Bitcoin Forum

With the recent boom in crypto investors, a lot of newcomers have posted threads here with questions about the safest way to store their coins. This thread is going to contain information on the multitude of ways to store your bitcoins/altcoins in order to protect your investments. Probably the most important aspect of investing is making sure that your holdings are kept secure so I hope that this can help some people out. I will continuously add more information to the thread, for now I will just include a few of the main ones.

Online Wallets
Security: Low
Accessibility: High

First and foremost, online wallets are not the safest way to protect your coins, but they do provide easy accessibility so that is why I will include a few of them on here and the coins that they support. The thing about online wallets is that at any point, they could shut down or be hacked and your funds are gone forever. I always recommend keeping your coins on a cold storage.

Blockchain (https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/)

• Coin(s) supported: Bitcoin, Ethereum
• Pros: Instant send/receive, lots of security features
• Cons: Slow/buggy when network is clogged

Coinbase (https://coinbase.com/)

• Coin(s) supported: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash
• Pros: Easily buy/sell coins from bank/card, USD wallet
• Cons: I'm gonna go ahead and throw this out there and say that I do not recommend using Coinbase as a wallet. Their service is great for buying/selling coins with fiat, but they are the PayPal of the crypto world. They have a bad reputation for locking up wallets, requesting information on where the funds are coming from, and requesting different forms of ID verification.

I'm not going to include any other online wallets as I just do not recommend using them in general so I feel that it isn't necessary.

Desktop Wallets
Security: Medium
Accessibility: High

First and foremost, online wallets are not the safest way to protect your coins, but they do provide easy accessibility so that is why I will include a few of them on here and the coins that they support. The thing about online wallets is that at any point, they could shut down or be hacked and your funds are gone forever. I always recommend keeping your coins on a cold storage.

Jaxx (https://jaxx.io/)

• Coin(s) supported: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Zcash, Augur, Salt, Civic, Qtum, Blockchain Capital, Bancor, and dozens of other blockchain-based assets
• Pros: Lots of coins supported, mobile app, public source code, compatible with most platforms
• Cons: No 2FA

Exodus (https://www.exodus.io/)

• Coin(s) supported: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Augur, Golem, Decred, EOS, Aragon, Gnosis, OmiseGo, Basic Attention Token, Civic, SALT, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum Classic, FunFair, District0x, Bancor, Bitcoin Gold, Edgeless, FirstBlood, Matchpool, Numeraire, iExec RLC, Status, WeTrust, Wings, 0x
• Pros: Lots of coins supported, built in Shapeshift, live portfolio charts, customizable themes
• Cons: No 2FA

Electrum (https://electrum.org/)

• Coin(s) supported: Bitcoin
• Pros: Very secure, insanely fast, cold storage feature, multisig
• Cons: No multi-coin support

Hardware Wallets
Security: High
Accessibility: Low

Hardware wallets are best for people who want a very secure way to protect their investment long-term, or have zero self control and need a way to stop themselves from selling their holdings. Hardware wallets are by far the safest form of protecting your coins and I highly recommend using them if you plan on holding your coins for a while.

Ledger Nano S (https://www.ledgerwallet.com/)

• Coin(s) supported: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Dogecoin, ZCash, Stratis, Ripple, Ark, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic, Expanse, Digibyte, Hcash, Komodo, Neo (available soon for the Ledger Blue), Pivx, PoSW, Qtum, Stealthcoin, Stellar (not available for Ledger Blue), Ubiq, Vertcoin,Viacoin, Most of the other Ethereum tokens (ERC20 tokens) can be managed using Ledger Nano S and Ledger Blue with MyEtherWallet only (it won't work with the Ledger Wallet application)
• Pros: Multiple coins supported, very secure, 2FA, fairly cheap
• Cons: Coins cannot be accessed quickly (not specifically this product, but all hardware wallets in general)
• Cost: €79

TREZOR (https://trezor.io/)

• Coin(s) supported: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, ZCash, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic, Expanse, UBIQ, NEM, Namecoin, Dogecoin,
  Bitcoin Testnet, ERC-20 Tokens
• Pros: Multiple coins supported, very secure, 2FA, fairly cheap
• Cons: Coins cannot be accessed quickly (not specifically this product, but all hardware wallets in general)
• Cost: €89

Paper Wallet

• Coin(s) supported: Any
• Pros: Completely off the grid storage, free, any coin
• Cons: Coins cannot be accessed quickly (not specifically this product, but all hardware wallets in general)
• Cost: Free

Should you keep your coins on an exchange?
Absolutely not. At any point, these sites could turn out to be a scam or get hacked and all of your money is gone. If you plan on holding your coins for a while, then deposit onto the exchange, purchase what you need, then withdraw immediately.

How do I transfer my crypto to cash when I'm done?
There are several ways you can do this. First, I would check LocalBitcoins and see if there are any offers that meet your needs. They have tons of exchangers on there and you will most likely be able to find your desired payment method. Secondly, you can use services like Coinbase or Cex to deposit your BTC directly to your bank this of course will require ID verification.

Thanks for this tutorial!
It's really useful for me.

Is it possible to say what is better:TREZOR or Ledger Nano S ??
I read lots posts about that and still don't understand..:((

It's depends on what coins you are want to add. Trezor is easy set up just go their website and setting up a account. If you are willing to store main coins like BTC,ETH,LTC I would recommend Trezor. If you want to store altcoins I would prefer Nano Ledger S is better than Trezor. If you have more questions ask me. I would like to help.

Looks like you have copied the paragraph describing online wallets here, without any changes. Desktop wallets are definitely not as secure as hardware wallets or cold storage, but they are much more secure than online wallets. They cannot shut down and they are much more difficult to hack than the online ones.

Oh sorry, It has to be security is medium. I forgot to say that. Just fixed it. Thanks!

Getting the fundamentals setup, like your first crypto wallet, are important steps that can’t be ignored if you want to become a successful trader and investor in the world of cryptocurrency. We touch on other points in our blog post about how to choose the right wallet for your crypto needs, so check it out  :)

Bit.ly/WalletGuide

Cheers!

Wow, what a great collection of information here!

If any of you are like me, sifting through the options can be dizzying. The summary provided is great, but it also relies on the reader to still sort through the options on their own.

I'd like to share another resource with each of you that will help you, guide you through the typical wallet selection decisions.

https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet (https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet)

Thanks, it's so useful