I read on the Satochip website:

"The Satochip hardware wallet has full BIP32 and BIP39 support and also supports the import of regular (non-BIP keys) such as vanity keys. Even more, private keys cannot be exported outside of the secure chip. Up to 16 regular keys can be imported on the chip. "

What does it mean? You can import into Satochip single private keys which were exported from, say, Core?
One by one?

I currently own BitBox02, and I think may be I should buy a second HW to have it as backup wallet, use it for forks, trading, shitcoins etc.
I was researching Trezor T and discovered (from other people feed backs online) that it is very buggy and people are struggling all the time to make it work properly.
I was thinking why was it so popular then, and the most probable answer was: brand.
Old, highly respected brand, open source. And nothing good about device itself. Just bugs and issues, issues and bugs.
People don't enjoy USING it. The enjoy HAVING it. Due to its brand.

And I start thinking about bitcoin economy in general. The fewer people use bitcoin, want bitcoin, own bitcoin, the lower is price of bitcoin. The more people use, own, want bitcoin, the bigger is its price.

But if hadware wallets are buggy, hard to use, difficult to set up. Then only technical people and experienced computer users can use them.

Then:
Your grandma cannot use them.
Those ordinary young people who are not nerds, they cannot use them.
The school kid next door cannot use them.
Your neighbor cannot use them.
All that means these people cannot use bitcoins.
When they cannot use bitcoins they don't want bitcoins. When those mainstream people don't want bitcoin, then bitcoin price don't grow.

The way hardware wallets are built causes either interest to bitcoin or fear. From ordinary people.


So, from the point of view of bitcoin economy in general, in order bitcoin to grow, which hardware wallet is good and which one is bad?
The good one is that which ordinary (not technical, not computer experienced people) can use. And the bad one is that which only technical computer experienced guys can use and no one else.

Let's  say:

1. Do you need Python or Ubuntu to use the wallet? Bad wallet! Because these words are scary for your Grandma.

2. Does the wallet look ugly and cheap? Bad wallet! Because boys and girls in school and high school will not show off such a wallet for each other.

3. Does it not have a large touch screen?
Bad wallet! Because your drunk neighbour will be unable to pay with bitcoins for his whisky.

Is it possible to quickly start using this wallet for people who can only browse online, use email and internet banking, and nothing more on PC?

If they need to learn too much to start using HW, it is bad HW! Just because they will not do those efforts, and thus they will not use bitcoins, and bitcoin economy will not get new users.

Guys,  most of the people are  not computer experts. Not technically educated. And things which are easy for you, those things are scary and even feels impossible for them.

So when you say it doesn't matter if hardware wallets are aesthetyc or not, easy to set up and use or not, buggy or not..... you don't care about bitcoin economy. And if all manufacturers act this way, then mainstream ordinary people will not use HW, will not use bitcoins, and then YOUR OWN BITCOIN will not grow in price!

And even if you are satisfied with Trezor, ColdCard, Foundation Passport despite the fact your Grandma  cannot use them, and beleive that all HW should be like those,  this is a selfish mindset which as consequences makes that you don't care about your own bitcoins to grow in price.

The manufacturer who will be able to create a secure open source HW for ordinary mainstream people (and yes, for your Grandma, school kids, and your drunk neighbour), that manufacturer will contribute to bitcoin economy tremendously, and that manufacturer may earn huge money selling his devices.

ColdCard, Trezor, Foundation Passport is not HW future. Just because your Grandma cannot use them.
From this point of view they are all bad.

A good HW:

Has a large touch screen.
It's manual doesn't contain scary words like Ubuntu or Python.
It is lovishly, aesthetically designed.
No bugs!
It is so easy to set up and to use for anyone who can no more than just browse onlie and send email.
To use that HW is not more difficult than to use online banking.
HW issue is never users problem, its always  manufacturers problem. And manufacturer is very sorry for any inconvenience for user. Manufacturer is doing his best for user to switch off his brain, to make no efforts, just to relax and enjoy using the wallet.

