Craig Raw is a solo developer based in South Africa. In 2020, it is Built Sparrow Wallet – a free and open source desktop Bitcoin wallet – because he thought the existing options weren’t good enough.
He doesn’t have a company backing him, he doesn’t charge anything for the software, and he’s been building it for six years on the belief that it has value for people who want real control over their money.
bird It is a tool for people who take Bitcoin self-guard Seriously – the kind of users who want to see every detail of what their wallet is doing, manage the privacy of their transactions, and keep their private keys instead of trusting a third party.
It was designed by Raw to teach how to work, build tooltips, see UTXO, and transaction details that most wallets hide from users. Works on macOS, Windows, and Linux. There is no mobile version, and Raw has been clear about that for years.
That last point is now at the heart of a battle with Apple that could end its ability to ship software on Macs entirely.
Since 2023, scammers have posted more than a dozen fake “Sparrow Wallet” apps on the App Store, according to Raw.
These applications impersonate Raw. When the user enters their seed phrase – the master key of the Bitcoin wallet – the application sends it to the attacker and the funds disappear. Raw holds US registered trademarks of the Sparrow name and logo.
He has been reporting counterfeits to Apple and warning the community since early 2024. Users have contacted him after losing their savings, and in some cases their life savings. Apple has removed some counterfeit products. More keep coming.
Rough testing for Apple
Raw tried something different. He submitted a placeholder app to the App Store — never published, no functionality — whose only purpose was to display a message: Sparrow is a desktop app only, and any mobile app that claims to be Sparrow isn’t theirs, don’t trust them.
Apple rejected the app for being placeholder content. Then it escalated. Raw’s entire Apple Developer account has now been marked for termination, with a deadline of June 30. Stated reason: “Dishonest activity.”
In other words, the man trying to warn users about fraudulent apps has been accused of dishonesty by the platform these apps live on.
What makes this more than just a bureaucratic frustration is what an Apple Developer account actually does. Sparrow is not sold through the Mac App Store, Raw distributes it from their website.
But macOS requires all apps to be signed with a valid Apple Developer certificate, otherwise the system blocks them. If Apple kills his account, the certificate dies with him. New installations of Sparrow on Mac fail. Existing users stop receiving updates.
Raw to publish About the situation at The June 30 deadline is one week away.
If Apple follows through, users will lose access to updates, new installations fail, and the floodgates open even wider for the counterfeit products that Raw has spent two years trying to stop. Raw is asking people to repost his thread.
to update: On June 23, Craig Raw tweeted that Apple had reversed its decision to terminate his developer account after a successful appeal, though he said that fake Sparrow Wallet apps remain in the App Store and continue to put users’ funds at risk.
