Trying to have more knowledge about hardware wallet

[Pmalek]

What amount of funds you will hold that you will start getting worried of having to buy a hardware wallet? Can you give me a number? 5000$ 10,000$? What advice would you give someone under 1000$ of asset in hold?...

o_e_l_e_o has already covered this very well, so there isn't much to add.

An amount such as $100 isn't valued equally in all parts of the world and by all people. For some, it's their entire monthly salary, but for others it's something you spend on your friends on a night out. There isn't really a threshold that needs to be crossed for you to start using a hardware wallet or cold storage. Take any amount. Let's do $100 since that's what I mentioned earlier. Imagine that $100 worth of BTC in your possession. If you lost it tomorrow, would you a) laugh about it because it's such an insignificant amount in your life that it's not worth worrying about, or b) you would be holding your head in disbelief at what you have done not knowing if you will be able to put food on the table one week from now?

If your answer leans more towards "b", I would consider upgrading my security to make sure I decrease the possibilities of losing my coins.

[Outhue]

What amount of funds you will hold that you will start getting worried of having to buy a hardware wallet? Can you give me a number? 5000$ 10,000$? What advice would you give someone under 1000$ of asset in hold?...

There is no fixed number because everyone's risk tolerance is different. My benchmark question is usually how much cash would you feel comfortable carrying around in your wallet. If you would be fine walking down the street with $100 in cash in your pocket, then you can store $100 on a software wallet. The risk is similar - easily lost, easily stolen. Would you be comfortable walking down the street with $5000 in your pocket? No? Then you shouldn't be storing $5000 in a software wallet and should have it on something more secure, which is a hardware wallet for most users (or an airgapped wallet for more advanced users).

Another benchmark some people use is whenever you start talking about sums of money which are more than the cost of a hardware wallet. You can get a decent hardware wallet for under $100, so anything more than that and you should be thinking about something more secure than a software wallet.

Thanks for this reply, well explained 👍

[Lucius]

What amount of funds you will hold that you will start getting worried of having to buy a hardware wallet? Can you give me a number? 5000$ 10,000$? What advice would you give someone under 1000$ of asset in hold?...

I would not say that it is only about the amount expressed in fiat at some point, but also about the fact that if you have $1000 of value in BTC today, in x years that value may be $5000, which means that you need to think a little differently than when we store fiat. In addition, security comes from the fact that you know what you are doing - even an ordinary hot wallet like Electrum on a desktop computer can be completely safe for larger amounts if you have a virus/malware free computer, and you know how to verify wallet files before installation.

[Pmalek]

In addition, security comes from the fact that you know what you are doing - even an ordinary hot wallet like Electrum on a desktop computer can be completely safe for larger amounts if you have a virus/malware free computer, and you know how to verify wallet files before installation.

Exactly. It's not the software that will get you in trouble (assuming you are using a trusted brand with a proven track record like Electrum in this example), it's the person working with the software and their general security consciousness, common sense, and intelligence. Or the lack of it. No anti-virus of anti-malware is good enough if the person using it destroys everything they touch.