Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys,

I was thinking of investing in a crypto wallet for storing my Bitcoin; can anyone suggest if a cold wallet or a hot wallet will be a better choice and why? Will be great if some verified wallet brands can be shared..

In the vast majority of cases you'll want to either use Bitcoin core or Electrum depending on your needs. Both of these can operate as a hot wallet or cold wallet. However, the difference between the two is one of them (Bitcoin core) downloads the full Blockchain, and therefore can be time consuming to setup, and is only really beneficial to those that want to run a Bitcoin node. Whereas, Electrum doesn't require you to download the whole Blockchain, and can be setup relatively quickly.

As for the benefits of a cold wallet compared to a hot wallet, well the main factor is the cold wallet won't ever be connected to the internet, at least until you decide to withdraw or transfer Bitcoin. Therefore, you're limiting your attack vector to local attacks. So, you're significantly reducing the chance of your Bitcoin being compromised. Though, most people want to send Bitcoin frequently, and if that's the case with you then a hardware wallet might be the best option, as it protects you from certain attack vectors, and is generally considered safer than traditional wallets due to the additional security measures in place.

In short, I'd only recommend the following:

If you want to run a node: Bitcoin Core
If you don't want to run a node or have limitations (bandwidth / storage): Electrum
If you want to access your Bitcoin frequently, but want to prevent certain attack vectors: Trezor hardware wallet.

Software wallets for Bitcoin are all free so you don't have to invest anything in them, and using something like Electrum or Wasabi wallet with offline computer would be a good start for cold storage.
I would only recommend using open source wallets that are tested  and always verify if you are downloading them from official website with correct signature.
Cold wallets are used for storing keys for larger amount of coins, and hot wallets can be used for pocket money and smaller payments.

If you want to invest and buy some hardware wallet, check out my list of Open Source Hardware Wallets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5288971.0) and Secure Element in Hardware Wallets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5304483.0).
Remember that you are not storing coins on your device but just your keys, so it's important to make good backup for seed words and store them in safe place on paper or metal plate.
Prices for hardware wallets start from $40 but I would stay away from any that is closed source, and I would consider Trezor One wallet (with passphrase), BitBox02 or Keystone wallet, and avoid buying Ledger Nano X (many issues with battery, firmware, etc)

As beginner I think that your best option is a hardware wallet. Hardware wallets are convenient and pretty safe.
Cold wallet is already a bit more technical and you'll need to learn a little bit (I've encountered enough cases who misunderstood/misused the concept of cold wallet).

The main competitors for hardware wallets used to be Trezor and Ledger, but Ledger has botched too many thing lately so you are better off avoiding it (although I do have a Nano S and I'm happy with it).

Since you mentioned "investing", then grab a hardware wallet; preferably a Ledger[1] or Trezor[2]. You only use hot wallets if you're planning on using your bitcoin quite a lot, and if you don't have that much bitcoin in the first place.

Think of it this way:

hot wallet --> your physical pocket wallet (you want to maximize ease-of-use)
cold wallet --> your fire-proof safe or your bank (you want to maximize safety)

You only add money on your physical pocket wallet(hot wallet) for daily spending, but you hold most of your wealth on your bank account(cold wallet).

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[1] https://ledger.com/
[2] https://trezor.io/

Personally, I'm using both Ledger & Safepal (got it recently) and so far the experience with these is great. I guess you would rather go with a hardware wallet & I would recommend you have Safepal a try. It's very user-friendly and easy to use. You will enjoy it certainly.

Sasfepal can be used as both a pocket wallet (for regular tx from anywhere) & for storing purpose as well (airgapped).

Regardless the amount of your investment, when we say investment, you should invest your fund's security in the fullest. And hardware wallets is highly recommend for it, trezor or ledger, either of them, trezor is much cheaper I guess its around $60 while ledger is around $70, well, it's just couple of $ in comparison but both are reliable, can be used on smartphones and desktop as well.

OP you are in some sort of luck to have asked this question around about this time. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are around the corner and there are usually some great hardware wallet deals that pop up.

I would suggest you just prepare yourself some money to get a hardware wallet at a good discount. It will be a far much better option than using software or web wallets.

Hardware wallets (Ledger/Trezor) are a good investment. Although they are cold wallets (private keys/seeds never leave the device), they are also suitable for day-to-day transactions.
If you want a free wallet then I would recommend Electrum.
Deciding which is the best wallet depends on your own preferences. But as long as it's a trusted, open source and non-custodial then you should be fine. Just make sure to properly back up your seeds and keep them safe.

