Watch-only wallet

A wallet that can see balances and transactions but cannot spend. Useful for accountants, kids, or just monitoring a stack.

A watch-only wallet is one that has been imported with only the public keys (or extended public key, "xpub"), not the private keys. It can see every transaction, every balance, every address — but it cannot sign transactions, so it cannot spend any sats.

Watch-only wallets are useful in several scenarios. An accountant can be given watch-only access to your business wallet for tax purposes without you handing over spending power. A parent can monitor a kid's wallet without taking custody. A power user can have read-only access on their phone while keeping the spending wallet on a hardware device kept at home.

BTCBitByBit's Family Corner uses a similar pattern. Parents see their kids' wallets without the ability to spend on the kid's behalf — except through the chore-approval flow which is its own consent action.

Learn this in our courses

Course topic

Wallets & self-custody

How to store Bitcoin so that nobody — not even us — can take it.

Related terms

Glossary

Public key

The cryptographic counterpart to a private key. Used to derive addresses and verify signatures. Safe to share.

Glossary

Private key

The cryptographic secret that authorises spending Bitcoin. If someone gets your private key, they can spend your sats.

Glossary

Self-custody

Holding your own Bitcoin private keys. Nobody can freeze, seize, or lose your sats — except you.

← Back to the full glossary

Learn Bitcoin the practical way

Real lessons, sats earned, your own wallet. Free to start.