Bitcoin Forum

Hi, im new in crypto, and i want to know what wallet its the best for hold bitcoin?

For high amount, wallet on airgapped devices are the best for security. You can make your unused (like your old) device to be airgapped to set up Electrum cold storage (https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html) or use airgapped hardware wallet.

For small amount, there are mobile and computer options like Electrum, Sparrow, Bluewallet and Unstoppable wallet.

Most important criteria to choose wallets are non-custodial (self-custodial), open source, and reputation of the wallet.

With non-custodial (self-custodial), you have mnemonic seed/ private keys, and it means you have access to your bitcoins, you actually control your bitcoin and don't rely on any custodian to get access.

With open-source, that wallet is reproducible from source code. It can be reproduced by anyone who can do it technically and developers can test, and review it from source code.

Reputation of the wallet means, whether it has any hack in history.

You can check wallet reviews there https://walletscrutiny.com/

Bitcoin Core is very good if you want to go with a full node, for privacy but it requires big disk space for storing a whole blockchain. If you can not have it, you can use a prune node.

Electrum is a SPV wallet and you can set up a single signature wallet, multi-signature wallet, cold storage wallet too.
Verify wallet file you download.
[Guide] Verify and download Electrum wallet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5240594.0)
Creating a multisig wallet (https://bitcoinelectrum.com/creating-a-multisig-wallet/)
Creating a cold storage wallet (https://bitcoinelectrum.com/creating-a-cold-storage-wallet-in-electrum/)
The paranoid user's security guide for using Electrum safely. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5456886.0)

Choose your wallet with filters https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Hardware wallets
[List] Open Source Hardware Wallets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5288971.0)
[GUIDE] How to buy a Hardware Wallet the right way (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5288201.0)

I’d recommend a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S or Trezor.

If you're new to crypto and you want to buy and hold Bitcoin for long term then I suggest you to go for Electrum cold wallet. Electrum is the best option for holders and it's quite user-friendly as well. I've been using it as hot as well as cold wallet for many years and so far I haven't faced any issue. That's why I suggest you to go for it as well.

Electrum on Linux OS gets the job done. I've never needed anything else. It is fast, trusted and light. I can't ask more since it has everything I need.

Trezor is still good but Ledger Nano wallets are all not good. They have close source secure elements and also having online means of storing seed phrase. The company do not care about their users privacy. You are not in full control of your coins if you go for the third party seed phrase backup. If it is only Ledger wallets that are available in the market and no other wallet is existing, I will prefer not to use a hardware wallet at all.

Trezor, not Ledger.

Ledger is close source.
Ledger was hacked many times and had several data breaches.

Ledger Recover: What The Hell is Happening? (https://www.youtube.com/live/9scIevuymZM)
Understanding Ledger Recover: Concerns From Experts and The Community (https://www.coingecko.com/learn/ledger-recover-community-concerns)

Close source and privacy are different but close source hardware wallet is not recommended and Ledger has bad security on user data base too.
Ledger data leak: A ‘simple mistake’ exposed 270K crypto wallet buyers (https://cointelegraph.com/news/ledger-data-leak-a-simple-mistake-exposed-270k-crypto-wallet-buyers).

Do you mean HODL?  :P

Now that you know the recommended wallets, I suggest you also take the time to learn how to properly transact using the wallet and, most importantly, how to safeguard it.

As someone who have used electrum wallet I'll tell you that it is one of the best and comes highly recommended. Just know that if you have ever heard anything bad thing about electrum wallet it is definitely the fault of the user. The developers made it very secure and easy to use. However if you don't like the electrum wallet and are looking for options, the rule of thumb is to look for wallets that are open sourced. Secondly do not download them from a third party website. There's also are instructions on how to verify the authenticity of wallets on their website, follow the instructions to check if it the real deal or counterfeit.

I have used Ledger Nano S until the Ledger recover has been introduced. Trezor is better than Ledger and that's what the community has already accepted. But OP, if you don't have money yet to purchase a hardware wallet, it's best to start with Electrum but make sure that you're on the right link because too many wrong and fake websites have copied them long time ago, and even now.

