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CoinPulse
A

Arculus

A tap-to-sign card wallet with a secure elementNot published
7.61 / 1082% measured
#10 of 15 in Hardware wallets
5.6 yr
Track record
public record
332 ms
Latency
our probe

What is Arculus?

Arculus is a card-shaped hardware wallet from CompoSecure, a company with a background in manufacturing metal payment cards. Like other card wallets, it has no screen or battery: keys live on a secure-element chip inside the card, and you sign transactions by tapping it to a smartphone over NFC while using the Arculus app.

How does it rank with us?

Arculus sits in the middle of our hardware-wallet category. We assess the maker's track record and its companion-service reliability, not the card's internals in a lab. Our records give it a track record of several years, and its companion site responded reasonably (around 332 ms) in our checks. The absence of a dedicated public status page holds the score back.

What is distinctive?

  • A credit-card form factor that fits in a wallet, with no cable or charging.
  • A secure-element chip for key storage, from a maker experienced in secure card manufacturing.
  • A multi-factor approach combining the physical card with app-based and biometric checks.

What are the trade-offs?

Because the card has no display, you review and approve transactions in the phone app, which places some trust in your phone and the app. The firmware is proprietary rather than open source. As with any card wallet, keep your recovery details secure and separate from the card.

Where does the card format make sense?

The appeal of a card wallet is that it removes the friction people associate with hardware devices: nothing to charge, no cable to find, and a shape that disappears into an existing wallet. For newcomers moving assets off an exchange, that low friction can be the difference between actually using cold storage and putting it off. The trade-off is the reliance on your phone for display and confirmation, so the security of that phone becomes part of your setup, and the proprietary firmware means you are trusting the maker's audits rather than public source code.

Who is it for?

Arculus suits people who want the convenience of a tap-to-sign card and are comfortable verifying on their phone. It is less suited to those who want an on-device screen or open-source firmware.

How Arculus scores

Scored on the criteria that matter for hardware wallets.

Hardware wallets#10 of 157.61 / 1082% measured
TRACKTrack record
49% weight10/10

Live 5.6 yr (since founding (2021), public record). Most failures happen young, so time survived is real signal.

measured 2026-08-25 11:09 UTCevidence ↗
STATUSStatus transparency
27% weight2/10

No public status page found. Nothing about its reliability can be verified from outside — including by us.

measured 2026-08-25 11:09 UTC
PERFLatency
24% weight9/10

Median 332 ms to first byte from the live interface, our own probe, slowest sample discarded, single location. Compared only within this category.

measured 2026-08-25 11:09 UTCevidence ↗
INCIDIncident repair time
n/a

No incident feed we can read, so no repair time to compute.

Where we docked points

Status transparency: No public status page found. Nothing about its reliability can be verified from outside — including by us.

Who it’s NOT for

Anyone who needs to know when it breaks: no status feed, so you find out it is down by discovering it yourself.

FAQ

How does Arculus work?+

Keys are stored on a secure-element chip inside the card, and you sign transactions by tapping it to a phone over NFC using the Arculus app.

Does Arculus have a screen?+

No. Like other card wallets it has no display, so you review and approve transactions in the phone app, which places some trust in your phone.

Who makes Arculus?+

It is made by CompoSecure, a company with a background in manufacturing metal payment cards, which informs its secure card approach.

What did coinpulsepoint measure?+

We recorded a companion-site response near 332 ms and a multi-year track record, but no dedicated status page. We assess reliability, not the card's lab security.