Then it is a good wallet! If there were such hardware wallet, interest for bitcoin would grow a lot! You would become richer! Guys, please think about this.

We must suport and cherish manufacturers who is making pleasant easy effortless wallets.

When I discovered that there were so many bitcoin forks, and forks of forks, I realized that I wanted a full collection of them :-) So I got  motivation not only get some money from forks, but also collect forks. It's a kind of irrational motivation, just like collecting physical coins for numismatic purposes.
Do I understand correct that some forks can be claimed solely through their own wallet, and this can be done only provided you have synced the whole blockchain, so this is the very reason why claiming some forks (such forks) takes a lot of time?

Trezor also delisted BSV. They say it was causing potential security risk.
Ledger claims they support BSV, but when you search their list of supported coins, then no BSV there. Probably also delisted.

I tried to check all forks that it was possible to claim.
And I discovered an interesting fact: cheap forks (but still sellable) may sometimes show very strong growth for a short time. For example, some old cheap forks were showing enorm growth in May last year though for a very short time, then they returned to their ordinary supercheap price.
It would be perfect to get all forks, every single claimable fork. And hold them in a hardware wallet, may be just for such situation.
Unfortunately, it is probably not very real to have such huge work done (claim every single fork). If I understand things correct, some forks are much more difficult to claim than others.
And I checked also many hardware wallets, and discovered that they support just few forks. Some of them support 2 forks, some 5 forks...like this.
I didn't find even a software wallet which would support all forks. Not coinomi, not guarda....

Thank you very much guys! You are great!
Now I understand in general how it works.
I am grateful to you for your explanations.

Lucius,

Who is jerry?
I am posting less than I'd like to. Seriously.
I have much more questions than I ask.
I understand that some of my posts (may be many) are naive and may be some of them may look even stupid.
But I think that it is better if I express my ignorance, and get advices and answers. This way I am getting knowledge. I want to know as much as possible about everything related to cryptocurrencies.
And I also am afraid to do something wrong or mess up with something, that's why I am checking with Big Smart Guys on this forum to make sure that I understand things  correct.
So I have no evil intentions to abuse the forum.

This is a raw theoretical question.

I shall be grateful if you explain me "what happens inside of hardware wallets" :-)

Say, you are setting up a multicurrency wallet.
Your seed (24 words) is set up and your wallet is ready.
You can see 10 (just for example) different cryptocurrencies in the same wallet. OK!
But all those 10 cryptocurrencies belong to 10 different blockchains.
How come that you have only 1 seed (the same 24 words) for 10 different blockchains?

May be it works like having the same login/password for 10 different email boxes?

But imagine, you set up the same seed on another hardware wallet which suports, say,
20 cryptocurrencies.
You are ready with your set up, and you can see now 20 cryptocurrencies in your wallet.
It means 10 more blockchains.
But how these 10 new blockchains were instantly added to the wallet with the same seed (the same 24 words) when this seed was never known to them before? This seed didn't exist for these blockchains before your set up the new wallet.

If it works like with email services, then
I can chose 1 login/password and use it for 10 or 20 or 100 email services like gmail, outlook etc.
But I need to register every email box with this login/password before using it.

Or is it so that when you set up the new hardware wallet with 20 currencies, which means 10 more blockchains (in this example),  it will "register" the old seed in new blockchains automatically during set up?

Could you please explain how it works.

hosseinimr93, Charles-Tim,

Here is why I think it is reasonable to wipe/reset hardware wallet in Situation 6, long term investment.

In this situation you are not going to use your bitcoins for a very long time. For many years.
Which means that you are not going to use your wallet for a very long time, for many years.
But you still need to take care  about:

either
Both your wallet AND your backups.
or
Your backups only (if you wipe/reset your wallet).

