NimSide: a Chrome side panel for your NIM wallet (unofficial, free, keys stay in Keyguard)

Announcements
#1

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share a small tool I built for daily Nimiq use: NimSide, a Chrome extension that keeps your NIM wallet in Chrome’s side panel, beside whatever tab you are on. It is now live on the Chrome Web Store.

Install: NimSide on the Chrome Web Store
Details and privacy policy: nimiq.subimpact.net/nimside

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What it does

  • Balance at a glance: spendable, locked in swaps (HTLC), staked and total, with a fiat value in USD, EUR, GBP, MYR, SGD, JPY or AUD
  • Staking overview: how much you have staked and your validator’s name
  • Send NIM with address checksum validation and an optional message
  • Receive with a scannable QR code (works with Nimiq Pay)
  • History: recent transactions with links to the block explorer
  • Shortcuts to swap, stake, buy and back up in the official Nimiq Wallet (NimSide does not swap or stake itself)

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How it handles keys

NimSide is a view, not a vault.

  • It never sees or stores private keys, recovery words or passwords.
  • Connecting and every send are approved in the official Nimiq Hub / Keyguard popup (hub.nimiq.com, keyguard.nimiq.com).
  • It stores only your public address, your fiat currency and a short-lived balance/history cache, locally in chrome.storage.
  • No analytics, no remote code: all JavaScript ships in the package.

Permissions and network

Two permissions: sidePanel and storage. It talks to exactly five hosts:

  • rpc.nimiqwatch.com: public RPC for balance, staking and history of your public address
  • hub.nimiq.com and keyguard.nimiq.com: connect and approve
  • api.coingecko.com: NIM price for the fiat value
  • validators-api-main.je-cf9.workers.dev: the validators list, for your validator’s name

Why the split balance

This picks up an idea raised here earlier, distinguishing Spendable vs Total balance: NimSide shows spendable NIM separately from staked and swap-locked NIM, so the number you can actually send is the first thing you see. It is also a small, practical step towards the “wallet one click away in the browser” idea discussed in this thread, without the extension ever holding keys.

Status and feedback

This is version 1, free, and an independent project: it is not affiliated with, endorsed by or operated by the Nimiq Foundation or Nimiq Labs. It is built for Chrome; other Chromium browsers are untested.

Bug reports and feature requests are very welcome, here in this thread or at [email protected]. Things I am considering next depend on what people actually use, so tell me what is missing.

Thanks for reading.

3 Likes
#2

Amazing! Fast and accurate. Thank you for developing this <3

1 Like
#3

many thanks! do let me know if any features or bug you face

#4

NimSide v0.4 is live on the Chrome Web Store

Quite a lot has landed since the first version, so here is a roundup. If you already have NimSide installed, Chrome updates it for you.

Alerts, even with the panel closed

  • A notification when NIM arrives, plus a badge that counts new payments. Click the notification to jump straight to History.
  • Price alerts: above or below a level you set, or a big 24h move
  • Staking guard: tells you if the validator you stake with stops earning rewards
  • An optional weekly staking summary

Each alert can be switched off in Settings. With balances hidden, notifications show no amounts.

Quicker ways in

  • Right-click any Nimiq address or nimiq: link on a page and pick “Send NIM with NimSide”
  • Type nim in the address bar: nim send 25 alice (contact name or address), nim history, nim apps
  • Alt+Shift+N opens and closes the panel

Safety checks

  • If a recipient looks almost like an address you have used before, NimSide warns you and highlights the characters that differ (address poisoning)
  • Tiny “dust” payments from lookalike senders are flagged in History
  • Links inside transaction messages stay plain text, with a warning when the domain looks suspicious
  • When a payment request comes from a shop page, the send form shows the shop, the order reference and the page it came from

Wallet

  • Contacts, synced across your own Chrome browsers, with import and export
  • Insights: NIM in and out by month, top counterparties and staking rewards
  • Hide all balances with one tap
  • 37 fiat currencies (up from 7), plus a NIM and BTC 24h market card
  • History labels Cashlinks and swap contracts instead of showing raw addresses
  • Mini Apps: browse the Nimiq Mini Apps catalogue from the panel and open any app in a tab
  • Optional backup price source (prices.nim.sh) for when CoinGecko is rate-limited, off by default
  • Accessibility: visible keyboard focus, reduced-motion support and screen-reader labels

Fixed in this release

  • Contact names now show up in History
  • Clicking a payment notification reliably opens the panel
  • The very first payment to a brand-new wallet now triggers a notification
  • The new-payments badge no longer comes back after you have opened the panel

What has not changed
NimSide still never sees your private keys, recovery words or password. Connecting and every send are approved in the official Nimiq Hub / Keyguard popup. No analytics, no remote code.

Permissions, for transparency
On top of sidePanel and storage, NimSide now also asks for contextMenus (the right-click send), alarms (a light background check every couple of minutes) and notifications. The only new site it can talk to is prices.nim.sh, and only if you switch the backup price source on.

Install or update: NimSide on the Chrome Web Store

Thanks @Bjorn_van_der_Schaaf for the early feedback. Bug reports and ideas are still very welcome, here or at [email protected].