Bitcoin Forum

One of the most powerful words that resonates strongly among bitcoiners is the word "HODL". This word describes our undying faith in bitcoin's past, present and future potential. In the bitcoin community, there are those who have been holding for a long-term and also those who have just started hodling because they are moved by the fast approaching halving event in 2024. As we are holding bitcoin we should be vigilant because hackers and scammers tirelessly seek opportunities and loopholes to steal your bitcoin. Therefore, it is not enough to hold but HODL WISELY.



There are more than one thousand ways to HODL bitcoin. In fact, as of 2022 there were about 2,790 Bitcoin-related applications are available on the Google Play Store while Apple Store had about 651 such apps. To add to this there are 288 hardware wallets and 44 bearer tokens in circulation, all of there telling you that they are able to secure your bitcoin holdings

Don't just hold but hodl wisely and securely.

This topic is inspired by the responses I received in this thread - How Do I Verify the Integrity of Open-Source Code (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5467088.msg62859391#msg62859391).

Image source (https://www.reddit.com/r/WalletScrutiny/comments/vyr836/they_say_hodl_but/?share_id=3K6H6-Ngo_BtJWoNtAniH&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=3):

What sucks is that if most beginners just download a bitcoin wallet off Google PlayStore/Apple AppStore, chances are, they'd land upon an exchange wallet or a custodial wallet. The way bitcoin/crypto is now, you need to learn by mistake first lol before actually ending up diving deeper.

https://chainsec.io/checklist

Yeah. Hodling is not a new word and especially here on the forum, users are advised to hodl and it will prove rewarding ( for those who plan to sell) when the next bull run season approaches. A necessary advice given by the Op which I think is quite important because there are still those who fall victims of hodling their Bitcoin on CEX which might be cool but not until the exchange gets closed down without prior information (exit scam) or even be victim to hacker attack.

To ensure you don't fall victim of stolen coins or missing funds, it's best to store your crypto in self custodial wallets, that way you are the only one with access to your funds and while it has its perks, it can be risky if you misplace your private keys you might as well be kissing your funds buh bye!

You can use this website to get some reviews on Bitcoin wallets then choose a good wallet to use.
https://walletscrutiny.com/

Another website to have reviews for Bitcoin wallets.
https://www.cryptowisser.com/wallets/

Recommended wallets (https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/recommended-wallets.html) from Jameson Lopp is useful too.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online account (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421039.0).

Open source, non custodial and don't have history of wallet compromise should be some factors to choose a wallet.

I hope that whaat you're saying doesn't become a frequent thing to happen to beginners because knowing that there's a lot of people that will quit if they made a mistake the 1st try serves nothing to the adoption of bitcoin. Although I do agree that allowing yourself to make mistake is a good thing if you want to learn, I still think that having that as your first experience in your first step wouldn't be good.

I agree with the spirit of the OP, just pointing out that the famous "HODL" came from one who was drunk and misspelled the word (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375643.msg4022997#msg4022997). Plus the last 20 posts on this forum are about shitcoins, so you can see he didn't HODL so much finally. This thread in comparison is much more serious and many newbies would do well to take note but I fear that most if they find it will be after they have made the mistake.

It is not the hacker and scammers who pose the greatest threat to your bitcoin, but you, the hodlers, yourself. Your own thoughtless and reckless actions lead to the loss of bitcoin, and not the above. But you are right about one thing: holding bitcoin needs to be done with a reasonable approach. One single mistake and all your hopes will instantly collapse. Therefore, don't forget about wise diversification.

To holdbitcoin, one application is enough (for example, electrum) and there is no need to use thousands of wallets. But dividing all your crypto assets into parts and distributing them into different wallets (different seed phrases) is a direct necessity.

I do say this that it's never too late to start bitcoin investment, but it's better never to have started than to carelessly handle your wallet security keys or make use of a centralized exchange in holding your bitcoin for long, if anyone is found under any of these category then he has higher tenderness of loosing his entire life savings in bitcoin to scam by hackers, this makes it very important to understand why we should take care of what we have and value them even if it will cost us because bitcoin hack or scam made are irreversible despite they are traceable, but we cannot recover the lost fund back, isn't it better to make prevention than care.

There are many unknown Bitcoin wallets that have no name on Google Playstore, some are simply titled "Bitcoin Wallet." One of the worst bits of advice people can give is to download a Bitcoin wallet from the Google Playstore. Some of these wallets might have a vulnerability, and I believe they cannot be non-custodial.

My hope is that many beginners will be smart enough to do their own research before downloading any wallet to store their Bitcoins. People these days think that everything that has an app is open to everyone, so they just open Playstore and search for crypto wallets, but not all of them are safe.

It's inevitable that some people will fall victim to scammers' traps when they get involved in crypto and not all of them will be able to find their way to Bitcointalk forums.

Many wallets available on the Android Play Store and App Store provide many choices for prospective users to choose the best one as a place to hold Bitcoin. The availability of many wallet choices strengthens each wallet to compete in order to try to make each wallet provide the best to attract potential users when assessing the wallet to be chosen.

I'm afraid that potential users download wallets not from the official website but from the Play Store or App Store and don't consider the security of the wallet they choose.
A proven wallet like Electrum is not to be missed even though there are many new wallets available with great features.

Good advice you have given,  however, I was expecting your recommendation on how to hodl wisely. I really do not know how to use this information because knowing that there are many ways to hold Bitcoin without knowing which ones mean holding wisely does not help but get me agitated. 

Thank you for this revelation, I actually downloaded all my crypto apps from Google play store and I am more worried now than ever. Could you recommend how to go about downloading crypto apps that you consider as safe for use? I will greatly appreciate.

One of the key things or elements before one starts to hold is the security of the wallets, many new investors actually do not pay much attention to this and lose their funds in that process. Both long term and short term holders need to use a reputable and widely accepted wallets. This is one of the reasons why many experienced investors are of the general opinion that wallets that are not connected to the internet are usually the best for holding.

Many newbies find it difficult to settle for a particular wallet, although they are new Wallets that with exciting features but my preferred choice is always old tested and proven wallets that many users have attested to, rather than a new wallet without proper or much review

It doesn't matter if you are a hodler or not, but you have to secure your funds the right way. Even if we are not hodling, we must hold our wallet for a short period of time. Most people just leave on exchange, which is the most dangerous attempt in the crypto world lately. That's how a lot of people lose their funds. So we have to make sure our funds are secure. At this point, it's very important what wallet you have been using and how secure it is. We need to spend more time researching how to secure your bitcoin so we can handle it wisely.

As long as you are a member of bitcointalk it fair to say that it's easy to hodl wisely.

Here you can get all the informations/answers/help you need to keep your coins as save as possible in my opinion. There are obviously plenty of fakes and wallet clones out there and it's easy to lose focus as they often appear legit but a little common sense helps finding the real deal.

And in case there are question, people can always come here and create a topic and get all the help they need, I have seen that countless times.

Yes the newbies have often faced problem to store their hard earned money securely. I mean they invest good amount of money in Bitcoins, but they don’t do proper research on how securely or safely they need to hold the coins. I am sure many of them don’t know the difference between hardware and software wallets. As a Bitcoin investor, you need to avoid as many online wallets as you can, as here you don’t own the coins completely. Electreum or Ledger wallet are best to store the coins, depending on the amount you are holding.

Unpopular opinion: I think that all those who are into Bitcoin just to buy a (relatively) small amount, hold till the next pump and sell - should actually stick to keeping them on reputable centralised exchanges. It's against the BTC principles, yes, but it's probably much more safer and efficient in terms of time and fees. Short-term holders are generally not the type of people who would spend a lot of time learning about all the security risks and safe storing. The risk of messing something up with setting up wallet (or cold storage) for the first time is greater than the risk of reputable exchange going belly up.

Definitely, I agree with you. It's always advisable, to use wallets that are widely know and recognize by the general public. The idea of hodling Bitcoin isn't complete, without knowledge on how to fully secure your Bitcoin and prevent loss of funds. I usually advice people to download these apps from official store or directly from the website. Alot of hacked software are out there and if one isn't careful enough, you end up downloading a phishing app and after funding, you are left with nothing.


Yes it's normal to learn from our mistake, as no one is perfect. But you can also learn from someone else's mistakes and get a correction. I will advice the newbies out there to be vigilant and avoid downloading unessesary apps or wallet to avoid being victims of hacks.

