Trust Wallet and the Limits of Decentralization: Who Controls Your Wallet?

Trust Wallet had long been considered a symbol of simplicity. A user opened the app, sent a transfer, and calmly closed it. Everything was clear and convenient—no registration, no exchanges involved, and no intermediaries. After the Trust Wallet 2025 update, which affected the Trust Wallet TRON network, the usual order was disrupted. The team presented the changes as a step toward improving fee efficiency, but users saw something else. Fees went up, and transparency disappeared.

In this article, we will examine in detail:

• how the new fees in Trust Wallet are structured under the hood and why many users’ energy in Trust Wallet now doesn’t work;
• why Trust Wallet’s code is closed and how the close Trust Wallet and Binance relationship affects the project’s independence;
• what alternatives to Trust Wallet exist for TRON to keep control over your funds and fees.

After the update, an active discussion flared up in the community. On Reddit and forums, people argue whether Trust Wallet is safe today or whether the wallet has turned into a convenient but opaque tool where one button decides everything.

Previously, everything worked simply and clearly. The TRON network uses three resources—Energy, Bandwidth, and TRX. When there was energy on the balance, a transfer went through almost for free. If it wasn’t enough, a small amount of TRX was burned, and the user could always see how many resources were spent and why.

After the update, the situation changed. Now Trust Wallet forcibly charges the fee in USDT, even if there is TRX in the account or rented TRON energy. Now there are several noticeable changes in how the wallet works:

• The option to choose the fee payment method has disappeared from the interface.
• When sending, additional internal transactions are created. One is responsible for the transfer itself, and another for paying the fee via a contract.
• The user presses the “Confirm” button and sees one operation, although a whole chain of calls is executed on the blockchain.

According to the developers’ plan, the update was supposed to simplify the process for those who don’t know how to send USDT without TRX in Trust Wallet, so as not to waste time buying coins for gas. In practice, it turned out differently. Users lost transparency and control over what exactly they are confirming. Now more actions are visible on the blockchain than the wallet itself shows. For experienced users, this is an alarming sign, because the screen shows one operation while the actual debits turn out to be more.

User reaction was not long in coming. Already in the first 24 hours after the update, Reddit and Telegram were flooded with complaints. People wrote that they sent ten dollars, but the recipient received only seven. Many decided that the wallet had gained access to their balances.

In reality, Trust Wallet remains non-custodial, and the seed phrase still belongs to the user. However, the essence of the problem is different. People are concerned about why Trust Wallet deducts USDT without disclosing transaction details. When an app hides which actions you are actually confirming, the principle of self-custody disappears and the sense of control is lost. Each operation on TRON can include several contract calls: a token transfer, a call to a smart contract, and fee payment. After the update, all this is combined into a single action.

At first glance, this approach seems convenient, but the user no longer sees what is actually happening. They don’t understand where part of the funds went and cannot repeat the operation with a different payment scheme. In an ecosystem where transparency is directly tied to security, such a decision looks like a step backward.

Trust Wallet often emphasizes that its code is open to everyone. Formally, this is true, but only partially. Only the core module, Wallet Core, which is responsible for signatures and key management, remains open. The other parts, including the application interface, visual elements, and transaction formation logic, use closed code.

The mechanism behind the “Confirm” button is located in this hidden part. Researchers cannot verify which actions the app performs when confirming a transfer. Because of this, cases of double fees in Trust Wallet remain unclear. Users see two operations in Tronscan instead of one and cannot explain the appearance of the second. In the world of cryptocurrencies, where the “Don’t trust, verify” principle is considered the foundation of security, such opacity raises concerns. When the code is unavailable for review, it is impossible to be sure the app does exactly what the user sees. As a result, the very idea of decentralization is called into question.

It’s no secret who owns Trust Wallet. In 2018, the project was acquired by the Binance exchange, and at the time the deal was presented as an example of cooperation between decentralization and centralized solutions. Over time, the connection between them has become even closer. Official pages still state that the wallet is rooted in the Binance ecosystem, and Trust Wallet updates are released simultaneously with the releases of the Binance Web3 wallet.

After the latest update, users again began discussing the issue of independence. Can the wallet be considered autonomous if it is fully tied to CEX infrastructure? Even when private keys remain with the owner, the app’s code and logic are controlled by the company. For part of the community, this became a disappointment. Trust Wallet was once perceived as a tool of freedom, but now it increasingly looks like a convenient Binance extension with the familiar “Send” button.

Dozens of identical stories began appearing on forums. Users wrote that Trust Wallet deducted 3 dollars for a transfer, even though there was energy on the balance. For some, the losses reached five dollars, and for others even more. People came to one conclusion: the fee became unpredictable.

Attempts to figure out the situation led nowhere. Users tried to understand how to refund a fee in Trust Wallet, but quickly realized that refunds do not exist on the blockchain. After that, a mass migration to other solutions began. More and more people are looking for an alternative to Trust Wallet with TRON energy and are switching to Exodus, SafePal, TokenPocket, and Trustee. These wallets operate on a clear principle. The user chooses the fee payment method themselves and sees all transaction details. By trying to make life easier for beginners, Trust Wallet has actually made it more difficult for those who value transparency and control.

In the TRON ecosystem, manual energy management is still considered the clearest and most transparent way to reduce fee costs. The user decides whether to rent energy, pay for transactions with TRX, or use an external service.

Here are a few proven options:

• Exodus shows the fee amount and the amount of TRON energy spent before sending, with no hidden operations.
• SafePal is compatible with hardware devices and allows you to set gas parameters manually.
• TokenPocket is considered one of the most convenient wallets for TRON and allows you to connect energy directly.
• Trustee remains a simple mobile solution with TRON support and built-in P2P functions.

All these wallets allow the user to independently decide how to pay the fee and pair well with Tron energy rental services. For example, Tron Pool Energy allows you to cut fee costs by approximately 65 percent (try the TRX Calculator to find out how much you can save in your specific case). The user always sees exactly what they are paying for. There are no hidden transactions and no obscure actions inside the “Confirm” button. Where Trust Wallet turns the process into an opaque mechanism, Tron Pool Energy restores user confidence and predictability.

The main goal is not to save every penny. It is important to understand exactly what the user is confirming when sending a transaction. The developers tried to solve a long-standing problem, because of which beginners often encounter an error when transferring USDT TRC-20 and a transfer in Trust Wallet fails if there is no TRX on the balance. They chose the path of full automation, but transparency suffered as a result.

One click really saves a few seconds, but along with convenience, control over the operation’s logic is lost. Experienced TRON users immediately paid attention to what was happening and realized that the situation is questionable. Increasingly, the opinion is voiced that we should return to basics, where every transaction is clear, verifiable, and under the owner’s control

Trust Wallet still remains a convenient wallet, but no longer the one it used to be. The Trust Wallet 2025 update showed that even a non-custodial application can act like a centralized service and decide on its own how the user pays fees. Those who value transparency and control over expenses on the TRON network should choose wallets with manual energy management and the Tron Pool Energy service. This is not just a way to save money, but an opportunity to return to the essence of cryptocurrencies, where independence and understanding of every movement of funds matter. True freedom in crypto is based on awareness. The user must understand what they are confirming and maintain control over every token leaving their wallet.