This is the right link for it and they have that warning;

If you don't have budget to buy a hardware wallet, then Electrum cold storage is your best option it should be good for long-term holding BTC.

But if you want much secured then use Tails OS it comes with a pre-install electrum, You can generate your wallet from there and only backup the seed phrase in a safe place, or write them down on the paper and make a copy of 2 or 3 public addresses where you want to deposit BTC.

Once you've done that, you can now deposit a BTC in your public address. You can import these public addresses to Electrum Mobile as a watch-only wallet.
You can follow the guide from this "[Tutorial] How to make a cold storage Bitcoin wallet with TailsOS and USB Flash (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5354489.0)"

I use a Hardware Wallet (will not mention the exact name of the brand for obvious reasons) as it's the best. The User Interface provided by these HWs are much better and easier to use, also provides and extra layer of security as compared to downloading and using Electrum on a Windows PC or even on a MacOS/Linux platform. And for a little amount of money, I also use wallets like Metamask.

It depends on your capability and the amount you want to spend for a wallet. Yes, you heard it right. You can buy hardware wallets like Trezor to store your bitcoins. They are the safest wallet options possible. But yes, only use the wallet if you are planning to hold a good amount of Bitcoins and if you are able to afford the Trezor wallet. If you are holding something small and want it for free, then Electreum is the best wallet available online. I am sure there will be millions of tutorials available on the internet about these wallets’s uses. Go through that and use according to your convenience.

Some other guides on TailOS.

• How to Install Tails OS on USB flash drive for Wallet Purpose (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5228801.0)
• Running Electrum from TAILS Temporary Live Boot Session (https://forkdrop.io/running-electrum-on-tails)

Best wallet depends on many thing, no one see a best wallet like others because they have different demands. Explanation about it.
How do I choose a wallet? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN6b62sEpsY)

If you can secure your small fund, you will not be able to secure your big fund.

If can not afford fund to buy a hardware wallet like Trezor, Eletrum wallet is good, or best, wallet to use, because it is free, open source, and light in storage requirement. Additionally, with Electrum wallet, you can have different setups: single signature, multi signature, and cold storage.

I've tried multiple wallets, as I dont hold much funds that need cold storage, still its a decent amount and I've stored those coins in hot wallets, not all of them in a single one but I've used the distributed wallets strategy to ensure about the security of my funds although it's a bit hard to manage all those private keys and seeds, I've done it properly. So coming to the main point I'm currently using Electrum, and some other web 3 Hot wallets like Bitget, Trust wallet, etc, with smaller amounts distributed over all of them.

If you want reliability and long-term security solution go for the cold storage wallets ASAP.

Welcome to bitcoin talk. Firstly I suggest you take your time to do some proof reading about the bitcoin ecosystem and most especially how to secure your coins. With that being said, since you wish to HODL some coins, I suggest you make use of a hardware wallet just like Charles Tim suggested. if not you can also set up an airgapped device. If you wish to use an old PC for that, make sure to change your OS to something open source like Linux depending on your understanding and preference.

Anyways if you feel you can't do any of these you can simply make use of an open source wallet like ELECTRUM on your device. Anyways make sure to be very careful as connecting your wallets to the internet has a higher risk of vulnerability compared to a hardware wallet.

Hot wallet - Electrum
Cold wallet - Trezor but there are many options to suit your needs and budget.

If you are just starting to invest in bitcoin then choose a hot wallet (Electrum) or BlueWallet which can be installed on your android mobile, honestly for the mobile version of Electrum I don't like the look.

I used electrum desktop for long time holding at least months, and its mobile version for mobile regardless the looks since i only do it for doing transactions.

And yeah, maybe you are wondering why most people suggest electrum, because its open source, trusted and used by many.

Airgapped wallet are secure but not that it is much secure because of the OS, only just that the Electrum is preinstalled on Tails but other operating system like Linux is good also for wallet. Linux is also open source. The wallet would be offline which should make Windows and macOS not to be a problem. I do not like Windows and macOS for online wallets but not bad if the device is airgapped because only what the device will send to other wallet is PSBT.

Electrum is the most trusted wallet used for their bitcoin HODL, in the past they used this wallet because over time the investment grew, so they bought a Trezor hardware wallet and here they store many assets including bitcoin as the mainstream investment.

