BRD: discontinued, here is the replacement
Last reviewed 2026-08-25
Security warning
BRD is gone, and the only thing that matters now is your recovery phrase. Coinbase acquired BRD in November 2021, the app stopped processing transactions in March 2022, and by March 2023 it was fully shut down with no updates and no support. brd.com does not serve a wallet any more: it serves a notice offering the three-letter domain for sale.
Your coins are almost certainly fine. BRD was self-custodial, so the balance was never held by BRD or by Coinbase. It is derived from the 12-word recovery phrase you were shown when you first set the wallet up, and that phrase still works. Enter it into a maintained wallet that supports the assets you held and the balances reappear. Coinbase Wallet was the migration path the company pointed users to and remains a reasonable one; Exodus and Edge take a 12-word phrase too. Three practical notes. A recovering wallet will usually find bitcoin and the common assets by itself but may need less common tokens added by hand. If you set an optional passphrase on top of the phrase, you need that as well. And never type a recovery phrase into a website, only into a wallet app you chose and installed yourself: fake BRD recovery services are exactly the kind of thing that fills the space a dead wallet leaves behind.
What it was: founded in 2015 and known first as Breadwallet and then Bread, it was one of the first genuinely simple mobile bitcoin wallets, connecting straight to the bitcoin network rather than through a company server, with no account to create. It later added Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens and a BRD token of its own. CoinDesk reported more than 10 million customers at the time of the Coinbase acquisition. The source code is still public on GitHub, where the last commits to the mobile app date to 2022.
There is nothing here to buy and nothing to install. If you are choosing a wallet rather than recovering one, start from a live product.
- Made by
- BRD
- Type
- Software wallet
- Runs on
- iOS, Android
- Who holds the keys
- self-custodial, keys derived from a 12-word recovery phrase held on your phone, which is why the coins outlived the company
- Bitcoin only
- No, multi-asset
- Released
- Founded in 2015 as Breadwallet; transactions stopped in March 2022 and the app was fully shut down by March 2023
- Coin support
- Bitcoin first, with Ethereum, ERC-20 tokens and a BRD token added later
The replacement: Coinbase Wallet
BRD retired the BRD; the Coinbase Wallet is its direct successor with current firmware support.
Pros and cons
What works
- Self-custodial: the 12-word recovery phrase still controls the coins, with no company standing in the way
- One of the first genuinely simple mobile bitcoin wallets, connecting to the network directly rather than through a server
- Source code is still public on GitHub, so anyone recovering funds can check how keys were derived
- Users were given in-app migration instructions and a destination wallet before transactions were switched off
What to watch
- Fully shut down by March 2023: it cannot be installed, updated or used to move coins
- brd.com is now a domain sale listing, so anything that appears there later has nothing to do with the wallet
- Recovery depends entirely on the 12-word phrase and any optional passphrase you added to it
- Less common tokens may need to be added by hand in whichever wallet you recover into
- No support desk exists any more, which is precisely the gap fake recovery services move into
Wallets that still work
- Coinbase WalletCoinbase's self-custody wallet is now Base App, and the product has moved its center of gravity to Base.
- ExodusThe best looking wallet on this list, from an NYSE listed company, with closed source apps and swap rates starting at 0.5%.
- EdgeOpen source mobile wallet that swaps the seed phrase for a username and password, with a 2023 incident post that has vanished.
Frequently asked questions
Is the BRD wallet shut down?
Yes. Coinbase acquired BRD in November 2021, transactions stopped in March 2022, and the app was fully shut down by March 2023. brd.com now serves a notice offering the domain for sale.
How do I recover my BRD wallet?
Use your 12-word recovery phrase. BRD was self-custodial, so that phrase controls the coins. Install a maintained wallet that supports the assets you held, choose its restore or import option, and enter the phrase there. Never enter it into a website.
Are my coins lost now that BRD is gone?
No, provided you have the recovery phrase and any passphrase you added. The coins sit on their blockchains rather than in the app, and the phrase is what signs for them. Without it there is no recovery and no company left to ask.
What should I use instead of BRD?
Coinbase Wallet is the migration path BRD pointed its users to. Exodus and Edge are the closest equivalents if you want the same simple multi-asset mobile wallet from a different company.
What was BRD called before?
Breadwallet, later shortened to Bread. The company was founded in 2015 and its wallet was among the earliest to connect directly to the bitcoin network instead of routing through a company server.