Thank you for your extremely detailed response. It contains a great deal of information that I wouldn't find otherwise. Based on the information you've provided, I'd go for Trezor, as it sounds like a safer option. I'll look into others as well, but I'm mostly heading towards Trezor. It's interesting to notice how much hardware wallets have increased in price since the creation of that thread.
My main concern is that it's not that slow to render it unused. It's a 2013 refurbished laptop, but it runs quite decently for its age. It really depends on what I do. If I end up buying a desktop, I'll still need the laptop when I'm away. On the other hand, if I end up buying another laptop, then it could be used as an airgapped device.

Great find. As the above poster already mentioned, a few weeks ago there were similar instances with Coinmarketcap clones. How did you stumble across this website though? The last time, the fake CMC websites used to pop up in the paid advertising section of Google. Is it a similar case with Coingecko? I can't recreate it, no matter how many times I try. Fortunately, it seems easy enough to spot: the domain is invalid, and there aren't many reasons why you would possibly want to connect your wallet to a website such as Coinmarketcap or Coingecko.

I actually meant Ledger Nano (S Plus), but I confused both names and combined them into one. I've seen both devices, and during the Black Friday sale, they were a great bargain. An approximate of 50–60 euros isn't a big deal when it comes to protecting your funds and is far safer and more economical than a completely independent computer that is guaranteed to eventually be used for something else too. I'm looking forward to a possible promotion during the Christmas holidays and seeing if there are any decent deals. If not, I'll just purchase it at full price; it isn't that expensive.

I've noticed that Trezor and Ledger are the most common ones; are there any others that can compete with them?

I haven't seen such a scam before, possibly due to regional differences, but I've had similar ones. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. No easy money can be made. However, from your way of writing, you're implying that you've transferred $300; did I understand correctly? If so, why? Always trust your instincts; if it sounded fishy, why would you send money and then proceed to ask questions here? I don't mean to offend you, but $300 is still a pretty decent sum to lose to a scammer. I'd be furious.

Anyway, in such cases, this forum and Reddit can be incredible sources to seek information.

Okay, on the one hand I understand any possible frustration caused by such a move, however, on the other hand it was done for safety reasons and not in an attempt to mess with its users. Imagine if your account somehow got compromised and ended up with your money. I generally never had any negative experience with Binance, except from their KYC and the constantly decreasing yield from staking and savings.
I never had any money in exhanges the past few years, for the obvious reasons. However, it was the easiest and fastest solution to generate a minimal income after Terra USD crashed.

Bitcoin has already recovered a tiny bit and surpassed $17,000 today. In my opinion, the current fall in the market is due to the FTX bankruptcy incident and is bound to recover soon enough. No sophisticated analysis is required in this case. Cryptocurrencies have taken a hit; it's perfectly normal to go through such a phase. After all, it was one of the largest exchanges. It shouldn't take long for the whole incident to start fading away, resulting in the possible recovery of Bitcoin in the upcoming month or two. Judging by the current market standing, it's likely to return to pre-FTX levels, back to $19.00–$20.000. I don't think there's much reason to worry, unless you've lost money in the exchange.

Thank you for your detailed response. I was already planning on buying a new computer because this one is getting rather old and slow. I struggled quite a lot a few months ago when I used more strenuous applications. This is why I considered isolating my older laptop with a Bitcoin wallet. Generally, hardware wallets seem like a decent measure to be on the safe side. During the Black Friday special, the most affordable Ledger one cost approximately €50, if I remember correctly. It sucks to have missed it.
I guess there isn't such a thing as 100% safety. So far, the hardware wallet option seems to be the safest and most affordable one. Buying a new computer was already on the schedule, but honestly, completely isolating it isn't always possible, and in my case, it probably isn't, because a functioning laptop is always handy.

