Introducing Gem Wallet for NEAR — Open-Source, Self-Custodial, and Looking for Feedback

Hi NEAR community,

I’m Anzus from Gem Wallet’s Business Development and Support team.

Gem Wallet is an open-source, self-custodial multichain wallet with support for NEAR.

Gem Wallet is available through the official Gem Wallet website and major mobile app stores. Search for “Gem Wallet” to learn more or download the app.

Gem Wallet currently allows users to:

• Store, send, and receive NEAR

• Buy NEAR through supported providers

• Swap supported assets into NEAR

• Swap NEAR to other supported assets

I joined the NEAR Forum to assist users, gather feedback, and serve as a bridge between the NEAR community and our developers.

We would especially appreciate feedback about:

• Sending and receiving NEAR
• Buying or swapping NEAR
• Transaction status and error messages
• Missing NEAR features
• General usability or documentation issues

Gem Wallet is self-custodial, so we cannot access or recover users’ wallets. Please never share your secret phrase, private keys, passwords, or authentication codes. For support, a public wallet address, transaction hash, app version, device platform, and description of the issue are normally enough to begin investigating.

I’ll monitor this thread, answer questions where I can, and forward actionable feedback to our developers.

What would you most like to see added or improved for NEAR in Gem Wallet?

To make the feedback request more specific: which area of a mobile wallet matters most to you when using NEAR?

1. Simple staking and validator management
2. Clear transaction status and error messages
3. Reliable dApp connections
4. Cross-chain swaps and NEAR Intents
5. Better token and NFT visibility
6. Easier buying and cashing out
7. Something else

Even a number or a short reply would be useful. If you have used Gem Wallet with NEAR, we would also appreciate hearing about any confusing step or missing feature.

Please do not share secret phrases, private keys, passwords, or authentication codes.

private key dont work

only passphrase work

wallet connect not working on rhea

getting a “no wallet … errror”

if i connect clear name such as “kampouse.near” i would expect the ui to display it and not a hex code near as this cool feature would be nice to use it
atleast use the default adress you add as the key and not the underlying hex

anyway nice native feel

Thanks for reporting this. I checked the current implementation and confirmed both limitations.

WalletConnect for NEAR is not currently supported in Gem Wallet, which explains the Rhea connection error.

I also confirmed that NEAR private-key import currently expects a hexadecimal key. The standard NEAR ed25519:... format is not accepted, so a recovery phrase may work even when the exported private key does not.

Private-key import also derives the underlying implicit address and does not currently associate it automatically with a named account such as kampouse.near. This explains the hexadecimal address you are seeing.

I’ll pass along these requests:

• Support the standard NEAR private-key format
• Preserve or resolve human-readable NEAR account names
• Add NEAR dApp connectivity
• Show a clearer message when WalletConnect is unsupported

Could you still share your device platform and Gem Wallet app version? Please do not share your private key or recovery phrase.

Quick update on the NEAR feedback:

The private-key import issue has now been addressed in our codebase. The upcoming update will support the standard NEAR ed25519:<base58> private-key format.

We’re also working on allowing sends directly to named .near accounts, rather than requiring the implicit hexadecimal address.

WalletConnect support for NEAR remains separate and is not currently available. Thanks again for flagging these issues — this kind of practical feedback is very helpful.

Quick Gem Wallet update: support for tokens on NEAR has been added.

Users can now view supported NEAR tokens alongside NEAR in the wallet. For example, USDT on the NEAR network can now be sent and received normally.

Our official NEAR documentation has also been updated with token-management guidance.

If there are NEAR tokens you would like to see supported next, please let us know.

Quick update for anyone following this thread: Gem now supports NEAR tokens, so you can send and receive them just like native NEAR. You can also send to .near account names instead of long addresses.

Thanks to everyone who shared feedback earlier. It helped the team prioritize these. If you try it and something feels confusing or doesn’t work as expected, I’d like to hear about it here.