And it is more simple, safe and convenient take care about backups only. Just fewer physical things to take care about. Which increases safety, security and convenience.

Hi,

Here are my own ideas about strategy/theory of choosing a hardware wallet.
It is not an advice for users, it is not to teach somebody and it is not an article like "how to....".
I am a newbie, I am asking questions and I am reading a lot what Big Smart Guys on this forum tell and I think about it. I am also doing  my own researches.
So this topic is theoretical, I wrote it in order to share conclusions I could draw based on what I know about hardware wallets today.

And  you guys please write what you think and feel free to critisize my post in order to update this strategy.

The strategy (or theory) of choosing a wallet depending on purposes and user's situation.

Situation 1.

You have amount of btc (or other crypto) which is close to the price of a hardware wallet. Like 50$ - 100$ current value.
May be you don't need a hardware wallet at all if you are not going to receive more coins.
Then a good software wallet would be may be the best choice.
But if you plan to get more coins in the nearest future then probably you should go to situation (3) and buy a hardware wallet anyway. To have it ready to accept coins!

Situation 2.

You have some Capital for trading and for short-term (max 1 month) investments into altcoins, new coins, not reliable coins, shitcoins (LOL) etc. May be for transferring forks after you claimed them if you didn't sell them immediately after having got them.
In this situation you need a convenient hardware wallet which enables you to do everything you need to do very quickly and very easy way (in order not to mess up with something and to be able to buy and sell instantly).
You should choose the most convenient, quick and easy operated hardware wallet, preferably with large touch screen, and it is OK if it is closed source. This wallet is not for holding your savings and not for long-term investments and not for holding bitcoins.
Convenient, quick, easy - these are the requirements. For example SecuX (probably).

Situation 3.

You use bitcoins in your life. Receiving them, sending them, paying with bitcoins for goods and services.
Then best choice is a reliable, well known, well tested open source hardware wallet like Trezor or Bitbox.

Situation 4.

Your consider your btc a short-term investment. You are waiting for bitcoin exchange rate to raise to some level and then you are intending to exchange your btc for ordinary currency like USD or EUR or your local currency if it is other than those .
You definitely need a well tested open source hardware wallet like Trezor or Bitbox.
May be even 2 wallets. If 1 get damaged or broken you can instantly switch to another one. Or one wallet is for investment and another one for everyday use (if situation 3 is also actual).
But I am not sure about necessity to have 2 wallets in such a situation when it is possible to order and get a new wallet quickly.

Situation 5.

The amount of bitcoins you own and the cost of living in your country make it possible for you to live completely on your bitcoins.
So you exchange some bitcoins for ordinary  currency from time to time and you spend this money for living.

You definitely need a reliable, secure, well tested wallet like Trezor or Bitbox.
May be even 2 hardware wallets. To switch between them quickly if one of them get broken/damaged/ out of order. Though I am not sure if it is really necessary to have the second one in such situation when you can order and receive a new one quickly.

Situation 6.

Your bitcoins is a long term investment. You are not going to sell it this year, next year, 5 or 10 or 20 years more. And you don't care about its current exchange rate.
Then you don't need any hardware wallet at all to hold you bitcoins. Though you need one for set up.
Set up a hardware wallet, transfer you investment there, make good safe secure  backups of your seed and passphrase (if you use passphrase). Then wipe/reset your hardware wallet. The backups (on SD, paper, metal or all of them) is the best way to hold long term investment. Without hardware wallet.



For now those are all situations and purposes that I can imagine. Of course there can be more different situations and more different purposes.
But I am an unexperienced newbie, so this  strategy (or theory) of choosing hardware wallets is limited by those purposes and situations which I can imagine.

I think it is always good to know "Why? What for?" if you buy something.

What do you think?
Can you add more situations/purposes/solutions?
Also please feel free to critisize and disagree and write about this!
Your experienced opinion is extremely valuable!

Thank you very much for your replies!