Very true, before you think about holding, you should think about how to protect your assets well. This is one of the most important things that everyone must learn, whether experts or beginners, as asset security is considered the most important thing.

For me, I do not use any unknown wallet applications on Android or IOS. I only use the old, famous wallets that have become absolutely reliable through their secure use for many years.

It is not enough for the wallet to be open source for it to be secure, nor are all users experts in programming and code reading to read the open source and ensure that it is free of security vulnerabilities.

Not your key, not your coin. Yet we are here with so many options presented to us that we are still confused. But with a little bit of research, we can actually HODL wisely and securely on any platform. Our security and privacy is ours to keep safe. Our way of using anything determines its safety and security.
I recommend going with band products when purchasing a hardware wallet. Also, buy it from the official website. I am talking about hardware wallets because those are the safest ones in terms of HODLing. So if anyone has the ability to buy one, never be late.

Then comes software wallets. I have done some research here on this forum and also in other places. Everything suggested me towards Electrum wallet. I have used it and it's quite good as it said in every review. But still, everything depends on how you use it. So DYOR and choose the best.

As you are looking for ways to get more bitcoins, know that other people are looking for ways to get bitcoins too, they do not have dedication to stack up bitcoins themselves from small investments and they are not ruling out getting it by illegal means which includes stealing from those who already have. That is why it is important to HODL WISELY. It will be depressing and a story you will never forget if after gathering bitcoins to benefit from the halving next year, that you then loose it all to scammers and cybercriminals online and other people offline because of 'I don't care" behavior.

This words has been so organized or romanced were people do not even know when and where or time to hold and hodl. This word has been so commonly known and used in our mouths today whereby we blindingly falls into prey and this mostly happen to the newbies who does not know their ways about here but has been so confident with those words from people over here which they thought are so easily to maintain. Security of our funds is what gives strength to our holding ( hodl) but when beginners fails to secure their wallets properly they easily got scammed or hacked so the first journey of any one holding or HODL comes from getting a better wallet, this can only assure your holdings and safety of your funds.

After acquiring the basic knowledge about Bitcoin, the next important lesson should be how to access trustworthy wallets and how to secure the wallets from attack. Lack of security knowledge is like buying a gold bar and dropping it in a market square. Most people who call Bitcoin a scam lost their money due to a lack of knowledge of how to secure their funds. Some people don't even know the difference between custodian and non-custodian wallets because they don't want to learn. It is better not to invest in anything you don't have a means or knowledge of protecting.

Holding Bitcoin is really beneficial and the term 'HODL' is incredibly famous within this community. I'm pretty sure that many people have been holding their Bitcoin for a long time with some even holding it for more than 7-8 years which is truly impressive. These people undoubtedly has a lot of money in their wallets.

The most important aspect here is how wisely you manage the security of your Bitcoin holdings. I heard that this year, a lot of people who were holding Bitcoin fall victim to hacking due to their recklessness and foolish behaviors . Using an air-gapped device to store your Bitcoin is so important and If you choose not to do that you should consider using a hard wallet.

Investing in bitcoin is easy but knowing right wallet to use becomes a problem to newbies. It is good to keep your funds safe in a noncustodial wallet, this is why the knowledge is needed before investing, so that you don't end up making silly mistakes that will jeopardize with your bitcoin investment.

Some newbies feels that exchange is more secured that a noncustodial wallet because they think that the exchange knows the best way to keep their coins safe than they can do. I was discussing with a friend this evening that has bitcoin but he doesn't have the deep knowledge on it, which part of what he doesn't know is the best wallet for safety. He told me that he prefers to leave his coins in Binance because, they wouldn't release his coins to anyone without his authentication on his phone. That is there is any illegal activity his account will be locked compared to when he is in self-custody of his bitcoin. I had to explain to him that Binance is also vulnerable to attack just the way if he doesn't secure his wallet and that Binance can even deprive him of his funds. Immediately i directed him how to create an electrum wallet, which he did and transferred his bitcoin into his electrum wallet.

Everyone says it will provide us with security if we use their wallet to store bitcoins. In fact, there are wallets available on Android that are willing to make the change from open source to closed source. They say open source wallets have dishonest developers and need to change to closed source to stay true to their primary goal of protecting users.

Wallet security became my main concern shortly before I became active in this world. Thousands of applications that offer a mission for user security as long as they do not meet the requirements as a wallet that is recognized by their users, I will not trust them to hold bitcoin. Includes closed source wallets.

Anyone who understands the phrase “ Not your keys, Not your coins” will have no trouble choosing the right wallets and method of storing their seed phrase. The phrase “ Not your keys, Not your coins” instills the philosophy to bitcoiners that custodial wallets are risky and should not be used for hodling. Even with all this information, some people still prefer to leave bitcoins in their local exchanges, they do not realize the implications of trusting a third party with their bitcoins.

While there are those wallets/apps that people need on Google Playstore. It's also the # 1 source of those phishing apps and other hacking apps where many newbies have been misled.

But, thank you for the reminder. It's true that it's not just all about holding but also being wise. There are holders that aren't wise and they're holding their assets through an exchange which is a bad idea.

Instead of holding it through the wallet that they have full custody, they don't.

And on the time that you had already lost your coins or had been locked up or scammed then this is the only time that you would really be making some in-depth review which they should have done it earlier or a must

thing that they had done initially and not on after effects.Its true that it is really that too easy to say about HODL but newbies would really be normally be leading themselves into those very known app stores and
just simply type "Bitcoin wallet" but doesnt know if its a custodial wallet or not. This is the importance of self research or study on which trying out to do on the things that must be done specially this is talking about the safety of our money or coins because you cant really just make yourself that make out that choice without having  those considerations.

Always be skeptical about into those places that not been known on.In speaking about non-custodial and open source then i would just simply trust "ELECTRUM" in the end of the day
if we arent speaking about hardware wallets.Even into these kind of storages i dont really have that trust.

it is always best to store your coins in your wallet, where you have your own keys. you will have total control on this regard. but if you decide to send it to any third party app, then, you can't say that's your funds. because anything can happen and the possibility of not getting a hold of your funds is always there.

Hold and just use the right wallet where to put our crypto. Many people have fallen into the wrong wallet due to the number of crypto wallets that can be found on the internet and it is really confusing which one is legit and can be trusted.
Yes, hold wisely and don't rush doing this instead, spend time doing research just to make sure that we are using the right wallet where to store our coins, or else, we're just throwing it away to these scammers. Avoid learning from making mistakes first...

Honestly, I do not really hold securely, but do not risk it way too much neither. My money is in mostly at binance account and I do not move it from there too much. I do not have much neither, even if I get hacked, I would not become poor overnight, I am not rich enough to have a lot of money anyway. So when it becomes not a big deal to hold bitcoin like that, it becomes not an issue and should be considered as normal as it gets without any issues at all. I do understand that it may not be all that much of an issue at any given moment, but I do believe that we are going to end up with something that would not make sense at all if I buy some hardware wallet with such small amount of money.

It very essential to know how to secure our wallet especially when we are hodling.  We must use wallets that are not compromised and wallet apps that is verified secured.  We should not just blindly choose a wallet  from any site without checking their validity.


That should be the case since keeping our coins in exchanges can face uncertainty since we do not have the full access or the key of the address where our coins is being held.  Verifying the apps to use whether it is safe for use should be the first thing to prioritized before using them to keep our coins.

You said their is different ways of making holding your bitcoin, but from my own perspective is been done in way than holding a coin, so I believe that bitcoin have it's way, someone that don't want hold bitcoin will not hold bitcoin it doesn't have any target, while most of people who buy bitcoin purchased bitcoin is because they want appreciate or increase of bitcoin to make profit, and secondly, some of the people who invest in bitcoin for long-term have a target and some of people who quickly sell out of their bitcoin doesn't have target of investment in cryptocurrency especially bitcoin and some who use their main money to invest always been conscious of their investment, so therefore it's advisable to use your spare money for bitcoin investment.

Hodling is one way to make you profitable in the crypto market. But you should only hold only those coins with high potentials, and bitcoin is a perfect example. Acquire knowledge about bitcoin and understand how it can make you profitable before you decide to buy and hold. And once you have bitcoin, make sure to secure your wallet away from those hackers waiting to attack. Keep your own privacy and never let others know that you are into bitcoin investment so that they won’t be eyeing on you.