Since you are new to the crypto world, you can start by learning first, some of the links above are very important for you to know and how important it is to store assets in your own wallet rather than CEX.

It's much more important how you keep your seed words backup, but if you only want to hold bitcoin long term than I would suggest creating wallet in offline device and only use it to receive coins.
If you want to be active and send/receive coins more often than you can create secondary hot wallet and use it for this purpose.
Electrum wallet is a good start for newbies.

What if he has large amount of coins on the offline device, not doing frequent transactions but sending some amount to online wallet for frequent transactions. He can be using QR code if he is afraid of bluetooth, NFC and USB for sending the PBST and the ST. QR code for transferring the PBST and ST is highly recommendable. If the wallet remains as cold wallet like airgapped device wallet, it remain safe if the seed phrase are safely backed up.

Electrum wallet is the best wallet for holding bitcoins and you will be comfortable with the years you want the bitcoins to remain in your wallet before you can sell, it will be safe for you. You can see that many people has recommend you to choose electrum wallet in this thread, but if you don't want electrum wallet, you can try trust wallet which I know is also safe for holding bitcoins for long period of time before you can make use of the bitcoins, and you can use the trust wallet for short term and long term holding.

I've seen a lot of people suggesting this and a lot of them using them, but to be honest, I don't recommend or trust web3 hot wallets such as Trust Wallet, Bitget Wallet, Binance Web3 Wallet, or any other web3 wallet. The reason is simple, you are only provided with a seed phrase for your wallet that you can use to import your wallet in the same wallet in case you lose your phone or your app resets, etc. However, you are not given control of private keys for specific assets.

What if the wallet service suddenly stops and you can't access the wallet anymore? You can't import your wallet in any other software using the seed phrase because it's not supported. So in such a case, you will lose your funds.

This is why, if someone uses such wallets, they should only use it for regular transactions, etc. Don't make the mistake of storing your funds in such wallets because they are not good for such things.

I hope OP that you will come back and will recognize the replies that has been made for your question. The majority answered you with either Electrum for desktop and a hardware wallet.

It's fine to put some small amounts on those wallets that you've mentioned. If you're into airdrops or trading, you're moving here and there with the funds that you have there actively to save fees. But it's not a good choice for holding.

Welcome to the Bitcoin Forum.  If you are new to crypto you must know Bitcoin well If you know Bitcoin well then proceed to invest and you must use good trusted wallet to hold the investment.  But I can suggest you to use electrum wallet, trust wallet as good trusted wallet.  But of course you need to keep the seed phrase safe while using all these wallets.

That's is the common question and many users are asking on both online and offline. there are many online wallet Non-custodial are available but we want to use the best wallet for our fund Safety. must of the time i use Electrum wallet when i hold more then $2k in bitcoin but less then this amount i hold them on exchangers because i use such amount for short-term holding and for the Short time investment i think holding on exchange is better because it’s save transcation cost. but it is also risky because when we hold our cryoto on any centralized platform Then it is subordinated to others.  So if somehow that platform goes bankrupt or a scam then we lose the funds. As it happened the popular exchange FTX

Personally, I prefer keeping my funds on an exchange because it offers more flexibility with lower fees when withdrawing funds.
It’s also convenient for buying more, selling a portion, or even purchasing another coin with those funds. Plus, it allows me to trade more easily. Among the exchanges,
I would highlight Binance, BingX, and Bybit, as they seem to be the most comfortable, user-friendly, and reliable in my opinion.

It's hard to say Electrum wallet is the most trusted wallet. I agree that Electrum is a good wallet, open source, non custodial, good history and reputation, but I disagree to say it's the most trusted wallet.

Who are they?

You can not generalize everything like this.

Newbies can get started with these learning resources.
First steps of learning about Bitcoin (https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/getting-started.html)
Learning Bitcoin for beginners (https://learnmeabitcoin.com/beginners/)

Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421039.0)
Not your keys, not your coins (https://chainsec.io/nyknyc/)
Bitcoin Q&A on "Not your keys, not your coins" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcrEEnDLm58)