Bitcoin Forum

Just purely out of curiosity. 99% of people who don't know how to properly create an airgapped device should be using hardware wallets.

I'm not willing to pay a centralized company to give me what I don't need and is only semi-cold storage.

In my opinion it depends on how much they've invested in bitcoin. For example someone who has bought a couple of hundred dollars worth of bitcoin is never going to pay for a hardware wallet. It makes more sense for those who have large amounts of bitcoin.

Another thing to consider is how many times you are going to want to access your funds. A paper wallet is more suitable for "storage" that you don't want to touch while a hardware wallet is more suitable for those who want to regularly access the funds.

In summary:

"Coinbase/Binance is secure enough."

"What if I lose my backup?"

"My phone/computer is secure because I have an antivirus."

Probably something along those lines.

I don’t think hw wallets a necessity. To me, it is the exact opposite. No matter how cheap and reliable they are, I will probably never use a hw wallet. That’s because a small laptop works for me and I don’t need a hw wallet and probably never will. I use linux on my laptop, it is connected to the internet and never had any problems. 99999 times out of 100000 (i’d say 100% but sometimes shit happens) you won’t have a problem with a simple setup like this. That’s if you don’t do pirating and similar crap on your PC and use a linux distribution as your OS.

If you want to be 100% safe, create your wallet on a freshly linux installed laptop with no wifi card.

There are many reasons behind that people are not using hardware.wallet. And let me show you these,
1) First Of All All people are not aware of Hardware wallets like ledge nano wallet etc.
2) hardware wallets are not cheap and they cost some hundred bucks. And low volume users cannot afford to buy these wallets.
3) most people do not trust hardware wallets.

As you can see it ranges from 150 to 300 dollars and that's the reason mostly people do not know about this.
https://i.imgur.com/cNVJpop.jpeg

In the same manner that you can also ask, why do people who have Bitcoin don't know anything about Bitcoin? I know of someone who invested money in Bitcoin but doesn't have a clue about what it is. I know of another who has Bitcoin herself but doesn't know what a hardware wallet is. She hasn't even heard of the Lightning Network yet. So if they don't even know what Bitcoin stands for, how surprising it would be to know that they don't have a hardware wallet?

Yeah, the price is definitely not cheap but if you own 1btc or more, $300 is a small amount to pay for maximum security assuming this is what you get when you purchase a hardware wallet.
i think the reasons are relative,  in my case, I never really find it that necessary to own one, especially the convenience of carrying it along, if you are forgeful, it can be a huge disadvantage too.  

1) Mostly for beginners. It will take them some time to learn about the existence and purpose of hardware wallets. Only if they actively study the cryptocurrensy topic, and not just buy crypto and put it off for a long time.

2) If the investment in crypto is a couple of hundred dollars or a little more, then what's the point of buying a HW for at least $80 -150? Then already buy crypto for this amount.

3) Indeed, there is a category of crypto-enthusiasts who don't trust HW device manufacturers, and they are also able to organize the storage of their crypto in such a way that they don't need a hardware wallet. This is already the level of advanced users.

There are multiple reasons why many people including crypto veterans don't use hardware wallet,

1. It's not completely decentralised
2. Hardware wallets are costly
3. People can use good antivirus and anti-spyware for their PC

I am personally attached with bitcoin since 2016, but I have never used a hardware wallet because I never felt like using one. Electrum is good enough for me!

Bitcoin was designed to not be used with hardware wallets. So if you dont use a hardware wallet then you use bitcoin in its original form. If you dont know how to properly secure your computer then a hardware wallet can be used but it is not how it was originally designed. With that said I still use a hardware wallet, since you can just sleep better  ;)

The main reason for which many people don’t use hardware wallets is due to the necessity of the users. Most of the time, users don’t have large amount of Bitcoins. They basically hold a couple hundred dollars worth Bitcoins. Now in order to store it, they aren’t gonna buy a 200$ worth of wallets. Moreover Desktop or paper wallet can also be a good and free alternatives to these wallets, and majority of the users use this for it’s flexibility.

Most of the peoples did not use hardware wallets for storing crypto currencies. The reason behind that they want to earn money from trading, that's why they prefer to keep their funds on Crypto currency exchanges. But, the exchanges are not secure enough to keep millions of dollars on it. Exchanges are centralized. A recent FTX exchange Fraud in the market. Peoples have lost their thousand or even millions of funds on FTX.
So, just keep small amount of dollars on exchanges.