But funny enough as you said but it's still actually the truth because most of these beginner actually just rush or move faster than self maybe due to how they feel owning and holding Bitcoin can be easy through different way they have come across Bitcoin itself. I am saying this because I actually had a friend who never really wanted to learn but he just thought how beneficial it can be and actually made a deposit and started with his crypto journey in an custodial limited wallet he downloaded through the internet.

Just hodling Bitcoin is not a guarantee that your bitcoin is safe but being knowledgeable will help to keep bitcoin safe. One who lacks understanding about how scammers operates can easily for into the hands of scamners,  all what has been in the wallet for long time can just go in vain. Their is no need hodling when one lacks understanding how bitcoin should be invested in a secure way.  Securing hodling will yield to having a positive result in every hodling.

fortunately now government of my country also supervise some of cryptocurrency related app so I feel more secure. but I will not only hold it, when there is bullish market trend happen I will sell it so I can get profit and then buy it again when bearish trend come.

Wow, I didn't know that there are this much Bitcoin apps on Google Play store. The way I have come to think about it is that, anyone who is not part of a crypto community would be lost on which of these apps to follow and invest in. Personally there should be more tools to check the legality of any Bitcoin wallet. However, to save you stress, the thing I do is just use the one that is most popular and the one that most other persons have confirmed that works perfectly fine and use it

Fraudsters have thoughts on how to cheat others and by cheating how to steal valuable coins including BTC. If a hacker or fraudster can hack our account without any account information then why can't we make our account more secure even if we have access to the account. 
First of all we have to get rid of the thought that we have to invest very quickly, there is no need to be in such a rush when it comes to investing. The first thing an investor should think about is how to secure his wallet. When the wallet is secure, a user can safely hold his investment as he wishes. But when your wallet is not secure, no matter how much BTC we invest, it will be seen that investment fraudsters have cheated us. 
So try to outsmart the scammers and think how to keep your BTC or other coins safe from them.

Exchange wallets or custodial wallets are not a big deal as long as they are official wallets because over time, as they move deeper into the market, they will find better knowledge about wallet security and wallet. They will switch when they learn about the difference between custodial wallets and non-custodial wallets. What's more scary is that they use fake wallets that are still on playstore and will lose their money at the first time, which will make them shocked and have negative thoughts about this cryptocurrency industry.

That taking profits is already given, it's normal for me, especially that is your purpose of investing in Bitcoin.
But the topic is about HODLING wisely and securely, where we must hodl our Bitcoin in a safe place or use safe software like wallets.

Experience is truly the best teacher but learning by mistakes has been some means to scare many people away from taking cryptocurrency or bitcoin investments. This is where the idea of bitcoin being some Ponzi schemes comes from in the minds of those failed investors.

I think this has made people more curious these days to ask questions but, with the trendy of Binance, I can agree with you that the ideal place for beginners and those that don’t know any better is custodial exchanges. Most see it for a wallet or some safe place to store there precious coins and it remains so because, they don’t know any better.

The few that are this enlightened are those that belongs to a forum and keeps being tutored on what is or obtainable within the cryptocurrency space. It’s often the case when you choose to invest before learning about what your investing in.
We can only hope they don’t get scammed in the process.

No one is careful enough to avoid getting scammed but we all gonna be extra be careful regardless. Now how can we save ourselves from shitty things that want to happen

- use of a cold wallet

- Those using exchanges can testify that most if not all exchanges are going Kyc, this will enable one to be safe at some point

- Is it just the KYC? No! You must confirm if the exchange also has a hot and cold wallet installed. You know for an extra level of protection

- Not just that. Also, check if there's a protection fund ready for their users in case of anything.

All these we need to start keeping in our mind

Yes, correct. No matter what investment strategy an individual has chosen, the security of his crypto asset should be equally important as the person who chooses to hold.

There would always be those people who the instruction or appeal to not leave their funds in exchanges because of the inherent dangers would fall on deaf ears but there is nothing we can do than to allow them learn from personal experience which they say is the best teach.

I think that there are two ways people learn about how to secure their bitcoins; they either learn it by choice or by force. By Choice I mean they dedicate time to learning about bitcoin best security practices before any security incidence. By force, I mean they learn about how to secure their bitcoin after their wallet is hacked. So they quickly learn about it to prevent future hacks.

That's why before all of these things you are recommended to read and not rush your investment in bitcoins if you are a newbie because time passes by, there are lots of options offered to you on how to keep your bitcoins which we all know that not all of them are reliable and some of them are not really recommended to use especially when you are a newbie. The best thing to do is learn from reading all of these basic stuff and continue to update your knowledge regarding securing your bitcoins and how to protect yourself against the new techniques of scammers and hackers to steal your bitcoins from you while you are Hodling it.

Or just end up, buying shitcoin in a spiral due to them being referred by their friend. This happened a lot when NFT games were still like a hot topic here in the Philippines. Now that hacks happened, people were like lost now on what should be next regarding their lost coins.

Desktop wallets are okay, but connecting it to the internet is kinda a bit..... no-no

Op points out important and often overlooked information. As a newbie, a person can really struggle to understand how to hodl Bitcoin. One might go looking for the most reputable exchanges, for example, and that's not the right thing to do. I can see that a few top google results mention Coinbase Wallet as the best, but I don't know, even though they say it's a non-custodial wallet, but it wouldn't be my choice. It's important to take the matter of where to hold Bitcoin seriously, and it shouldn't be considered obvious how it should be done.

Yes, when you send it to the exchange wallet, you don't own them anymore. You own the account that has that wallet but in terms of technicalities, you don't really own your funds there.

Usually when they're hacked. That's the problem that a user might not be able to withdraw your own fund there because you don't own it anymore and if the exchange reasons out that all funds were gone, there is nothing you can do.

Of course, we need to see how secure our wallets can be before making long-term Bitcoin holds. No matter how much money we put in the bag, if there is a hole in the bag, we can never fill the bag with money. Same thing with Bitcoin, no matter how much we invest and how long we hold the investment if our wallet is not secure then such investment is worthless. Even with a small amount of investment, we first need to ensure the security of the wallet. When we can ensure the maximum security of our wallet, no matter how much money we keep in the wallet, our investment in that wallet will be safe.

I agree that we need to take care of how we store our coins, I always thought it was very important, but I know a person who has been storing all his coins on different exchanges for over 5 years, he has not had a single blocking, and he hasn’t lost a single cent on the stock exchange becouse of it, so he is convinced that this is the same safe way of storage. He also withdrew large amounts and everything was without problems, it will be difficult for such people to explain the importance of storing coins in a cold wallet, because although he knows about it, he does not see the need for it.

It's most important to keep Bitcoin in a secure wallet and for me that's a hardware wallet, and it's most important that private keys are kept as secure as possible.
No wonder so many people still believe in keeping assets on exchanges in a few years they will probably say it's very effective and easy to use everything including trading and the features that are there, again they don't think about the risks, I never give advice anymore to such people basically they will be stubborn if they are told about this.

Leave it! He himself will feel the consequences of how to store assets on the exchange when the exchange falls he will regret it.

Many individuals have already been using Electrum (Desktop version) and MyCelium (Mobile version). I believe these wallets come highly recommended within this forum community. Consequently, there exists a dedicated subforum aimed at discussing these two wallets.

Bitcoin Forum > Bitcoin > Development & Technical Discussion > Wallet software > Electrum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=98.0)
Bitcoin Forum > Bitcoin > Development & Technical Discussion > Wallet software > Mycelium (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=231.0)

Rather than pondering over other wallets that may still be speculative in terms of their security, it is wiser to opt for one that is tried and tested, and focus on more significant aspects of your HODL strategy moving forward. Engaging in the evaluation of 288 different wallets is a time-consuming endeavor.

In addition to being wise in securing our funds, we must also exercise wisdom in devising a strategy to embrace the halving event.

it's not the amount of Bitcoin you HODL that really matters, but how secure is your bitcoin. You can have a large amount of Bitcoin and lose everything it due to negligence, poor wallet storage or hack. While it's been reiterated every now and then to buy and hodl Bitcoin, we should also take it upon ourselves to look for good wallets to keep our most priced asset safe.

The bull season will soon kickoff, there are many newcomers coming into the space and there are many fake wallets flying around on the internet, Playstore and Appstore. Getting a good wallet should be a top priority.

