
Simnet Development Guide covers the local harnesses.
golangci-lint -c ./.golangci.yml run
markdownlint-cli2 "*.md" "docs/**/*.md"- Asset interface. Every chain implements
asset.Walletfromwallet/asset/interface.go. Adding a new chain means implementing the interface and registering a driver underwallet/asset/;wallet/asset/importallsets which assets a build includes. - Embedded UI. The appserver serves the desktop bundle
(
wallet/appserver/desktop) by default and the mobile bundle (wallet/appserver/mobile) under themobiletag. Both build onwallet/appserver/shared.
- Local Automation with API Tokens — drive a running
cariboufrom scripts, a CLI, or an MCP server over the appserver API. - Simnet Development Guide — local regtest harnesses and running the wallet against them.
- Desktop UI Development Guide — developing the desktop wallet UI.
- Desktop Release Packaging — building, signing and packaging the desktop installers.
Caribou is changing quickly, and large parts of the code are being removed, rewritten, or added. Check with @buck54321 or @JoeGruffins if you're interested in helping out.
Found a bug or want a feature? Open an issue and fill in the form for your
case: bug report
or feature request.
Include your version, platform, and steps to reproduce. For the CLI, run with
--log=debug and attach the relevant log lines.
Never post seed phrases, private keys, or passwords in an issue. Report security vulnerabilities privately as described in SECURITY.md, not in a public issue.
Caribou is released under the Blue Oak Model License 1.0.0.
Caribou descends from Bison Wallet, which itself was developed alongside DCRDEX. The multi-chain wallet code, including the Monero adaptor-signature implementation, is carried over from that lineage; the credit for that work belongs to the DCRDEX / Bison Wallet contributors.