Create air-gapped wallets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2828437.msg28990059#msg28990059)

I think if a person does not have money to buy a new and official hardware wallelt, a non custodial wallet like Electrum wallet is good enough to use.

You can use Electrum software to create a single signature wallet or a multi signature wallet.

If you want to create a cold wallet with Electrum software, you can too.
https://bitcoinelectrum.com/creating-a-cold-storage-wallet-in-electrum/

They offer a 2FA wallet too but you will have to spend additional fee for your transaction to a company that hosts your 2FA codes. I would not like to use this one.

Because hardware wallets is expensive to ordinary person so many decide to use wallet which they think safe because they don't also store huge balance on their wallets. The only people need to grab some hardware wallets are those people who can spend millions of dollars since this is so big to be trusted on wallet apps since this maybe could turn them to scam if they see one of their costumer deposit some huge amount of money on their platform.

actually the reason people don't use hard wallets is very simple, because their assets are not bigger than the price of those hardware wallets and it's more convenient to use regular wallets offered by platfrom  parties like imtoken , trust and others,

Guys and girls, don't make me laugh with your comments about HW being too expensive, because that's simply not true. The Nano S Plus costs about $80, and the older Trezor model costs about the same. How much did you pay for your smartphones, TV, computers and other things you use every day?

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For all the reasons already mentioned, but does it matter at all? Most people do not even understand what Bitcoin is, and investing in something without knowing what exactly it is about is completely wrong. When you build a house, you won't move into it if it doesn't have a roof, if you buy a car, you'll probably first get a driver's license and so on. So the first place should be knowledge, then the application of that knowledge in order to ensure proper storage, and only then investment - unfortunately, many go in the reverse order.

The block stream wallet is less then that: https://store.blockstream.com/product/blockstream-jade-hardware-wallet/

I am going to go out and say most people don't use them because most people don't know.
I had a friend who was into BTC for a while. Bought and sold on Coinbase for a while and pulled out to a local electrum wallet. Did not know about hardware wallets till I dropped a coldcard on his desk and said 'use this'

Was partly my fault for not discussing it with him before, but it was just one of those things that although we did talk about crypto a lot the discussion of hardware wallets and security just never came up.

-Dave

Problem is that people will not recommend a specific brand because all people prefer different models. Because of that many people dont know which one to get and also there are some scandals like with ledger. Maybe there needs to be a official certificate from the bitcoin foundation for some brands.

The main reason is the cost, to own a hardware wallet, they will have to spend a few hundred dollars to own it. While many investors are new to the market, the bitcoin they hold is not too large, even less than the cost of buying a hardware wallet. Owning a hardware wallet does not mean that your crypto assets will be absolutely safe, what matters most is how you store and use them.
Many people are still using software wallets like electrum to store their bitcoins, and they have never had any problems, so there is no reason for them to spend extra money buying hardware wallets.

From this, we can deduce that most people investing in Bitcoin nowadays are mostly doing so just for the sack of making a profit without even thinking of how to secure their Bitcoins. They only think, let me buy leave it in the exchange and sell it when it gains in price even though there are other means of securing your Bitcoin even if not in a hardware wallet if the cost was the issue.

Unbelievable that after all the posts that you obviously haven't read, you still claim what some geniuses claim before you - what hundreds of $ are you talking about if every intelligent person who knows how to use the internet knows that it is untrue?

Please read my post and DaveF's post and stop spreading misinformation >:(

Why not is because there is Bitcoincore that's free.


Even when I was aware of it since its existence. I also don't trust HW. Although I haven't heard anyone got hacked or hardware wallet codes are altered, I can't just rely on the words of the company but I do think they are true to thier words in serving Bitcoin holders.

Are the codes of these hardware wallets even open source?

I believe this is the main reason. Since they can store their coins in exchanges or online wallets for free, hardware wallets stay in second plan, because they are expensive, especially for small investors. If they have 200$-300$, it's likely they will prefer to use this money to acquire more btcs, instead of purchasing a wallet.

In my case, I spent about 150$ in an more archaic model (Trezor One) years ago, but I just did that after several years of personal bitcoin adoption. Anyway, if I was going to purchase the modern hardware wallets' models I would have spent much more.