After I made my research and after I read and thought about your replies,

Here are my own conclusions about disadvantages of buying exotic hardware wallets even if they are cheap and even if they are open source:

1. Too few users means too few feed backs about how well it works. You just cannot rely on other people experience when choosing this wallet because there is too little of such experience to find on the internet.
Does the wallet have bugs? Is it assembled on high quality level? Are the chips inside it good? You don't know and often cannot find out. So you run the risk that the model itself is "bad". Not just your device but the model itself.

2. There are manufacturers who replace defective wallets only if you send them the defective wallet first.
I don't have answers to the questions like:
- Who pays for sending out defective wallet?
- What happens if you discovered it is defective AFTER you set it up with your seed, and cannot wipe/reset it?
- How long does it take to send it to manufacturer and get replacement?

But these questions must be answered BEFORE you buy the wallet.

3. There are some wallets which you can order solely from Asia. If you don't live in Asia yourself, it may happen that customs in your country is suspisious concerning parcels from Asia (I have heard it is so in some contries). Then they may unpack your wallet to check what is inside the package. And you may never feel secure if you receive the wallet that was unpacked.

4. Some wallets may have features which are not known to users and which are something really unusual and at the same time dangerous if you treat your wallet just like you used to from your past experience with other wallets.
An example that I found on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/snryqo/warning_flaw_in_blockstream_jade_hardware_wallet/

5. Some companies manufacturing hardware wallets are very young, small and have indefinite future. You never know how long their support will dure. May be the company will  disappear tomorrow?
And yes, some manufacturers websites look like if the company were dieing and didn't care much about its product anymore. Though it continue selling it.

6. Some well promoted and great looking hardware wallets are not so good devices as they seem to be.
According to users experience if you succeed to find it on the intermet.
They still may be inconvenient and dangerous due to lack of proper support of their software.

7. A small manufacturer may not have enough financial resources which are necessary for spending them on creating proper security updates of device. So the device may be insecure just because manufacturer has no money to constantly make updates.

8. Well known open source brands are constantly checked by many independent checkers. Little known brands may be not checked at all. And if the first one who checks it is a hacker it could be very bad for users.

So an advice which I would give to myself:
I you want a toy and can afford it, then buy whatever exotic hardware wallet you like and play with it.
If you want a real thing and are serious about safety of your funds, then buy a well known  and well tested model from a manufacturer whose business feel great.


What do you think guys?

Thank you very much for your replies!

Now as I am owner of BitBox02 I have also some little experience with subject.

Here is my report:

1. Yes, I was able to learn and train how to use the non-existing buttons.

2. But it happened for a while (at the very beginning of set up) that those non-existent buttons didn't work properly themselves and it didn't depend on how good or bad I was in tapping. They sometimes didn't feel tapping and they sometimes  reacted wrong way.
Then I calibrated the device according to manufacturer's troubleshooting.
The calibration didn't help.
I continued using device anyway, though it was very inconvenient and tapping took a lot of time to get desired result.
After a while buttons started working properly.

Thank you so much guys!
Your replies explain everything about using a passphrase!

Thank you jerry0.

I think the main negative thing with dkbit98 is that he tries to dominate.
 Why must  users obey him and why must users feel guilty and prove to him they are innocent?
Is he a king, or a dictator? May be a cop or a judge?
An authority from governement?
Has he any right to control other users?
He is a user like everyone else on this forum.
I don't see any reason to obey him.

I experienced so much unfreedom in my life that I literally was surviving in unfreedom,  and now I feel sick (literally physically sick) every time when someone tries to dominate, to "own" or to control me.

It is up to every user to decide how to behave when such a person like dkbit98 tries to control you, but I see no one single reason to obey such a person.

If you keep altcoins in hardware wallet, how dependent you are from the model of hardware wallet?

Say your hardware wallet got broken and you need to get and set up a new one.

