The problem with cold storage
A cold wallet, whether a hardware device, an air-gapped computer or a steel plate with a seed phrase, keeps the private keys away from the internet. To see the balance you typically have to connect the device, open its companion software and unlock it. To see performance you usually cannot, because the wallet knows amounts but not prices, and connecting a device just to look feels like the opposite of "cold".
Meanwhile, an exchange account shows a live portfolio with profit and loss at a glance. Many people who moved to self-custody miss precisely that view.
How watch-only tracking solves it
Every cold wallet has public addresses. You already use them: they are what you share to receive Bitcoin. A public address reveals the balance and transaction history recorded on the blockchain and nothing more; it cannot be used to spend. So you can hand a public address to a tracking app and get a live overview, while the keys stay cold.
This is what BTC Mate does. It is a watch-only tracker: read-only by construction, with no place to enter a private key or seed phrase and no ability to create transactions. More on what watch-only means.
Setting it up
- On your hardware or cold wallet, copy a receiving address that holds your coins. If you use several addresses, copy each one you want to see. You do not need to connect the device to your phone; reading the address from the device's screen or from your own notes is enough.
- In BTC Mate, add the address and give it a label such as "Ledger savings" or "Vault".
- BTC Mate loads the public balance and history, values it in your currency and shows estimated entry price and performance.
From then on, the Overview shows all tracked addresses, and the Insights tab shows a performance chart and per-address analysis.
Hardware wallets: Ledger, Trezor and others
BTC Mate works with any hardware wallet because it never talks to the device. It only needs the public address. That covers Ledger, Trezor, Coldcard, BitBox, Jade, Keystone and any other maker, as well as paper wallets and software wallets. There is no integration, pairing or official partnership with any of these manufacturers, and none is needed. Trademarks belong to their respective owners.
What to expect from the performance figures
The blockchain records when coins arrived, not what you paid. BTC Mate therefore estimates the entry price from the historical Bitcoin price at the time each transaction confirmed, and labels the result as an estimate. For coins withdrawn to cold storage soon after buying, the estimate is usually close. For coins that sat on an exchange for months first, or that were moved between your own addresses, it will differ. Full explanation of the method and its limits.
Privacy considerations
Tracking an address means sending that public address to a blockchain data provider so the app can fetch its history. That provider could in principle associate your IP address with the tracked address. Sharing a public address does not give anyone control over the funds, but it can reveal financial activity and therefore has privacy implications; the Privacy Policy spells it out. Addresses you add are stored on your iPhone, not on a BTC Mate server.
What BTC Mate cannot do with your cold wallet
It cannot spend from it, sign anything, sweep it, recover it or change it. It cannot buy or sell Bitcoin. If an app claiming to "track" your cold wallet asks for a seed phrase, close it.