But I don't think it's hard to setup and use hardware wallet. Anyone who is able to use an online wallet or exchange won't have any difficult at a hardware one. There are so many tutorials, guides and videos disponible that the whole process becomes pretty simple.

I kinda agree with the assumption that for a few hundred dollar investment they probably wouldn't even consider hardware wallet despite having better security. I don't need hardware wallet if I only have $500-$1000 worth of bitcoin, for that I'm sure electrum and other non-custodial wallets can provide me with enough security.

But obviously we all have our own preferences when it comes to the security of investment assets, hardware wallet are not as expensive as most people think and I think they will be affordable for any new investor if they need better security.

I never had a large amount of bitcoin to account for in a hardware wallet. However, after being infected once and getting away with it, I'm more positive about investing in one. Honestly, I don't think they're that expensive. Trezor and Ledger start at around €70–€80; it's not a prohibitively expensive amount of money if you're concerned about the security of your funds. Most people usually don't bother and are pretty careless, including myself, and resort to using exchanges, online wallets, or desktop wallets, thinking that nothing unpleasant will come in their way. Unfortunately, this cannot be further from the truth, because if you're not careful enough, it's very likely you'll get burned.

I'm now in the process of either creating an air-gapped wallet on a separate computer or purchasing a hardware wallet. I still haven't made up my mind.

Still have several investor prefer hold or saving assets not in recommended and more safety place are hardware wallet, I don't think with some opinion about they don't use hardware wallet and prefer save Bitcoin or altcoin assets in exchange market account. Almost several years I know with cryptocurrency still not used hardware wallet for saving my fund, I know with safety saving place when holding assets in hardware wallet. I have earn profit as soon possible and not typical with long term holder and face difficult for selling fund as soon possible when holding in hardware wallet.

If I hold at exchange market just take few second only for selling my fund, but when using hardware wallet need several minutes later and I afraid with great moment waiting for our coins sending from hardware wallet credit faster in exchange account.

If you have access to your private key and can remember were you store the keys, I honestly don't see the need of having a hardware wallet because this is just a luxury at the end of the day. Moreover because of the hardware wallets form factor its more likely to be stolen which will be a cost on one's part. Secondly if you get  get used with it, if the wallet remains chances are high that you won't spend your crypto which is a disadvantage for me.

There are probably many reasons but I suppose the main one is that the majority of those holding bitcoin or altcoins are small holders which will need to use a great deal of their capital just to buy a hardware wallet, and as such it is not a very attractive offer for them, another reason is simply ignorance, whether that ignorance is about how to secure their computer or how easy it is for scammers to get to their coins they simply do not understand the risks and they prefer to not use hardware wallets.

Of course yes, but you should ask if they can afford the cost of buying a hardware wallet..
For someone not to know how to create an airgapped device for their crypto savings simple means such a person is a newbie, and I can tell you that 99 percent of newbies can't afford a hardware wallet, even though they are not quite expensive, majority who come into crypto are not rich people but poor/average people looking for means to make money..
You don't expect them to spend the little money they wanna buy Bitcoin with on hardware devices, those who are rich I believe already know about the importance of hardware wallet in crypto, so they first go for it since they are buying bitcoin in/with a large amount of money.
But for the poor/average user out there, it makes no sense spending hundreds of dollars on a hardware device to end up saving just $10 worth of bitcoin inside.  ;D

I think a lot of times when people start out as newbies they don't realize the importance, and then they get into a situation where they might have enough invested to justify it but are so tied into various defi protocols with their non-hardware address that they're afraid to switch. I definiely had a bit of that going on before I finally made the switch.

Cuz i prefer paper wallet. Paper wallet you dont have to rely on the software and hardware you are buying. You just secure it entirely yourself. Paper wallet is the best cold storage option.

For most people though, they buy bitcoin as an investment and literally dont know anything about it. Thats the majority of people. So they just keep it on the exchange.

Hell my mom has a whole Bitcoin she bought in 2017 and earlier this year she mentioned something about my bitcoin on coinbase and i was like uh hell no i dont have my bitcoin on coinbase and told her i store them myself and she said "how is that possible?" Shes got a whole Bitcoin, and will eventually make hundreds of thousands of dollars on it since i think i finally convinced her just to hold onto it for years, but she doesnt even know bitcoin is any different than digital fiat where you have to store it with an institution. Level of knowledge for most owners of bitcoin is that they barely know anything about it and they certainly won't figure out what a hw wallet is and how to use it, at least not until bitcoin and bitcoin knowledge is much more mainstream.