Hello there,
I find the whole concept quite interesting, it's quite convenient and stealth looking. However, it's mentioned in your website that the smart reader is also required. My question now is if that can be avoided, since my laptop (HP Probook) has a so-called smart card reader. Do you have any clue if there's any compatibility or is it a completely different thing?

Excuse me if my question sounds stupid but I always wondered how that card reader could be used.

Photo for reference

I don't think Binance enjoys having KYC themselves. Whether we like it or not, Binance has to comply with the EU's regulations and is forced to conduct KYC on their customers. I'm not a supporter of them by any means.
The same email we all received. Are you going to comply with the KYC? Honestly, I regret doing so because I don't see a reason to have money stored with them. Their staking and savings platform has taken a huge hit and is no longer profitable. On top of that, it's funny that they're offering a $10 cashback voucher. They don't specify that you don't actually get the $10. Someone new might be fooled by this practice.

Pardon me for not replying for over two days. I was having some health troubles and had some doc appointments and blood tests. Back to the subject now. Thank you for your replies, I'll try to respond to most of them.
Excuse me, wrong selection of words. You're correct.
Certainly. Electrum is perfectly safe and have never faced any issues using it. My whole setup of storing my wallet in the computer I use sounds and is absolutely not that safe. I almost got burned once and could have lost a decent sum of money. I won't be that lucky next time.Sorry, you're correct.

I'm planning to purchase a new laptop or even a desktop computer quite soon, and was actually planning to install the wallet to the old one and isolating it. What happens if the HDD goes bad, though? Backing up the seed phrase enough to recover it from another computer, I guess.
The idea of either buying a HW or buying a new laptop/desktop (which I was already planning to) are the most prevailing onces at the moment. Unfortunately, due to feeling unwell the past few days as explained before, I missed the Black Friday discount.
Thanks for the suggestion. So, if I understand correctly, backing up the seed phrase on paper, for example, and setting the wallet to watch-only removes the ability to send funds and practically secures your wallet. Thus, in case I want to send Bitcoin to someone, I have to recover my wallet using the seed phrase. Am I correct?

I'm currently using Electrum on my laptop; however, for whatever reason, I don't feel quite safe or comfortable practically having my bitcoin stored on my computer. How safe is a wallet like Electrum? If we suppose that my computer is infected with malware (or a Trojan horse, you name it), can someone access my wallet and send funds to another address? Is it possible to have the wallet.dat file stolen and accessed even though it's protected with a password?

I generally feel a little paranoid after being infected with a fake Google Sheets extension. I didn't lose anything of value, but I don't feel comfortable having my funds on the computer I'm using. Ever since, I've stopped downloading any pirated software and performed regular checks, but it's still unknown how I got infected. What other options do I have? Using a separate computer or hard drive for my wallet? The best option, I guess, is a hardware wallet.

I had "predicted" that Bitcoin was capable of crashing down to $15,000 levels a few weeks ago. We're not that far off the mark. Honestly, I believe that we've reached the bottom; even if we haven't, I doubt that it'll lose too much value from now on. As others have already mentioned, this bear market does look quite similar to 2018's bearish period. I didn't survive the whole bear market in 2018, but both periods share a few similarities. We're now slowly entering the second year of the bear market, which, in my opinion, is bound to last at least one or even two more years.

Accumulating Bitcoin now is essential and way more affordable than it was a few months ago, especially after it plummeted below $20,000. Let's see who survives without selling until the bullish period.

To be honest, I haven't thought of that. Now, due to the modern age, condoms are pretty much the easiest and safest method to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies. A few decades ago, their usage wasn't as widespread compared to now, which potentially also contributes to the birth deficit the West is facing. You can easily guess that 3rd world countries aren't keen on using them judging by how many children they're having, living in poor conditions, and often working since a very young age. 

People in the past had larger families but different raising standards. Children now require a lot more attention and activities, and we're focusing on their education. The total population is constantly rising; it reached 8 billion a few days ago, but this increase is not coming from the West. In the next few years, we're going to face extreme immigration issues, something we're already facing.