I think if we really consider bitcoin a valuable asset and seriously invest in bitcoin, we should not hesitate to own a hardware wallet. Although the level of safety will largely depend on us, hardware wallets are considered a superior and safer solution than software wallets. So let's not regret a little money without owning it. Furthermore, hardware wallets are not too expensive for us, I believe that anyone who can invest in bitcoin has the financial ability to own a hardware wallet.

Learning the hard way seems to be the most experience of many Bitcoin adopters because quite a good number of this community have hard one urgly experience or the other all ranging from risk of getting scammed, hacked or sold out at the wrong time, this all has been the experience of all of us here and over the years, we have learnt from that experience and at this point, it becomes clearer that indeed mistakes is the best teacher.


But the worst feeling is that, in all of this, you are learning the hard ways but with it experiences, you will develop a thick skin to be able to survive future possible attacks, and this is what makes us experts in the long run.

In the investment of cryptocurrency Ecosystem Hodling is the key word or concept and any other words are just like to assist it. Everyone that is involved in bitcoin investment must hodle some unit of bitcoin from the bear market to the bullish market. And anyone that has not gotten Bitcoin and hodle as not started the journery. So everyone is expected to at least own small unit of bitcoin and hodle. Though I have not used the hardware wallet and according to the experts in bitcoin, hardware wallet is the most important way to hodle and secure bitcoin. In my locality those things are not sold and to import them is cost. There was a time I was making a move to import one but the cost made me to leave it. So I am using the cold wallet to hodle bitcoin for now.

If any asset is stolen by hackers after holding it in a bitcoin wallet for a long time then I have no interest in holding. The term hold is very important for Bitcoin. A person will never be able to fulfill their demand from Bitcoin without holding. We have to hold and also take some precautions before the hold. If Bitcoin halves in 2024, every holder can profit multiple times their assets. Here hackers will also be quite active in exploiting that opportunity. Moreover, there are many good ideas for various hacking in the past. So not just holding a reliable holding is very important.

The random investment in the bitcoin is not the recommended one.The trader should analysis the market very close,once the market is low and its enough to buy the bitcoin at the bear market.If you buy in the bear market and hold for the longer period,then the money return from your investments will be very good value.If you are newbie,some experience people will try to sell the bitcoin at the high value.You need to understand the current value of the bitcoin only by the analysis in the internet.It’s only was to get escape from the scam.

During in my beginner era in the world of cryptocurrency, I searched bitcoin in Google Play and there were a lot of application shows, some of them telling that you can earn a bitcoin with the use of the different rewards, task and etc. and I earned that time I guess way back 2017 and also seek how does the investor store their bitcoin and I saw a wallet right there. This era of ignorance just a waste of time, glad I discover the bitcointalk and other forums consist of a lot of information about bitcoin and the reliable platform to use as a wallet and where to buy and sell the bitcoin I bought. But today most of the platform now are offering this service gets more convenient to people to buy, sell, invest, and store their assets.

Before investing in bitcoins, we must be careful in our wallets so that our bitcoin wallets are not stolen by any hackers. There are many benefits if we can keep bitcoins for a long time. If we invest in bitcoins now for a long time,  If we can keep it for then we can make profit by investing. But before investing we have to go about the market of Bitcoin and then we have to invest. It is hoped that if we invest at this time, there is a possibility of getting good profit in the year of Sun.

It's a good advice honestly, remembering what happened to one of my friend in 2021(if I still remember correctly), there was a new bitcoin, and other crypto currency wallet app that came out on playstore, he had bitcoins worth over $200, 000 which he held on(I think) monarch wallet(not very popular wallet).

He saw the ad on Facebook which promised a mouth watering return on bitcoins if one hold their bitcoin in the wallet, he thought it was legit and decided to give it a trial, he downloaded the app and move $20,000 worth of bitcoin to the app, the interest started adding everyday, he later withdraw $10,000 and the transaction was processed without problems, and he thought, what is the need holding the bitcoin on monarch wallet where nothing is adding as interest, he moved all his bitcoin worth over $200,000 to the wallet, and the interest began adding and compounding, within a month, he already earned over $20,000 as interest, I decided to withdraw the interest but the transaction was not processed, for one day, two days, five days, one week, he contacted customer care but no one responded, he decided to request for withdrawal of the entire amount in his account, but it was not also processed, he contacted customer care to know what was going on, and no body responded, for more than one week, soon, one week became 2 months, before this 2 months, he already knew he's been scammed, it was a terrible experience, several times he thought of committing suicide, but I and some other friend of mine in the group kept encouraging him to hold on, but unfortunately, like 4 months after incident, we stopped hearing from him, he stopped coming online, we were like 6 in the group and from different countries, he was from Canada, till date, none of us have heard anything from him (just hope his alive and OK).

So yeah, even as we hold, we must hold wisely.

I mean what they need is just knowledge most of the beginners just download any Bitcoin wallet out there that is convenient to them thinking it is already the right thing to do but most of these wallets are scams and that is why a lot of the newcomers in cryptocurrency space get hack and scam because of this methods. It is certainly great if beginners are going to learn about cryptocurrency before even starting to invest because it already involves money. Then if they think that if already know what to do and they already have the money to invest in cryptocurrency then its a time that they could start investing already since they already have a initial idea and already know what to do.

Also, we have this forum, I mean pretty much anything is already here in the forum ever issue or problem that we are going to experience we could just ask here for help, a lot of members here are already veterans and have a long experience on cryptocurrency already so we could easily use this forum to gain more knowledge, ask for help and even share our experience. It's always better to be ready first than just start investing already, make sure to learn from other people's mistakes to avoid losing money and to HODL wisely.

I strongly warn people to not use those one thousand ways to HODL their Bitcoin and I highly warn them from using the Bitcoin related applications that are available on those Google and Apple stores. We can't really trust those ways and those applications because many of those can have malware in them and some of those may be vulnerable to attacks from the hackers and in fact any way that allows other to interact with your system remotely could be a troublesome for the holders.

The best way to hold your Bitcoin is to use a trusted open-source wallet like Electrum on a open-source Linux based distro, and then protect the private keys and pass phrases by saving them on multiple secure store media options that aren't connected to internet and are in the possession of the holder. Once the coins are deposited into the wallet the holder should disconnect that system from internet and Hodl the Bitcoin for as long as he/she wants to hold.

Even by using Electrum, there are still ways that could screw your security that up. The reality is that you cannot really just trust anything. It's what the community recommends that makes us trust it. I read what you said about not being connected in the internet at all, but you never know what you'll plug in into your device. I might sound like a real paranoid, but there's just no real 100% security.

Everything has been built by someone through code or hardware. There is no perfect security, just lessening the risk of being hacked.

In holding bitcoin wisely, we need knowledge to hold it well.
This knowledge is about choosing a wallet, the recommended holding procedure, what must be done before sending coins to the wallet, when we have started to enter the holding phase, after the coins are in the wallet and maybe much more.
So as long as we wait for the bull run time to arrive, we can store bitcoin safely for a long time and don't need to worry about hackers because we have used all the recommended procedures.
Most importantly, we don't tell other people where our wallet is, except people we trust, to avoid things we don't want.

Even today, the best way to hodl your btc is storing it either on cold wallets or by downloading the Bitcoin core wallet application with complete blockchain, it is a highly secured wallet IMHO. And after that, I count Electrum and Mycelium to be one of the top scoring wallets when it comes to providing security. There are some wallets which generate a new address after each transaction, I also like them but I cannot have the private key of those addresses which is why my first choice would be Bitcoin core only.

Yeah you're very correct, that's actually one of the things I like about this forum almost everything crypto related issues could be solved here with all the experience people in here which is one of the good things about this forum were as all the information and knowledge needed about HODL are being explained by experience people here, but I wouldn't advise a beginner's to start holding when they are not really informed about the concept and risk behind HODL so instead knowledge is the most important thing to acquire before holding and hold wisely and shouldn't accumulate aggressively were as you ran out of funds on the long run so always have a plan for an emergency funds to take care or sustain your needs while holding.

Well, your concerns are accurate to some extent but how could someone's system be compromised when he/she uses Electrum wallet? I would like to know about that thing in detail because as far as I know the Electrum is open-source by nature and it can be compiled from the source code by anyone who knows software compilation. I personally have researched about Electrum and that's why I always recommend it to anyone who want to save their Bitcoin for long term in a Air-gapped system.