And even for those that do know a bit about what bitcoin is for, if you only buy a few hundred dollars or even a few thousand dollars and you're not all that likely to wanna spend like a hundred bucks just to keep your bitcoin somewhere other than where you've already been keeping it. And for those that get more serious and understand the importance of actually owning your Bitcoin, paper wallets are free and there is no need for a hardware wallet if you are just holding it long term.

Of the few people i know who have some bitcoin i think only one uses a hw wallet. He originally bought through robinhood but then read up on bitcoin more and bought a hw wallet and moved them off robinhood once robinhood started allowing that.

i guess the same. if you are just a small holder, it is not worth buying a hardware wallet. you can even use electrum for btc. but paperwallets are also great. but if you are a big timer, definitely, cold storage is a must. but mostly only big businesses such as crypto exchanges are using cold storage. for other users, just use reliable non-custodial wallets. meaning you should not lose your private keys and other important details. it is on you if you can't access your funds owed to being forgotten where you hide your keys or passwords.

I continue to use Electrum on a desktop pc with Windows and had no problems with it. I don't feel like I need a hardware wallet if the computer that holds my coins is mostly offline and even disconnected from the wall. Why would I spend more money on additional hardware that doesn't offer much more security?

My short answer would be: my software wallet is 99% of the time offline. You can't hack into it.

I haven't used any of these hardware wallets because it was not necessary for me. I use an online wallet like Electrum and for me, it was safe already. Maybe if you are holding a lot of Bitcoin this absolutely needed but for those who have not, I don't think so. If we talk about safety, even using HW couldn't give you 100% safety assurance OP as it will depend on the person who uses it. You might be safe of getting hack but not for the scammers - sometimes they will trick you out.

Now --they are 88% why? Because of the FTX and Binance CEO.
People learned how to keep their coins in the right wallet --they studied and researched for this.
They think that because custodial wallet has a staff to contact when they need to ask, that is why they think that their wallet is safe. Though I admit that I am one of them before but I learned and know how to keep my coins safe and perhaps this scenario will do the same to them one day they will realize such a problem.

I am actually quite guilty of this- as someone who truly advocates a hardware wallet for maximum security, it is actually essential that every person who owns cryptocurrencies should at least have it. Unfortunately, I do not have one at the moment as I have no idea on how to actually use it.

Given the circumstances, I also hope that a person could teach me on how to purchase it locally in my country and use it. Though I do rely on my local exchange for the security of my BTCs, this kind of practice is potentially dangerous long-term given the nature of exchanges being prone to hackers.

They think it's not worth it with the amount that they hold and it's quite expensive for them, so, instead of buying a hardware wallet and it secured. What they do is they're keeping it on exchanges but those with the right concerns, as of the moment, they're all good with the desktop wallets like electrum.

The latter is doing a good job for using that type of wallets.

I don't know why people don't buy hardware wallets but for me the reason is that I am using Electrum software wallet and I keep it on an old computer that has no internet connection and I have never encountered any any incidents in the past 5 years. I never thought I would have to buy hardware wallets and take care of them while staying safe with Electrum and an old computer.

There are many reasons, of course, and I think one of the most important is the lack of interest of the majority in protecting their savings in the safest way. Others may not even be aware of the existence of this type of wallet.
There is another type who is aware of the importance of these wallets and unfortunately cannot obtain them. For example, I live in a country whose citizens suffer from countless problems with customs and the customs administration, which refuses to allow individuals to acquire electronic devices, even if they are in the form of a gift. The only solution is to get out of my country so that I can buy the wallet and then return, because it is not even useful to recommend someone to buy it for you, given the specifics of protection.
Fortunately, there are other safe methods that can be used until the time comes to purchase a hardware wallet.

People mostly use bitcoin for short-term use that buying a specialised hardware to store whatever they have is somewhat counterintuitive. Not everyone has their sights set towards long-term, and not everyone has enough coins that a hardware wallet is required. So maybe that's why not, because not everyone is as hardcore or as serious as us here. Perhaps eventually we'll see a lot of people switching towards hardware wallets as the need becomes evident but now? Everyone is still kinda testing the waters.

Hardware wallets also have their drawbacks. 

Hardware wallet software may not be perfect.  Developers and testers can make a mistake in their work, as a result of which your funds that you store using hardware wallets can be stolen. 

