I think you already know what a cryptocurrency wallet is. A revaluation, wallet or wallet, is a place where you safely store your cryptocurrencies.
With a wallet, you can also send and receive cryptocurrencies. With something so valuable, we have to pay special attention to security .
In this article, I will focus on an analysis of the safest cryptocurrency wallets on the market , to help you make an informed decision when choosing the one that best fits your needs and preferences.
Types of wallets
First of all, do you know what the two types of wallets are? Simple:
- Hot purses or hot purses.
- Cold purses or cold purses.
The former (hot wallets) are connected to the Internet, while cold wallets are physical devices that are NOT connected to the network.
So how do cold wallets work?
With your wallet’s public address, you can receive payments from any exchange. And, on the other hand, your private key will help you transfer and control the stored cryptocurrencies. That is, your private key must be private. Don’t shout to the four winds and don’t whisper either, if you lose it, you can’t recover your crypto. Instead, a public address is like your home address, which you can share with Amazon, for example, to receive packages.
What type of wallet is the safest?
If one is connected to the Internet and the other is not, which of the two wallets do you think is the safest?
Exactly, with cold wallets we avoid hacking . It is quite possible that anyone can access your cryptocurrencies remotely, in fact, and unfortunately, there are quite a few such cases .
Be careful, I am not trying to demonize hot wallets, which are extremely convenient for everyday transactions. However, in this article I focus on the security of storing cryptocurrencies in one place and, no doubt, in this aspect too, cold ones win by a wide margin.
Types of cold purses
In cold wallets we can distinguish between 5 types:
- Paper wallets : they are completely disconnected from the Internet, and yes, it’s a piece of paper with your passwords that you have to keep in a completely safe place.
- USB/hardware wallets : these are pretty much the most famous, they are electronic. A USB connects to your computer when transactions are to be made. Ledger or Trezor might sound familiar to you, as they are currently some of the best known.
- Software cold wallets : Electrum and Armory are the two wallets we would classify in this paragraph. They are similar to hot wallets in that they are somehow connected to the Internet. However, the software works offline or disconnected, such as when you put your cell phone into airplane mode, for example,
- Cold Wallets Online : These are hot wallets that offer cold wallet service by temporarily disconnecting. The disconnect occurs when keys are entered, then they are reconnected.
- Non-electronic wallets : there is no electronic material and they never connect to the Internet. You enter your private key or exchange address only when you are going to send cryptocurrency to a wallet or make a transaction.
Okay, after all the options we have just seen, we will rule out one by one with security arguments, because that is what we are talking about.
- Hardware wallets : Being electronic devices, they can go bad. Imagine if you fell in the water or accidentally stepped on one. Here are your keys.
- Paper wallets : No one can steal your keys, but what if the paper gets torn? Paper is a very delicate thing.
- Las USB wallets They allow you to store and manage multiple cryptocurrencies on one device, and you can easily make transactions. However, USB wallets can easily be broken or damaged, and if that happens, you will also lose your keys. In comparison, paper wallets are safer because they are not vulnerable to technical failures, but to water or fire, for example.
- Software cold wallets : It’s true that keys are stored offline, but what if you have a virus on your device? Also, creating offline transactions is not easy for any user.
Cold wallets online: , being directly tied to your hot wallet, at some point it connects to the Internet, which creates the same problem as hot wallets: hackers.
Have you recognized a winner yet?
Bingo! Non-electronic wallets are winners when it comes to security . They are usually much more resilient than paper wallets and USB wallets. In addition, they are not connected to the Internet at any time. These two characteristics make this type of wallet the safest by far.
Safer non-electronic cold wallets
There are not many of these wallets on the market. Let’s focus on 2 of them. Both wallets are designed for non-specialists in the cryptocurrency world, so anyone without super technical knowledge can store their cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
Bitcoin / Ether material : for Bitcoin and Etherium respectively. It is a heavy-duty metal plate with a public address engraved on it, as well as a private key (protected by metal vinyl).
Bitcoin material estandar esp
Ballet : The Ballet wallet has similar characteristics to Material Bitcoin, but the keys are printed on stickers rather than engraved or stamped on steel.
This makes the Ballet look more like a paper wallet, but gives the impression that the steel does something useful that is not actually there.