You may be right but there are perfect measures to power off your networks and those measures are still working without any question. If someone builds a system without a network card and store his/her wallet and private keys and pass phrases in that system then as long as that system isn't connected to internet the user won't have any security problem. I know that everything is built by someone but still there are some restrictions which even the inventor can't penetrate. That's why we trust open-source software because their code is available to public and anyone can compile it or add any changes to it.

Yeah I do agree with you on this, It's crucial to handle your crypto assets with care to prevent potential losses, especially when dealing with alternative coins.

When it comes to holding and managing your cryptocurrency assets, caution is your best friend. This is particularly important in the world of alternative coins, where the market can be quite volatile. If your a newbie ill advice you make your own research before jumping into buying any coin, some could be scam project, Always ensure you use a good wallet, stay informed on what your doing .
HOLD WISELY

There's just a few rules one must obey to be relatively safe with their held coins.
1. Concentrate on bitcoin. The rest is a minefield with gold coins buried between the mines. You can get a few, even a whole bag, but chances are you'll step on a mine and lose everything, so don't be greedy!
2. Download only verified, well known and reviewed software. Don't look for the next best wallet, don't move your coins from a wallet to a wallet, just deposit them on what you know is safe.
3. Learn to double check and then check again. Verify addresses, sent amounts and fees a few times before sending. You can't go back once it's done.
4. Make sure the device you use to store your coins is clean (no phishing and no malware). To make sure it stays that way, don't install pirated software from torrent sites, don't open email attachments, don't unpack files you don't have to and don't watch porn.
5. Invest 1% of your holdings into security. Get a good anti virus software, buy a hardware wallet, use a paid VPN, make sure you have backups and surge protection if you're using a computer to store your coins.

Works for me ;)

Sad story,  losing a huge amount can result in so many mental crises that if care is not taken you may lose interest in living,  but then when there is life money can always be made,  I have learnt this lesson in a hard way and since then I have become very careful on the kind of things a believe and have also made up my mind to only hold my bitcoin in my own wallet and securely protected against any third party involvement,  and also I avoid anything call investment or interest payment on balance holdings.

This are all attempt to swing you off your money being in control of your wallet is what true freedom means in cryptocurrency and of what use is holding bitcoin if you held it in a third-party wallet no matter the promised interest payment is not secured.

I must admit that before wayback 5 years ago I thought when we said hodl is just hold it for a few years no matter if your bitcoin is in an exchange local online wallet or whatever it is as long as you have Bitcoin. But as the years go by and a lot of things happen that is when youll need to securely put your assets on those where you have the seed phrase. I am just glad that I haven't learned it the hard way because if I did I would have lost my assets and probably my mind too.

Holding Bitcoin should be treated like having gold bars in our home. We invest in security and if we should do it with our Bitcoin mostly if we do have tons of Bitcoin in our wallet we should invest in a hardware wallet to be safe.

You are very right bud, let's assume we are talking about altcoins, I would say that, there is no harm, actually, several altcoins have staking ability even in the decentralized form, for example, like staking Sol in the Solana blockchain, staking Renec in the Renec blockchain, that is, you stake with a validator to interest on the end of every epoch.
That is one part of altcoins that I like, but unfortunately, such staking is not available for bitcoin, every staking that involves real bitcoin(not WBTC) has to be centralized, and investors have to really decide whether its the interest they earn from centralized platform is  one that is more important to them, or the safety of their hodling, their precious bitcoin.

They commonly say a bird in hand or at hand, is worth millions of birds that flying all around in the bush - meaning the bitcoins you have in your custody is greater than any amount of interest any centralized platform would promise you.

Very good point noted by OP, yes just holding is not the main thing if we don't know how to secure our btc. Hackers are trying new methods to steal btc and keeping btc fully securely is now a challenging. Every wallet claimed that our btc will be secured but only few are trustable. There are Three types of people who holding btc.

1: Advance users: The users who holding vey big amount then multisig is best option for them.
2: Intermediate: Those users who are holding more than 1 btc should use hardwallet ledger or trazor and also purchase from official website.
3: Beginners: Those users who holding low amount and cannot bear hardware wallet should use Open source wallet like electrum. Recovery phrase should be written down in hardcopy and avoid public wifi.

I think All BTC should not be hold in one wallets. splitting btc into different wallet will increase our security.

For me hodling is only for those who have extra money to invest but for us who have no extra cash I don't think we can hodl. 😅 If only I had the chance to hodl a single or even a fraction of a Bitcoin, I'll leave it like 5-10 years on my wallet for future purposes. Hodling is also like staying away from stress because you do not need to do anything except to wait. And my wallet of choice would be Mycelium or Electrum as I've been using them since 2017.

Getting informed first is the portion that most people avoid doing in order to know the benefits and drawbacks of their investment and to avoid investing in things they don't fully understand, including security measures, which are required to be understood. yet the only activity I saw many people engaging in is the reckless leaving of Bitcoin in exchanges after purchasing it.  and even trading while following Channels to start earning money while taking the risk. Most wallets are scams and have beginners who don't even know which wallet to use most of them don't even care about wallets at all all they want to do is buy and leave their money in exchange for forgetting not your coins or keys. More than enough free information is available on the forum, and questions can even be posed for more clarification.  which is actually a pretty solid one, along with effective risk management.

And also to those who didn't know how to trade but wanted to be part in the crypto space.

I wanted to learn trading so that I may live a better life in the future without having to worry about getting money. That's all a lie since I was under a lot of stress when I first started trading because I believed my life would be easy, but it's not. Those successful traders have gone through similar experiences, but since they remain focused on their aims and didn't give up, they achieved what they want. I hope to be one of them someday.

DYOR is necessary when investing in crypto, this is to end up buying a worthy coins with utility and not just a coin that is existing because of hype. If we're going to hold Bitcoin, using a hardware wallet is advisable to secure our assets. So even you'll hold for long period, your Bitcoin is safe.

But some investors are using a custodial wallet or exchanges to store their coins which is a mistake. If you don't hold your keys then you're not the one controlling your assets. Sometimes one needs to experience losing their money before realizing the mistakes they did. Well, probably many of us also experience this especially when we're just a beginner in crypto.

Its true, HODL has become more than just a word; its a movement. But with that movement comes vulnerabilities. When you bring together masses, you attract the shadows of scammers and hackers lurking in the digital corners. This isn't just irrational worry on paper; it's the cold, hard truth. The numerous apps and wallets promise security, but how many can truly stand up to that claim?

When people see numbers, like "2,790 Bitcoin-related apps" or "288 hardware wallets", they get a false sense of security. But in reality? Its a big trap. Each one could potentially be a ticking bomb of vulnerability. Vigilance isnt a choice; its a survival instinct. Every person holding Bitcoin is not just an investor; they're a guardian of their own digital fortress.

Stay alert, stay awake, and most importantly, question everything. Even those hardware wallets and apps

But that's the best way to hold your coins, there's no other way to increase the security.

At least if you've do everything to make sure your coins are secure e.g. not trust any centralized site, use open source wallet and exchange, limiting your activities, protect your privacy etc, the probability you will lose your coins is near 0%.

It’s really a strong word that gives hope to thousands of bitcoiners all over the world. We are all aware of bitcoin’s potential but It’s not just about hodling, just as OP said don’t just hodl blindly without knowing how to safeguard our assets. There are quite a number of people whose sole purpose is to steal people’s bitcoin and if you don’t safeguard your assets there won’t be anything to hodl and the halving event we are all waiting for will be missed. This post will be beneficial to newbies who just come into the crypto world.

Lol what an epic post about HODL ;D

When I first encountered the word HODL and learned what it meant, I was puzzled as to why the word was spelt differently and why they weren't simply spelt 'hold' so that anyone new to cryptocurrency could easily understand it meaning but then I thought to myself maybe there was a serious story behind the derivation of the term.

When you use Electrum you don't have to trust anything, it is open source and you can verify the code, and it is also a self custodial wallet, so you control your keys and seed phrase, so most of your own part after verifying everything is then to ensure that an attacker does not get your keys or seed phrase.
There is no such thing as 100% security, but there are methods to achieve the best and most reliable kind of security, and one of that is by using well reviewed open source wallets, and by using them in a completely airgapped device. If your device is offline, you should never plug anything into it, and never connect it to the internet.