To buy a hardware wallet, you need to make an official money transaction using fiat currency.  Disclosing the purchase of a hardware wallet will also put your financial security in question.  In addition, your hardware wallet can be misused while being sent by mail.

In addition, the very fact that you have a Ledger or Trezor indicates that you have a cryptocurrency.  This information can be used by attackers.

Hardware wallets are considered the safest of all wallets today, but I think many people are used to software wallets and during use they have almost no problems, so they will have no reason to buy hardware wallets.
I still use a hardware wallet because in my opinion it is the best way to protect my bitcoins but I have a friend and he is also an investor but he uses Electrum and runs it on a computer without internet connection. He says he feels safe using that storage method and he hasn't had any problems with it since he entered the market so far. I advised him to equip himself with a hardware wallet which would be more secure, he said he would buy but didn't say when.

For me as long as you get to keep your private key/seed phrase buying a hardware wallet is just like an option for additional security. If you don't have thousands of dollars of crypto investment, buying a hardware wallet is not cost-efficient. Another thing, not everyone is aware of it or how to set it up. I bought a hardware wallet about a year when I first started in cryptocurrency, it's a hassle to set it up every time you need to close or open your wallet for transactions.

Thats not true at all. Hardware wallets just offer the highest user friendliness while keeping a pretty high protection against theft of your coins. There are many more secure ways to store your coins, but basically all of them require to just store the coins and not have outgoing transactions.

Using a hardware wallet can be compared to convenience. People have different attitudes toward different kinds of amenities. Someone prefers to sleep on a hard mattress, knowing full well that there are good beds. Someone drives an old car or eats food that has expired. Anyone who values their health will never allow this. By saying the phrase "I can do without it," people show how they do not love themselves. Namely, this is what says that those who use improved methods of storing bitcoin, namely hardware wallets, understand both the value of their deposits and the value of bitcoin itself. But life very often teaches people lessons, after which saving and a careless attitude towards oneself become unacceptable factors in one's existence.

Not that they didn't trust hardware wallet since this is much recommended to have for people which have huge money entered in cryptocurrency. But the problem for other user is they cannot afford to buy it since they only use small amount of money which they can afford to lose that's why we see so many people not using it because some of them think that its pricey to have and they think cloud wallets or apps is much user friendly wallets to have.

That is reason is just stupid because some hardware wallets are under 50 USD. If you invest less then that in Bitcoin you can basically not invest altogether. You Investment return will more or less be eaten up by transaction fees that can sometimes be even a few dollars, so you won’t even be able to send money without loosing a significant amount of your investment.
In any case it is still clear that there are also secure ways to store crypto without a hardware wallet.

Many people are preferred to keep their assets online and never think about the risk of keeping them there because they believe that having these seeds and private keys gives them enough security. And I was indeed to believe it as well. Maybe if I own 5BTC or let's say $100k worth of Bitcoin, I never hesitate to buy a hardware wallet but since I don't have it, I don't think it was necessary to acquire it. Practically, having a hardware wallet will depend on how much you have and the capability to have it. Because in reality, though we know that this could give us a higher level of security, however, we can't be too confident that we are free already from hackers, unless we no longer use it for online transactions.

People don't have spare money to buy a hardware wallet since it is very costly, but you will improve your security once you have one. I also don't have a hardware wallet, firstly because I don't have spare money to buy it, and, at the same time, I don't want to be less cautious because I am thinking that I do have a hardware wallet, so they can't touch my wallet. Though if I have the opportunity, it is fine with me, but for the time being, I am focusing on improving my security and being cautious about everything. 

For my personal reasons, I'm not very good at storing small goods the size of a flash drive. My environment is not too private to store something valuable.
The potential risk to lose small goods by people around me is very high, otherwise they are not very good at operating computers.

In as much as I am still dealing with small amount of bitcoin used for daily transactions I don't think there is any reason or any need to acquire a hardware wallet because I am contented with the services offered by trusted and reputable online wallets, however if there a need to buy a hardware wallet I will do so provided that I am in possession of huge amount of bitcoin thus I will be able to keep my key, of course I have a safe where I kept many of my security gadgets such as Token a hardware used for receiving OTP from my bank thus I wouldn't have any problem with regards to using a hardware wallet.