Yes, as some have already written here, I would also recommend a hardware wallet such as "Ledger-Wallet" (https://www.ledger.com/) and a wallet for pc and smartphone like "Electrum Wallet" (https://electrum.org) for storing Bitcoin. With both, you have control over your private keys. Because as the old saying goes: Not your keys, not your coins!  ;D

Electrum is easy to understand and user-friendly if you want to send or receive BTC.
I use Electrum to store, send and receive small amounts of BTC and to sign and verify messages.

The hardware wallet (has similarities to a usb-stick) is more for larger sums, stored somewhere safe in a vault or bank locker.

BitcoinCore (Node) is almost irrelevant for the normal user. Unless you want to do mining, for example...

Like the majority, it's best to have a hardware wallet if the purpose is to keep your bitcoins for long term. There's also handful desktop wallets that are for free but they're good to use too.

This suggests the wallets for desktop: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet?step=5&platform=windows

It includes, electrum and the others that I haven't used. Only two on that list that have been used by me, wasabi and electrum.

Never tried Safepal and haven't done research; but even if it was secure, I don't think it's still a great idea to bring your cold wallet with you everywhere if you actually spend your bitcoin when you're out and about.

My recommendation is Bitcoincore.org is a better website for people to visit and get Bitcoin Core wallet for downloading.

• https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/

We don't know what Cobra will do with Bitcoin.org website and that domain. theymos tried to separate the forum to Bitcoin.org. The announcement (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5241347.0) from theymos.

I would suggest you to go for a cold wallet as I feel a cold wallet is more secure since it's not connected to the Internet. So, there's less chance of hackers getting to your stored crypto!  :)

Also, a cold wallet can be used to as a form of long-term investment with crypto collectables being the current rage. I tried the crypto collectable from Krypto Keepsafes and found it to be quite nice design-wise and in terms of security. You can check it out.

https://kryptokeepsafes.com/

Thanks for all your comments people! Really useful info..

I suggest reading through this thread [General] Bitcoin Wallets - Which, what, why? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631151.0). apart from the suggestions and the tips given by the members you might find information on this thread that might be useful.

also, regarding the dude advertising their website. the website has only been registered recently(according to who.is). I would suggest avoiding it but if you plan on checking them out, I suggest being careful.

Maybe you are right but it requires both devices; the wallet & a safepal software app to make transactions along with the 6 digit pin. I'm not sure how much risk is it but I'm carrying my safepal all the time; probably because I have a small balance in this wallet. Well, having a wallet for regular transactions, I guess Safepal is quite secure enough. I'm personally using it & I really liked the wallet a lot.

Honestly, a person new to Bitcoin is likely going to want to send, and receive transactions quite frequently, unless they've specifically bought it to hold. Therefore, a hardware wallet is probably the best idea, in fact for the vast majority of users that come here, I'd recommend a hardware wallet is they didn't require an initial investment. Otherwise, Electrum is usually the best approach. Bitcoin Core as I mentioned above is only really going to appeal to a new user if they want to run a full node, however if they're as new to Bitcoin as their forum rank implies, they aren't likely going to be interested in that.

Honestly, out of the 3 I've mentioned I find it hard to recommend anything else since anymore security on top of them would be rather redundant. You can't realistically get more security than a properly created, and managed cold wallet, and you can't get the combination of security, and inconvenience from a hardware wallet from anything else.

Best practice would prevent unwanted incidents of your cryptocurrency asset. Since I am using the Ledger hardware wallet, I will prefer to do use that as well. It's secure that wallet software. Without the device, hackers can't steal your funds. Just need to double-check the address before making a transaction. For soft use, you may use Electrum wallet, but still, there is a risk of attack that we experienced previously. So better to spend a small amount to buy a Ledger hardware wallet.

I will not prioritize hardware wallet if my bitcoin or asset are not more than $10K. Electrum and its security system are still good enough to hold a certain amount of bitcoin in my opinion, but when the number is much larger then hardware wallet should be a priority. I might be very surprised at some newbies who care so much about the security of their bitcoin but they only invest in altcoin and hodl it on the exchange. That's very unreasonable in my opinion.

There's still wasabi and electrum on that list which we all agree that they're good desktop wallets. But if there's a change that it seems doesn't look and favorable for most, I'll stop using that list. Thanks though.

You have a lot of options to make. Would you mind sharing what wallet you've opted to pick?

I wouldn't say Safepal is a secure "airgapped" or cold wallet. Because AFAIK datas encoded in the QR-codes are not readable(!) they are encrypted and the users can't check what datas are sent from their embedded devices.
Then the device could send the seed through the encrypted QR-code to the on-line app. It's a real concern if you want to store a large amount of money with it.
In addition, if you need to upgrade the firmware of the so called "airgapped" device, you have to connect it to a PC with a USB cable...
Hence a virus could easily infect the device, steal the seed and transmit it to the PC through the USB cable.
https://safepal.io/upgrade