Yeah, you are right, OP. Definitely, the reason why investors hold their Bitcoin is for the purpose of selling during a bull market when the APY on their investment is up to what they expect, but it will be effortless for someone to hold their investment carelessly and lose it to hackers. Some people, too, after holding for a long time, would just make small mistakes, which can just cause them to be compromised, and before they knew it, they had lost their investment. There's a saying that "wherever your treasure is hidden, there your mind will be." So, as a Bitcoin investor, the best thing to do is guide your asset jealously and let your security be paramount to you.

Investment comes from profit incentivization, not from funny experience. It is natural to wait for chances to take profit with all investors.

Mistakes come from the beginning, how they store bitcoin. Their bitcoin is stolen because things happened in the past, from decisions to store bitcoin on online accounts, in custodial wallets, hot wallets. What we see after a hack happened looks simple but the real cause is hidden far in the past.

Security checklist for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency holders (https://chainsec.io/checklist/)
Reminder: Do not keep your money in online accounts (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421039.0)
If unknown about a wallet, Walletscrutiny.com (https://walletscrutiny.com/) can help.

LOL, kill the joke. Do you mean you don't have a job that you are earning from? The extra money to buy and hold Bitcoin is not that you must have $ 1000 first or $ 500 before you can buy; you can start accumulating your Bitcoin for as little as $10 per week or every two weeks, depending on what you are able to afford. I believe you spend more than $100, so you could just spare $20 every month to invest in Bitcoin. I really don't know your financial state, but investing in Bitcoin is not about putting in a huge amount first. You can just do it as your normal savings, or don't you save too?  ::)

Everything in this world is only relative and nothing is absolute, so no matter what methods and best equipment we use, there will be problems that we cannot predict. Yes, there really is no 100% security, but we should take the utmost responsibility with our bitcoins because this is our precious asset and our future. Therefore, it is our duty to use what we consider the best ways to protect our bitcoins. There may be rare incidents but at least we won't regret trying our best. And I think if we are strict about security, I believe rare incidents will happen very rarely.

What's the connection between this thread and KYC? This is a decision about practicing HODLing wisely, not about data verification.

Storing crypto can be achieved without the necessity of undergoing KYC, even if you acquire it through a centralized exchange (CEX); it doesn't guarantee that every exchange will enforce KYC, although some may have certain limitations in place.

Appreciate the Timely advice  8)

But in the name of hodling wisely and securely,  this isn't as easy as it sounds as not everyone has the technical know-how on choosing the best wallets as they believe that anything found on these app stores are legit when in fact not!!
Android devices being the most used devices in the world, I think Google fellas aren't doing enough to protect their users either as some apps have been reported to be fake, duplicates,  malware etc which compromises on our security and these apps keep finding themselves on the Store.

Obviously there is no point in HODLing Bitcoin forever. One must sell his bitcoin whenever he is getting adequate profit. If you see price history of bitcoin then its very much evident that there are ample opportunities to buy back bitcoin. Bitcoin went upto 67k$ and we recently saw it touching 16k$.
Security of your Bitcoin is on shoulders of its owners unlike in fiat model. You need to remain vigilant all the time to keep your Bitcoins safe. Its also an irony that many don't take Bitcoin security seriously unless they meet with some security incident.

While HODLing Bitcoin forever may not be the best approach, assuming that historical price performance determines the best course is unwise. The economic system may be changing before our eyes, thus established indicators may not apply.

Talking about Bitcoin security as a personal responsibility is like disregarding a larger drama. Who knows whether powerful entities want you to down your guard? As for those not taking security seriously, perhaps its all part of a bigger ploy to divert attention and concentrate power. Bitcoin is the new battlefield of anti-centralization.

I think those that speak of holding bitcoin forever or at least for a very long amount of time, do so because they think that at some point bitcoin will be accepted all over the world, and as such the need to convert bitcoin to fiat will disappear as you will be able to use bitcoin directly to buy whatever you want at all times, still it makes more sense to me to be willing to sell some of your bitcoin when its price is very high, so you can use that fiat to enter the market again once the price is lower.

Of course, hodlers should always be responsible enough to not just hold but focus on the highly potential coins that will most likely succeed the volatility of the market, and as hodlers, we are obliged to secure our wallet 24/7 so that scammers and hackers will never see any opportunity to get in. Beginners should be more aware of this as they might be thinking that while hodling is less risky, then we could just hold as easy as it is.

When the choice is to hodl, better choice is to do it in an offline wallet. Going through the provided source it is an easy task to find the right one. Just move the fund to be hodl and keep it secure. With bitcoin we shouldn't make any mistake and even a small mistake will make us experience big loss. Most of the users could've experienced it and it is always good to know the consequences and stay safe. I personally got trapped by a wallet and lost little bitcoin, and this happened almost 6 years back. The value according to that time period looks small. Now the same could've turned atleast few thousand dollars in value.

Sometimes. The best way to hold and store your bitcoins is that which is readily available. You can't disregard just how protective simply jotting your seedphrase on your wallet or something secure like a safety vault. That's why I always say "use whatever you have at your hand" when people ask me what's the best form of saving and securing your wallet.

As for holding bitcoins, the same could be said. You don't need any convoluting strat to hold and store bitcoins especially if you're just a beginning investor. It's much better to build discipline storing those bitcoins and keeping them saved without you getting tempted to take them out or something along those lines. As a beginner, don't trouble yourself with these hard to understand and confusing concepts. It's much better to stick to the basics and learn the fundamentals first before trying out something new.

There might be thousand available to store your wallet but there are only few that we can  call as safest way to keep and HODL your bitcoin.

there is only one simple word that we keep telling everyone since the beginning and that is "Not your KEY , Not your Bitcoin"

so those application you provide might be good for having bitcoin but not for completely holding.

I may say that the only safest way is when you are having your KEY on your own possession .

There are indeed many alternative ways to use household tools, but they are not the "best" storage as far as I know. You'll at least have to make some tool upgrades to meet durability and strength standards, but it'll still cost you money. It's no different from buying a hardware wallet product that is done by experts.
The bottom line is, if you want the best wallet, you have to spend some of your money.

We must hold carefully. We can safely hold any wallet with our own caution, skill and intelligence. All information in our own wallets must be kept secure at our own responsibility. Before placing your money in the wallet you need to be sure how secure your wallet is, it is very important. Fully secure your wallet before placing it in your bitcoin wallet. And handle it wisely.

Guess we're thinking alike. Just made a post about security and the factors we should look Into to avoid such mistakes. Nowhere is safe but where we keep our assets is very crucial

Thanks for this thread, as I have seen many people who says they are bitcoin holders many of them don’t even have real bitcoin all they have is some fake coins which can’t be withdrawn from the app which they downloaded from play store and be wasting their time that they are mining the bitcoin when all that can’t be withdrawn into their private wallet such people are off the league of holders.

I was also part of the people who hold bitcoin in some of the close source wallet in the past, but right now I have observe and learn the risk involved on the kind of wallet that I use. So I have made move of using one of the recommended wallet on the forum for safe keeping of my bitcoin.

That's the first thing every Bitcoin holder would do because holding your coins in a wallet where its safe is actually the best thing and idea that an investor could possibly fail to do because it's his asset and putting it in the wrong place will just guarantee him loss of asset so I think this part is pretty much covers by the investors need to secure his money or should I say Bitcoin. Protecting your wallet is certainly same thing as securing your bank apps but the two vaguely difference is that in one of these, you are no longer in control of your funds while latter is the case for the other.

I didn't know that there have been hundreds of hardware wallets because with what I know, I thought that they're like just handful in numbers.
But yes, we've got a lot of ways to hold our Bitcoin but not all that are stored in the playstore should be downloaded because many of them are like traps.
Traps that are waiting for some negligent users that won't check the background of what they're downloading and sadly if they transfer and deposit their Bitcoin there, who knows if there's someone behind that app waiting for that prey.