Those were exactly the people who only go with the hype and just invest for quick profits, without even thinking the risk of having it especially if they never care saving their coins in a hardware wallet. So it’s not surprising really that some lose instead because they never know how to secure their bitcoin and put it in a secured and private wallet. While others are extra careful, some are not even mindful and would even care to keep their coins in a centralized exchange rather than having a secured and safe wallet.

Maybe you should review your percentages because many still don't quite understand what an exchange is and the difference between custodial and non-custodial wallets.  So first you need education to understand which wallet is suitable for your needs.  Those who hold a lot of funds do well to rely on a hardware wallet but those who are approaching, for example, electrum may be fine.

I didn't use to use hardware wallets because I was afraid I'd lose my bitcoins by mishandling them, now I don't use them because I lost them after I put them on an exchange and switched to altcoin. I'm so stupid.

I have Ledger Nano S. But my mistake back then is that I’ve forgotten to transfer all of my assets to Ledger Nano S due to being complacent with Metamask and Trust Wallet.

As a result for not being careful nor doing my due diligence, I’ve accidentally clicked that fake PDF malware and my assets are siphoned to the hacker’s wallet after. It was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had in the crypto space.

Now I’ve learned my lesson, I’ve put most of my assets in Ledger Nano S and the rest are in my new non-custodial wallets in which I use them to swap, buy and sell NFTs, etc.

If you ask me the reason is very much clear most people who own lots of bitcoins or other worthy cryptocurrencies they prefer to buy a hardware wallet because it is worth it for them and they care about the security of their bitcoin, while other people don't buy these hardware wallets because they have to pay money for it, for example, if you own only 10 dollars of bitcoin id doesn't make any sense if you pay money for a hardware wallet, also some other people really trust the software wallets and they see no reason for paying money for a hardware wallet.

We only have a hardware wallet and software wallets. If comparing them, what is wrong with saying hardware wallet is more secure? And how to use a secure wallet depends on how we use it?, not just having a hardware wallet means that our assets are automatically safe.
Apart from using these two wallets, would you happen to have a way to store our assets more securely? Can you share? I used software wallets for a while, then switched to hardware wallets, and I really feel my assets are incredibly safe compared to software wallets.

Actually you can find the Ledger Nano S Plus for less than $80, and if you wait some holiday discount or Black Friday probably you can even get it for like $50, which is a very reasonable price. If people are not aware of hardware wallets maybe they shouldn't even be in the crypto world in the first place.

That’s true. Hardware wallets are mostly used by those who want to hold on to their coins for a long term. For traders, merchants and others who frequently buy and sell cryptocurrencies are better off using a hot wallet. But there are also people who are using both. Being a merchant, I accept crypto payments, so I have to convert or withdraw them quite often. This is why I have kept them in a hotwallet, Capitalwallet which is quite convenient. The coins which I want to hold for long term investment, I prefer to keep them in the cold wallet - ledger nano X. It all depends on the requirements.

I don't used hardware wallet because my trading priority with short term and not hold Bitcoin or cryptocurrency assets for long term and not really required with hardware wallet. Transaction will delay and take longer time when saving Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in hardware wallet actually when Bitcoin confirmation on busy, need almost one hour above for depositing success in exchange market.

I think have risk when saving fund in exchange wallet only because our fund controlling by the owner and some time could be scam like FTX, but when saving Bitcoin assets in hardware wallet we are the only one have access and controlling our fund ability to withdraw whenever we want.

Are you speaking from personal experience or have you never visited any of the websites of well-known HW manufacturers and seen that they even accept Bitcoin as a means of payment?


You won't risk anything if you pay in Bitcoin and use a PO box, it's certainly one option that everyone should consider. Also, if you have an official seller in your country who has a physical store, you can buy HW for cash.


If you've used any of the methods listed above and you're not someone who brags about things you shouldn't, then you can consider yourself pretty safe. People really find all sorts of excuses not to spend $50+ on something, but when they lose their BTC they surely regret not doing it differently.

You may very well already be advertising you likely own Bitcoin simply by: having a forum account, KYC'd at an online service, even Tweeted about Bitcoin.

A hardware wallet used properly already prevents wannabe attackers from accessing it online. I'd wager the number of people falling victim to Bitcoin theft from a hardware wallet wouldn't show up on a pie chart of ways people lost their Bitcoin to thieves.