Do I understand correct that there are 2 options:

Option 1. You choose a new hardware wallet which supports all of your altcoins.
After setting it up with the old seed and old passphrase all altcoins will be available to use.
Option 2. You choose a hardware wallet that doesn't support some of your altcoins.
After setting it up with old seed and old passphrase it will not show non-supported altcoins and they will not be available to use.
However, you will not loose them and they will not disappear as your assets, you can get them available later if you transfer your seed (say after several years) to a wallet which support those altcoins.

Is that correct?

Is it correct that other options don't exist when switching between hardware wallets by  using seed/passphrase?

Btw, I also wonder how it works technically, when the same seed "remembers" and "keeps" many altcoins while every altcoin has its own blockchain? Every altcoin then should have its own seed. But somehow all of them are stored in the wallet with only 1 seed. How? :-)

dkbit98,

It turns to be an emotional (not rational) conversation.

"You are the one who is avoiding to answer, and I asked you a question first."

You didn't ask any questions, you asked me to do some action.
Is it correct that if someone asks you to do something, then you will do whatever you are  asked to do, and it doesn't matter what you were asked to do, and it doesn't matter who asked you? And you will not ask "why", you will just obey? Is that correct? It is exactly what you want from me. If you would not do so, why should I? If you would do so, why should I do just like you?


"Your ''benefit'' is that you are writing bunch of posts and topics about this topic, probably wanting to get some merits and increase post count."

Do you have any other ideas about reasons  why people may write posts and topics?


"BULLSHIT!  No need for any account's and it take few seconds to upload image on imgur or imgbb, "

I never did this before. So I need to learn first, go to their website, understand how it works... All that takes time and efforts. For what?

"but you can't upload something you don't have."

That's true. For example I have no selfie with Scarlett Johansson, so I cannot upload it.

"I am putting you on ignore,"

It is your right. You are free to do so.

"and I consider you are a liar until you prove otherwise."

You are offering me 2 bad options:

Option 1. Someone on the internet is considering I am a lier.
Option 2. I obey someone on the internet and do what he wants, I get provoked by childish manipulations, I make efforts and spend time in order to prove that someone is wrong, and I admit that I am guilty until proved innocent.

Which option would you choose for yourself if you were me?

"Not going to reply to you anymore until I see some proof."

Honestly, it is a pity that you are not going to reply anymore. Because I really appreciated  your replies, answers and that you were sharing your knowledge and experience.

dkbit98,

1. You didn't answer: What profit/benefits am I supposed to get from lie about having purchased BitBox02? Why would someone lie about that?

2. It's not that easy to post an image here, one needs to upload it on 3-d party hosting, and register there before doing this. And all those efforts just to prove you wrong.
What profit/benefits will I get from proving you wrong?

dkbit98,

Thank you very much for your replies.

Why do you need a proof that I purchased BitBox?
Do you suspect that it is not true?
But what profit can I get from lie about this?

I am researching the open source hardware wallets market now, just to learn more about hardware wallets.

There are really inexpensive open source hardware wallets on the market.

For example Jade, OneKey, Keystone...and more.
Prices start from 49$, even 39$ with promo code.
Many of them look beautifully with great looking design, some are thin, some of them have large touch screen...Offering 24/7 support. All that promises convenience, smooth ride and also aesthetics and ergonomics.

The question is: where is the catch?
Why are they less popular than say Trezor or ColdCard which are more expensive, less convenient and not very beautifully designed?

For example, if you guys were choosing a new wallet now, and came to a shop where all open source hardware wallets are represented, would you purchase an inexpensive convenient beautiful "exotic" wallet? Or would you purchase one of the same wallets you used to consider, like Trezor/Coldcard/Bitbox02 ? Why?

Mine is Multi Edition.
n0nce, could you tell please,

Why is it good to convert it into Bitcoin-only?
The link says it is more secure because there is "less" software involved.
Is it really that much more secure that it is worth refusing possibility to hold other coins?