I love the word hodl wisely, most newbie like me fail to hodl wisely due to some reasons or I don't know sometimes for the love of quick money forgetting that bitcoin investment does not work like that. Most people get over excited about bitcoin investment and they end up falling into the hands of scammers. I don't know if this is common in crypto like in fiat, when an individual just create a new bank account they're high chance falling a victim to the hands of scammers so I don't know if this is also in crypto(bitcoin) because the number of victims who fall into the trap of scammers are just too much. Ever since I joined this forum, this forum has enlighten me more about bitcoin investment and tips to secure bitcoin hodling. Last two weeks I read how a lady got scammed (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-66472918) and how it happened she also said she took the investment advert about bitcoin on Facebook, that's why I don't like following people advertising crypto online they're all scammers. Secondly I personally as a newbie starting my bitcoin journey I don't give attention to Unkown contact trying to talk about bitcoin investment.
https://www.hodlatm.com/scams

Actually in this case you should be able to change your mindset by equating trading and investment because in the end when you equate in terms of meaning then you can get a little lost in meaning so that you cannot distinguish whether it is trading or investment.
When we say hodl indirectly this will definitely refer to investment and I think it will be very naive if it is combined with the concept of trading because somehow this will be different.
Even though this is not too important for some people but I think it should be learned especially for beginners so that with that you can know what you should do and how to respond to a problem from hodl that must be done.

HOLD is a term that's used a lot around here, and its meaning is fairly obvious. However, I believe that even those who don't end up holding do so for a variety of reasons, including information processing and information they heard about how others are making money. These individuals want to invest and start making money, but they are unaware that bitcoin operates differently in fact, it may take some time for a person to start making money from bitcoin, which is why it's sometimes referred to as a long-term investment. And the issue of people falling into the hands of scammers is very frequent and will continue because the only thing people are concerned about is how they will make money out of their investment.  Been in this forum has a lot of privileges for everyone especially the investors.

We need to keep holding whatever cryptocurrency we have in our portfolio so that we can make profits from the market when the bull trend comes. The market is still ranging and we can still be making little profits from the market for those of us that know how to trade since the bull market has not finally comes. There arf different ways we can profits from the market and depending on how we tend to make profits from the market, we need to relax and keep holding no matter how small or big our Cryptocurrency assets could be.

Seeing this makes me happy, I’m always telling my friends that you don’t just hodl an asset and forget about it, you need to be wise with your hodling, i have most of my assets on flexible savings of which I still make interest up to 7% on them on Bitget exchange with their shark fin product, by that I’m not just hodling but I’m still using it to make more profits.

Before choosing to invest or trade, we must be able to distinguish between these two things so that we don't make a mistake in doing it, so it is very important for anyone who wants to start investing and also trading to understand them well so as not to make mistakes in doing so.
If they only have a little knowledge about this, it would be better for them to choose one of these two things so that they can easily do it because if they force themselves to combine trading and investing, they will certainly have difficulty doing it and there is a very high possibility of failure. in doing so, but in my opinion if we are just starting out, it would be better for us to choose to invest first and continue to seek knowledge about trading and investing.

Many of us are enthusiastic about holding Bitcoin for the long term because Bitcoin can give an investor multiple returns over the long term. But if we don't have a good idea about where to hold the bitcoins then after a long period of time we may loss our all holdings . Many of us try to hold bitcoin in various exchange platforms which must be abandoned. Because at any time an exchange platform can be hacked. I saw last few days ago that an exchange called Poloniex admitted to being hacked. They have been suspending their users' withdrawal money for quite some time now. If an investor loses his money after putting in a lot of effort then this investment platform can definitely turn out to be a curse for him. So before investing you must give utmost importance to the wallet and its security.

Truth be told, many new investors are just hyped by the thing "hodl" or hold, and there's nothing about that. You could just hold and store your assets in a secure wallet and let them grow long-term, but the thing is, you can't just buy and buy bitcoin or a fraction of bitcoin anytime you want; you need to know which time and moment it is good to buy bitcoin assets, so it still needs even basic knowledge about charting and analysis of the bitcoin market. I've known a few friends who decided to invest in bitcoin out of curiosity and immediately bought some of it, but the thing is, they don't analyse the market or the movement of bitcoin before purchasing, and in the end, they can't sell their bitcoin because the price goes down, resulting in locked assets as they will wait for the moment that their asset will turn green again.

These are correct, as you mentioned them in the link you provided. This can be considered basic information that newbies entering this bitcoin business should know. I hope newbies can read this because it's really a big help.

And the safest thing is to keep it as much as possible in a ledger, trezor, or hardware wallet so that there are no chances of hackers actually entering the assets we hold, whether it's bitcoin or cryptocurrency.

Electrum is great but I suggest you DYOR and try Sparrow sometime in the near future.

Actually hodl applies in trading and investment and the only difference is the mindset, if trading means expecting profits only in a short time or a maximum of one year. And this will also use hodl even though it is already making a profit, perhaps planning to do hodl longer to get bigger profits.
And the use of hodl for investment, this applies to long-term investments which may be very long and take years and the goal is only to get maximum profits or reach a new ATH.

I’m sure this is where the word DYOR comes in, you shouldn’t buy at anytime you wish or just by people telling you to buy, you should be research base and buy when it’s okay to buy. Since it’s spot, you can equally do spot copy trading on exchanges with the feature just like Bitget.

This practice is mostly common with banks as to compare to crypto industry. I read the story through the link you provided and it's evident and clear that the victim fall into the hands of scammers. I would have blamed her for being too gullible by trusting a total stranger online while money is involved but, I realized that it's possible for everyone to fall victim easily to this scammers if you are not smart enough. In crypto, the only possible way that someone can steal your assets is when you misplaced your keys or connect your wallet to unsecured sources.

It's foolishness of someone to give their login details, bank pin or wallet keys to friends or total strangers either in real life or online. Even the banks have been warning their customers to never share their pin with anyone, not even the bank staffs because they can never demand for pin online or phone calls. When you share your secret pin or keys with someone, you're also sharing your asset with them. Protect your wallet as you protect your life.

There is different between hodling and security. Security is when you protect your seed phrase and password of the wallet. And those things can be protected even though when you are not having any bitcoin in the wallet because you know that one day you will have in in the wallet so it should be secure from external used. And since bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency, the security of the portfolio is for personal, one have to be conscious about the wallet and it protection.

But using third party apps to secure the funds is not really advisable because most of those apps and not trustworthy. All what one have to do for the major security of the coins to steer clear from all including house members and friends but if you decide to show a trusted person in your family then no problem. And as it is said by others in radio stations and security measures. "Security is a personal business". Everyone has to secure their assets with whatever way you can.

I would give it a try, but the thing is it is only available for PC and Mac. For daily uses, I mostly use my phone and use a software wallet in it for transactions. It is quick and accessible in any place and as I am carrying the phone I am also carrying the wallet itself. Electrum has the option for Android and iOS platform. I can use my phone's security lock, then I can use app lock and finally the wallet having its own security lock. This makes it kind of secure but not entirely.

But when you were on the go and you really need to do a transaction, then having something in the palm of your hand is better than having nothing. I can easily use a separate wallet with less amount of Bitcoin and I can freely travel with it while having it in my phone. Also, I have become familiar with electrum wallet's interface. Trying something else might hurt my brain. Maybe I will stick to electrum wallet for now. But if there's availability for other platform as well for Sparrow Bitcoin wallet, I Will give it a try.

Hears out that you are just basically shilling out Bitget. We do have several or turns out to be that a very common feature on having those copy trading feature not only in Bitget. If you arent really that shilling then its really still a good consideration on dealing with such platform but if i were to those people who do have plans then better to stick into those known exchange. Its true that on the time that you would really be
dealing up with something then it is really just that right that you should really be doing in depth research on things and dont make yourself that be hasty when it comes on making up decisions.
Information could really be able to get in the internet but be careful that you should really be choosing on which is viable and non shady.

As for holding Bitcoin then nothing beats out if you do really make use of those non-custodial things considering that you are really that getting a hold or full control of those keys
on which you cant really be able to do such thing when you are really that dealing up with centralized platforms or things which arent that giving you
the access of your coins into your own wallet, you could really be able to tell the difference.

These two are actually different but we know that long term hodling will go into waste if we cannot assure the security of our wallet. That's why security should comes first so that all our money and efforts just to buy and hold the coins will never end up useless and see them stolen because we fail to assure the security of our own wallet. That means keeping the seed phrase only to ourselves, and not disclosing it to others even to your family and trusted friends.

A lot of us have only focused to buying and long term hodling because we aim for maximum profits in the future, but we tend to forget to provide high security to our wallet first which is very wrong. Bitcoin which is highly valuable should be kept privately and securely, otherwise hackers will be the one to benefit them in the future.