It's not only for people with larger amounts of money. Till recently, I also believed (without any prior research) that hardware wallets were expensive and limited to people with large portfolios. However, this couldn't be any further from the truth. They are actually quite affordable for the average investor, even starting at approximately $60 (Ledger and Trezor are the two largest competitors). I almost lost my money due to malware on my computer, and I'm not willing to take any more chances. If you're not able to have an airgapped wallet, hardware ones are the way to go.

Capitalwallet? I don't a project that mislead their users, it's not even a wallet, but an exchange. It's remind me with freewallet aka scam exchange.

If you're a trader, there's no choice since you need a liquidity so you need to hold it on the exchange, but make sure you only hold for small amount that need to trading purpose.

If you have a merchant, you can use Bitcoin payment processor like BTCPayserver, it will increase your security and privacy rather than just use a single wallet that generate one address.

In my opinion it depends on how much they've invested in bitcoin. For example someone who has bought a couple of hundred dollars worth of bitcoin is never going to pay for a hardware wallet. It makes more sense for those who have large amounts of bitcoin.

Another thing to consider is how many times you are going to want to access your funds. A paper wallet is more suitable for "storage" that you don't want to touch while a hardware wallet is more suitable for those who want to regularly access the funds.
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Yes I agree with your words lots of people didn't use hardware wallets because they don't feel to buy them. Lots of people save their funds in exchanges ( keeping your funds in exchange is not good idea ).So it totally depends upon you how you save your funds.

let's say that a hardware wallet is quite useful, but there are a few things to keep in mind

• if you need to store a few hundred dollars in crypto, you can do without it
• use open source devices and do not rely on companies that produce devices with closed source code
  

let's say these are the prerogatives that everyone must take into account, in my opinion there are more secure methods than hardware wallets, and many in this thread have already told you about it

Added to what others have said about people not having "much money" on Bitcoin, etc.
I would like to mention that in many cases Bitcoin has found acceptance and harbor in countries where it has the utility to safeguard from inflation, economical crisis or economical instability; Venezuela, Argentina, Nigeria, etc.

People from those nations initially only get into Bitcoin with a few dollars, besides the price, it is more difficult for us to buy on internet at the official online shops.
In the end, many people stick to software wallets even though their holdings could increase, because they have gotten used to that wallet and believe it is unlikely their keys will get stolen, because it has not happened to them yet.

Of course it doesn't make sense if someone use almost all of his money to buy hardware wallet while they only hold small amount money, although I agree most people who hold Bitcoin aren't rich, but there's many cases where a rich people who invest around $10K on Bitcoin doesn't even understand what is wallet and decentralization. They will leave their funds on centralized exchange since they think it's safe with 2FA, KYC, etc. While actually it doesn't help you when the exchange got hacked and you lose all of your funds.

There are many reasons why many investors do not use hardware wallets, and one of the reasons you give is correct, I have encountered many such cases. Simply put, many people invest in bitcoin, they only care about how to make a profit, and they don't care about privacy or protecting their own assets. Like forex traders, they only need 2FA, a good security email, they consider it safe. Many investors still don't know the difference between bitcoin and other traditional investment models.

I do have a hardware wallet but I still often use Online wallet for my movable assets or assets I used for investment and trading while my hardware wallet is for my assets for lomg term holding. My reason? For my lifestyle, online wallets are more and easily accessible even with my phone although I'm aware that it is more prone to 'hacking' problems. But I myself lost things easily so I decided not to carry my hardware wallet most of the time just to be sure. These are just my insights and might somehow support the side of investors who are not using hardware wallets. I also asked my friend to buy one but he's guilty of investing such amount especially if there is a cheaper alternative; online wallets. He's also aware of the risk by the way so maybe it is just a matter of picking your own poison.

I don't see any point why they will not trust hardware wallets when they are one of the safe mode to keep your coins and the main problem with them is they buy/sell over these exchanges and have trust on them for keeping your coins which is more dangerous and can loose their funds.

But as you said it's expensive or we can say many don't have idea about how it works so they are keeping up the flow with the same old traditional way of securing their funds.

Before the collapse of FTX it is likely that many people do not even considered the idea of using one because they thought, why spend hundreds of dollars in one when you can just store your coins at an exchange and secure your coins for free? But now those people have their answer, if an exchange does not want to give you your coins back then it is going to be very difficult to recover them, while on a hardware wallet this is not even an issue as you are the one in control.