Bitcoin Forum

I know none of them are optimal. But if you had to choose, would you store your coins on an exchange or on a mobile wallet?

Stupid question, but if I will must store all-in one place, I will choose mobile wallet. At least it's trustless unlike exchange that require trust and can be easily hacked compared to mobile wallet.

Really, I don't recommend storing all bitcoins in just one place. Use cold storage to secure larger amounts of BTC. Don't use exchange as wallet. Mobile wallet are only safe enough to secure your pocket money, no more. I'm not responsible for money loss, losing job, falling into debt, unable to feed yourself or not having money for bills.

Depends.

Some mobile wallets are just web "wallets" with a mobile interface (like the Coinbase app for example).  Other mobile wallets (like Breadwallet for example), allow access to your private keys.  With that kind of wallet, I'd much prefer having it to holding on an exchange.

When the price goes mental in times like this exchanges all go crazy and I wouldn't trust a single one of them with my coins.

Of course i would choose mobile wallet! actually i'm currently using one (mycelium, one of the best mobile wallet) to store <1 BTC, it's only for spending purpose though.

For storing purposes none.

But if such cases that I need to choose to one of them then I will select mobile wallet that isn't owned by bitcoin exchanges. Bitcoin exchanges like Coinbase, XAPO, Coinsbank etc. have mobile app version. That was some of the examples that I will not used for storing the bitcoin case. Electrum and Mycelium would be the best option. Aside from we can keep our private keys here, they are both having a good feedback since their inception as a wallet. For satisfaction, don't just listen to positive reviews but try it for yourself and sees if the feedback is quite close to reality.

How is it a stupid question? What if you can't find any other place to store your coin? I am not talking about BTC that has wallet support everywhere.

And so far I have not found anyone who have been able to motivated why Mobile wallets are only safe enough to store pocket money compared to Desktop Wallets. They are both essentially computers that both can have problem with malware. But I see no reason why mobile have a bigger problem with malware than regular computers, and there are good virus scanners on phone also. I use BitDefender virus and malware scanner on both my PC and my phone. Please motivate.

I assume the coins you are pertaining to is Bitcoin and I will answer based from my assumption.

I will definitely store my bitcoins in my mobile wallet. I would rather use mobile wallets that exchange wallet. They can easily make my wallet disappear from their database and in worst case, they might end up closing their exchange and all my wallet gone, forever.

exchange... i don't really trust mobile wallets..

popualar exchanges have cold wallets.

Actually mobiles are much less prone to virus. It's not a virus itself as I don't believe that mobile are being virus especially the Android. Just want to add that if ever a person any types of wallets on different platforms, the key is to have a self methods to make our coins safe and not just relying on specific wallet's feature. Say example for mobile wallets, there is a case that you will lost your coins but you login credentials are there in your phone, if the person who will get your phone knows about bitcoin then probably they will get it. Keeping private keys is the most important so even in case of lost phone, you will have some ways to deal on it.

For topic, I will choose a mobile wallet. But if I always dealing with the services that only bitcoin web wallets have then I will used the exchange instead. I know of using it after all so I have some guidelines to minimize the risks.

If you have Google Authenticator + 2 step verification (mail code) enabled, isn't that like really good defense vs getting hacked? I have the most important coin (XBY!!!) stored in offline wallet but I feel like my small parts of other coins are pretty safe on Exchanges with those autheticators and such.

+1

If you want to keep it for the long run and not use it day to day or even monthly, then i would take them offline and save your private key. Otherwise small amounts are okay on an exchange if you accept that it can go missing - however unlikely.

It will probably protect you from getting you account hacked like thieves typically do - they take over your phone number by calling to your operator, take over your email account with your phone number and than use restore password to get into your exchange account. So, 2FA from Google protects you from this, but if exchange gets hacked on higher level, like it happened with Bitfinex, nothing will protect you.

I wud prefer paper or hardware wallet to store coins

Both exchange and mobile wallet have provided by the 3rd party which means there will be no a reason for me to store my amount on both of wallets.

At least the mobile wallet offering the more security measure. But most of the people are using the blockchain wallet.

That means the demand of the web wallet is really high.
Paperwallet,SPV is better.

I would rather save my coins where i am the rightful owner of the private keys rather than saving my coins in an exchange or in web wallets,always make sure that all of your wealth must be in your hands and that is the vision what this is all about and i would not want to risk it with third parties.

Storing on an exchange is like the worst thing you can think off. It's basically letting someone hold your bitcoins for you, the same thing as the banks do nowadays. So if you started to use bitcoins and in this way avoid banks, why would you search for an alternative of it? Besides that, a lot of exchanges turn into scams so that is a really risky move to do if you hold the money that you cannot afford to lose.

Mobile wallet (I assume just a regular online wallet) is definitely a better choice to make. With it you can store your bitcoins safely, though if your phone has some viruses or someone else gets hold of your phone, you might lose it. Plus you shouldn't hold any bitcoins online whatsoever.

As for an advice I could recommend you to get a hardware wallet which is the safest way to store your bitcoins right now. If you don't want to buy it or you can't afford it (because it's kinda expensive at 120$ or so) then just print off several paper wallets from an offline computer and store your bitcoins there. There are no chances someone are going to steal your bitcoins from those.

If I will have my money allocated for trade which will be my capital for a particular trade then I will keep them in an exchange on which I will do the trade while if I will have my own money in bitcoin which will be for my use then I will prefer a mobile phone bitcoin wallet for getting access to them anywhere with convenient.