It is the right time to hold. People used to hold good volume of cryptocurrency, but the mistake done by them makes the holding go unused. Whether it is very few dollars worth of cryptocurrency or a huge amount of cryptocurrency, we need to be more responsible in keeping it securely. The control should be with us, We should never let the fund stored in a third party platform. We may think it is secure and the platform will take responsibility if some hack/issue arises. Not at all, they'll just show the terms and conditions of them and move on.

This time is good for holding because everyone heard about halving and if yet they are not holding their asset then it means that they are not serious about their money. Security is also very important because if you Put large amount of money but your selected wallet is not secure then it will never give you any profit but instead your own holded money will be hacked.

Actually bitcoin is decentralized so involvement of third party is not permitted here therefore it will be remain save but rest of security depends on us that in which wallet we are saving it and also save your keys securely as without it no body can get access to your asset in order to steal your money.

You are right OP, it not just about hodling but the question is how secured are your bags?
Just today, someone was sharing in a group I belong to how his wallet was exploited and funds removed because he sent a zero transaction to an address.
Funny thing the person in question is not even a newbie, but was caught off guard.
Also another person said he opened his algorand wallet he abandoned long time ago only to discover that the wallet has been exploited, funds moved out of the wallet and he lost complete control of the wallet.

Of course, we have seen this before that the main source of Bitcoin is to HOLD where you can get the most profit. This HODL word gives us the most faith in the future and plans to make money. There are many people who bought bitcoins four years ago and are holding on to the bitcoins for the halving. There are also individuals who will buy and hold Bitcoin before the halving only to HODL for the post-halving bull market in 2024 when Bitcoin will peak in hopes of high profits. Moreover, a user holding Bitcoin must store his funds carefully and safely, otherwise there are chances of many fraudsters and hackers hacking it. For that reason, it is safest for Bitcoin hodlers to use secure software and hardware wallets and to keep their keys safe.

Hodl. Ahh the nostalgia hits reading this post. Who else.

Yeah bro, I agreed with you that security is one of the main thing in cryptocurrency industry. Because the most difficult goal in the field of cryptocurrency is privacy and security, and the first step is to enter the industry, if this step is not strong, there may be difficulties in other matters.

What I mean is that the first step a person should take is to protect his assets but later think about investment or holding. Because when you don't have any assets then what to do with holding. So, before holding, you should not ignore whether the thing that I am holding has been preserved or not. So if the person realizes this thing, he cannot call Khabi Dhoka or lose his fund. And if someone ignores this thing, I think he is abusing himself, even if he knows that this is my first step and he does not put the assets in something safe, i.e. Hardware wallet.

No longer feeling nostalgic on this one because it has been a daily word for most of us.  ;D

The sad thing is that there are still people that let third party control what they are holding. They think that it's still the best option after all even if there have been incidents that it's not the best place and option to do. With having those experiences from the others that they don't have whole control to their bitcoin and other funds that they're allowing to be held by any platform.

That's the time that they're losing it all. Because instead of having a full custody to what they own, what matters to them is the trust that has been built through these platforms and they think that it's totally fine to get on them because they have been said to be trustworthy. But it's not all about the reputation but the reason why you're allowed to hold your own key when you choose to hold it on your very own wallet that provides you the seed phrase or private keys.

We should all be aware of these transactions as mostly common hack are now that when we add some token contract in our wallet and when we go through the wallet or any Dapp and swap that token which have more worth.

Then first they requires more Bnb just like 9$ to 12$ of Bnb it requires just to allowing the contract for the tokens that we have selected and received spam tokens.

Then after that it hacks our wallet and take away all the money that may be in our wallet. We can always take out ourselves from these type of scams as it is too common now a  days even with the top youtubers it happens.

OP, I see this as an advice not just a thread, this HODL is very common to every bitcoiner but the process of achieving outrightly is the major concern, I dont have much to say in this but I will to be enlightened to this effect, as holdler which wallet is the best to use, this thread has reminded me that one need to apply all the necessary strategy for he or she to be successful in the is approach, people has been losing custody of their wallet, it not a new thing, but I think choosing this right and well known wallet for holding will be the best decision for a holder, for me, I want to know the best wallet for this journey.

It seems like things like this have happened several times. holding should not just be about saving or investing our money in Bitcoin or certain coins for a certain period of time. but also how do we secure it from all kinds of losses. There are several cases when people who hold it then share it on social media proudly and say that they have some BTC in their wallet. In this case, maintaining privacy in holding is also very important because otherwise criminal crimes can occur very easily. So it's true that you have to be wise and smart in holding.

As far as I know, the Mycelium wallet is no longer good to use because of the number of issues that have arisen and have not been answered by Mycelium itself. Concerning issues were ignored. Then there are the others that are listed there that I have not tried either.

But the electrum on the desktop is really proven and tested; besides, the unstoppable is also good to use, according to my experience using it here too, to be honest.

The word "HOLD" is like a trigger for investors to hold on to the Bitcoin they own as long as they can to reach the highest level ever achieved in the past. Investors who believe in Bitcoin's future potential motivate themselves with the word HOLD so they don't easily slip up when Bitcoin starts to flash a red light on the market. Those who have begun to believe in their attitude will continue to try to hold Bitcoin to avoid all deception and negative issues that are visible or hidden so that they can pass safely. Investors who are always alert and act according to plan will gain greater profits when Bitcoin enters a bullish phase.

i’ve seen someone say that they buy btc and just forget about it until they’ve seen most profit and it’s time to take it out or sell it

i totally disagree with that kind of plan it’s still the best to check your btc every now and then even if you have clear plans of holding

like many people in this thread whom have shared cases of hacking or exploited wallets security is the main reason why we can’t just be lax we trust bitcoin and have confidence in it but we still need to be alert and smart

How secure are our bitcoins? It is much safer to download wallets from official websites or trusted sources rather than relying solely on the Play Store or App Store. Ways to protect bitcoins include using strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and keeping your private keys safe. Not sharing our personal information or wallet details with anyone. should consider using hardware wallets or cold storage for long-term storage of bitcoins, as these are considered the safest options. And always be wary of people or companies promising guaranteed returns or quick profits, as these are often red flags for potential scams. Fund security should always be the top priority when choosing a cryptocurrency wallet. HOLD wisely means not only holding bitcoins, but also protecting them from potential threats.

Yeah. It is very important to be very careful with the contract we interact with.

These days they send all manner of Phish token to your wallet and waiting for unsuspecting victims to interact with them, if you do, that will be the end of your wallet.

And I think also as a precaution because you never can't be too sure of the sites you're interacting with on your dapp. It is important that you revoke access.
You can do this by visiting: revoke.cash

HODL is loosely used though which is the problem, hodling should be long-term and people use the term for holding a bitcoin for a month, 6 months or a year when in reality long-term should be around 5 years onwards because that's how long-term investment is measured, my scaling isn't even that accurate as I considered 5 years as long-term, that's why HODL means hold on for dear life. Belief in the potential of bitcoin is something that should be a prerequisite when you plan to invest in bitcoin because without that belief, you aren't going to last long because bitcoin is a volatile asset to hold and you're going to have a hard time because those volatilities in the market is anxiety and panic inducing, if you can't handle those as a person then bitcoin isn't for you also worth adding is that belief in bitcoin that it's going to liberate us from the undermining and old financial system should go hand in hand with our belief that it's going to go up in terms of it's market value.

I think one of the safest ways people are using is to move their assets to a hardwallet. But the disadvantage if using this method is that whenever there is a snapshot, you might not be captured, and this could make you lose out  of possible Airdrop. That's why some people only move their stable coins to the hardwallet and leave other tokens in their custodial wallets.

I think the purpose of holding should never be that you don't sell your bitcoin even if you get a good profit. It is not necessary to sell your Bitcoin when you need the money but always wait for the bull season where the price of Bitcoin always touches its all-time high. I think it would be better if it was linked to Bull Season instead of five years.

Fluctuations are a part of this market and one should never be afraid of it, but these fluctuations are the stepping stones to our profits which are increasing day by day, but along with just holding here, it's also clear that you're holding your bitcoins as well as keeping them safe. Just as we thoroughly evaluate the security measures of all our valuables, we must fully understand the security measures of Bitcoin. This is because our little carelessness and one mistake can lead to our big loss.