This is a great explanation regarding attacks against Bitcoin. Whenever we're going through a bear market, news articles keep popping up claiming that Bitcoin is about to die and speculating on its possible failure. The exact same thing also occurs during bullish periods, but I believe that it's more prominent during bearish seasons. The reasons may vary, from being against cryptocurrencies or because they simply try to fish out clicks for their website, because it's certainly a controversial subject.

Do I believe that incidents such as FTX or Mt. Gox ruin the cryptocurrency industry's reputation? They do, but this simply applies to pretty much everything. There are even banks going bankrupt; does that mean that all banks are scams and are bound to steal your money? I'm not promoting banks by any means, but I think you get my point. There's always a black sheep in the family.

Great tips overall, and it's also worth noting the necessary patience and discipline in order to survive through tough market periods. However, I'd like to add that holding may not apply to altcoins other than a few popular ones, such as Ethereum or Binance. Generally, we've seen quite a few altcoins involved in scams, scandals, rug pulls, you name it, such as Celsius, Luna, or FTT. I'm not saying that you can't hold altcoins, but personally, I don't feel comfortable doing so. The only coin I trust holding for long periods is Bitcoin. If you're planning to invest in altcoins, the least you should do is diversify your portfolio.

You're comparing an algorithmic stablecoin (UST) with established stablecoins such as USDT and USDC. The latter are deemed safe enough to use and have hardly ever lost their $1 peg. Even when they did, they quickly recovered. That's not the case with algorithmic stablecoins, though, which can be deemed extremely risky because they rely on two types of tokens: a stablecoin and another token supporting the aforementioned stablecoin. There are several examples of failed ones out there, such as BoltDollar or UST. It's easy to mention that plenty can go wrong with them, and they're not actually guaranteed to have a secure 1:1 dollar peg (see USDN, FEI, or DEI).

Well, that's also common in other subforums as well. I might gamble every once in a while, but generally, I'm not really interested in gambling conversations; most are also directed towards sports betting, and guess what? I'm not into sports either. Thus, I rarely participate in gambling discussions. If I were to guess, I'd say that quite a few signature campaigns have a certain post requirement to be made in the gambling section. As a result, there are people who may have zero interest in gambling who try to fit into conversations in order to achieve their quota.

I'm not following the gambling sections, and it's just my personal opinion, but I thought there might be a correlation between spam posts and the minimum post requirement in the specific section of the forum.

I've been in cryptocurrencies since approximately 2014, with two major breaks in 2014 and 2018. My Bitcoin's value has plummeted over 60%, but you know what? I don't really care. On the contrary, I'm somewhat satisfied when its value drops because every time I get paid in Bitcoin, I receive a significantly larger amount of BTC. You're still early in the game, but the issue is that the media often portrayed cryptocurrency success stories in such a way that they looked like a get-rich-quick scheme. Trust me, they're not. You'll need a ton of patience to survive the bear market; I didn't in 2018. If I hadn't quit then, there's a great chance that I'd have a great deal of money now.

Inflation, increased expenses, soaring rent costs, and poor wages make it almost impossible to raise a family. Children now require much more attention than in the past; a foreign language and an activity are a must nowadays. These things weren't considered necessary in the 1950s, and what I mentioned is often the bare minimum. On top of that, benefits for larger families have been cut off, with most families now opting to have one child at most.

The west is suffering lower birth rates for the reasons mentioned above. Third world countries, on the other hand, continue to have an abundance of children, often lacking what we consider necessary.

That's the intriguing part I also noticed. I was observing its price a month or so ago, and Bitcoin was at $20.000 and Litecoin was at $50 levels. Currently, it's one of the few coins that is growing (over 20% increase in the past week) despite the ongoing bear market, making me regret thinking twice when I was interested in buying a while ago. In my opinion, it does have the potential to shine again; it used to be in the top 3 a few years ago, although it will still be outperformed by others such as BNB.