I just wanna store my bitcoin in a place where i can controll my private key simple as that, if mobile wallet allowed you to controll the private key then no doubt for using it, i will store my bitcoin in exchanger if i know who's the owner, the company, same location with me the point is so many things that you must considerate before storing your coins out there since you're trusting somone to hold your money.

I also use blockchain mobile wallet, as long as we are careful in using our device, undoubtedly our bitcoin will be safe

I will save bitcoin in both of them, mobile wallet and exchange but save in different amount just in case as I don't put all of eggs in one basket. I have small amount of bitcoin, but still divide it into several mobile wallet and very small amount in an exchange too for cash out if I need money. If I have more bitcoin, than offline wallet for cold storage is another option to save my bitcoin for long term, the plan is clear and I'm still learning about it.

You are in the Bitcoin Discussion section, everyone assumes you're talking about BTC to begin with.


There are several factors to this. Most people know how to protect themselves and identify infections on desktop. However this platform is considered more "unsafe" than phones, because there are many computers out there (mainly with Windows), thus hackers have more to gain developing for this platform.

Smartphones are more "recent" and considered safer because there are less viruses out there. However, with the growth of these systems, hackers are "encouraged" to find holes in softwares, and people wouldn't probably recognize if their system was compromised.

Common issues people have with coins on phones is when phones are rooted/jailbroken...

Phones can serve as cold storage too, and be pretty good at it. Except if they're compromised to begin with :) ex: bad RNG.


Probably. How are you so sure of that? How do you know your coins are stored on those cold wallets and not on hot wallets?


They may be safe from hackers that want to access your account, but not from hackers that are aiming for the whole exchange, or the exchange itself.

Cellphones are very easy to hack, I wouldn’t suggest anyone to store any Bitcoins on their phones without knowing the proper security to defend an attack on their phone. I usually have some Bitcoins on bitcoin exchanges just in case I wanted to send some Bitcoins on the go and that’s about it.

I think saving on a trading site has good security to, at least not using too large transaction costs when making a withdrawal

Simply, I don't agree with you. It depends what mobile wallet are  you using because there are many exchanges that have their mobile apps but still the money is in exchanges. For example Mycelium is a good mobile wallet which is safe enough as long as you stay safe. Exchanges of course that have hot and cold wallets but we have seen many times that those "cold" wallets are getting hacked easily.

Me in my own point of view in terms of storing bitcoins i would rather choose storing bitcoins from my bitcoin wallet app or hardware wallet on my mobile instead of using exchange sites as medium of storage.I feel more secure on my mobile

I'm storing all my btc in a mobile app called coins.ph :D

If I were you, I would rather go with the mobile exchange based on the fact that those aren't the things in the Bitcoin community that are so 'hacking prone' though I wouldn't recommend leaving it in a place where you're not in the person in control of your private keys. I'd rather use something like BitGo, or one of those Desktop wallets where you're the only person that owns the keys SO you're the person that owns the bitcoin in the wallet itself.
Trading site, like an exchange, is not going to be secure in the least.  So I would just ignore THIS FELLA as he seems a little dim on the topic.

Mobile wallet as I can make a backup file and store that somewhere safe, for large amounts though a mobile wallet is not really the best option to choose from but is more reliable than an exchange that could run away with my money like a bandit in the night.

Some Bitcoin exchanges have pretty good security though since it’s Bitcoin there is a chance that the owner of that website will run with the money and you won’t see it again. I suggest that you store only a small amount of Bitcoins on exchanges just so you can send some money here and there.

Exchange/trading site are not recommended to store your coins, but as you said, there are sites also that is using too large of transaction fee, there are many reports I read in this forum regarding this issue. And suggest using a mobile wallet is better than exchanges/trading sites. You don't need to worry when your phone lost or destroy as long you have backups on it, but when the trading sites run and close, then you have 0% chance to recover your funds there.

Exchanges might go down over the time as they are versatile and having too much to do with trading stuff. They can be risky for long term holding. I would choose mobile wallet. Because they are specially made for storing your money and doing all the stuff altogether. This makes me focused on my funds, don't get distracted to invest into something that I don't really want. I can withdraw my bitcoin into local currency at and when I required to do so.

Both is not really good choice, but if I choose I pick mobile wallet of course, some of mobile wallet have good security features, for example electrum, breadwallet and bitcoin wallet.
Exchange vulnerable to hack and sometimes they will collapse, there are not just 1 accident of exchange got hacked and collapsed.

The important thing for wallet is you hold private key and have full control of the wallet.

personally i rather place it inside my exchange wallet so anytime that i wanted to sell it out i can do it quickly but just if i don't have any other choice, since its also possible that our mobile can be stolen or can be broken so chances to lose the coin is much bigger unlike exchange where the only problem is when the site itself went down.

Exchange or mobile wallet, only store an amount you're prepared to lose. IMO still the best way to store your coins is through a hardware wallet.

Cold storage is the best storage, I believe. There is this WIKI-page: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_secure_offline_savings_wallet where you can read about how to setup a secure offline wallet for your BTC.

I would rather hold my coins on my mobile wallet since our wallet provider here since it is goverment registered with physical proofs of legitimacy rather than trusting those random exchange with no reputation around upon holding our money, You may use the Mtgox as example since they are used to be a reputable exchange before but look what happen on them they compromised the money of people who's doing trades on them.

You can use any kind wallet to store your bitcoin. Until you share the wallet seed or private key to others. Paper and cold storage is preferable for highly secured for the huge amount of bitcoin. I can simply you can keep the fund in exchange wallet and activate the two factor authentication for your security concern. Your fund will be secured.