Main aspects you have to consider on choosing an online bitcoin wallet

[vladozlat]

I'm in need of choosing a "right" (safe, convenient, reliable) online bitcoin wallet for my funds but because of the variety of such wallets and lack of experience in this field it's quite complicated task for me. I'm sure that there are some pitfalls that I don't know or haven't heard about yet and which would affect a lot on the choice. I would appreciate some help on this topic from people who has some experience regarding such types of wallets.

[OmegaStarScream]

I'm in need of choosing a "right" (safe, convenient, reliable) online bitcoin wallet for my funds but because of the variety of such wallets and lack of experience in this field it's quite complicated task for me. I'm sure that there are some pitfalls that I don't know or haven't heard about yet and which would affect a lot on the choice. I would appreciate some help on this topic from people who has some experience regarding such types of wallets.

First thing to keep in mind Is that you shouldn't store them where you don't have control over your private keys. (Like exchange : Poloniex , Coinbase , Bittrex , Xapo , etc... ). I would recommend using BTC.com as they offer both 2FA for their users (really nice Android app too) + multi signature wallet (which means It's impossible to them to steal anything even If they want to as you sign the transaction from your part) , In addiction , It's a HD wallet that should keep your identity private (It generate new addresses each time you want to receive) . The GUI looks very good and It's very simple and don't require any rocket science knowledge .

[zend7]

I'm in need of choosing a "right" (safe, convenient, reliable) online bitcoin wallet for my funds but because of the variety of such wallets and lack of experience in this field it's quite complicated task for me. I'm sure that there are some pitfalls that I don't know or haven't heard about yet and which would affect a lot on the choice. I would appreciate some help on this topic from people who has some experience regarding such types of wallets.

First of all congratulations on asking such answer. For me, I have said it other times in this very section of the forum, it's not worth at all having a web wallet nowadays. It's worthless as desktop wallets have their same functionalities but better security. If you are thinking to use some web wallet on the go with your mobile, you can never go wrong with Mycellium which is the same as is a desktop wallet for PC, but this is for your mobile.

Reasons why having a web wallet is never recommended.

1. One and foremost is that you are relying on someone else, third party to keep the coins for you which is against the core philosophy of bitcoin (bitcoin should be your own bank and only for you to manage)
2. You need to access a website which cannot be always online and if you are a gambler, trader you can lose a lot from this (desktop wallets such as electrum has tons of servers and never let you down in this case)
3. Many of these online wallets block your account whenever they feel like it, XAPO, COINBASE, are the most known in this area.

I think these are reasons enough why to never store your coins in a web wallet but the final choice is yours.

[vladozlat]

First of all congratulations on asking such answer. For me, I have said it other times in this very section of the forum, it's not worth at all having a web wallet nowadays. It's worthless as desktop wallets have their same functionalities but better security. If you are thinking to use some web wallet on the go with your mobile, you can never go wrong with Mycellium which is the same as is a desktop wallet for PC, but this is for your mobile.

Reasons why having a web wallet is never recommended.

1. One and foremost is that you are relying on someone else, third party to keep the coins for you which is against the core philosophy of bitcoin (bitcoin should be your own bank and only for you to manage)
2. You need to access a website which cannot be always online and if you are a gambler, trader you can lose a lot from this (desktop wallets such as electrum has tons of servers and never let you down in this case)
3. Many of these online wallets block your account whenever they feel like it, XAPO, COINBASE, are the most known in this area.

I think these are reasons enough why to never store your coins in a web wallet but the final choice is yours.

Thanks for the detailed answer. One of the reasons I'm interested in online wallets like Xapo, Coinbase you've mentioned and other (Spectrocoin, Cryptopay, Bitpay, E-coin according to Google) is because they offer not only wallet but also bitcoin cards. According to their statements it is possible to load such type of card with bitcoin and use it like usual bank card. As it's not so many places where it is possible to pay with bitcoin I thought such card could help me a lot with that inconvenience.
As for Mycelium you've recommended it seems they offer some card, have you ever tried it?. Or using such type of cards is not a good idea?

[mobnepal]

If you are total newbie to bitcoin for small amount of bitcoin : https://blockchain.info web or mobile wallet. (don't forget to backup wallet).

If you know some basics of bitcoin and like to find more secure way to store and use bitcoin daily: electrum desktop wallet can be good

For both newbie and medium level bitcoin users who want to store more than 1 bitcoin securely, creating paper wallet in fully offline computer and printing that paper---> storing that paper securely and if you need to transfer/use it than only scan private key with blockchain.info like wallet and send to wherever you want can be considered as secure way to store bitcoin.

[cpfreeplz]

I'm in need of choosing a "right" (safe, convenient, reliable) online bitcoin wallet for my funds but because of the variety of such wallets and lack of experience in this field it's quite complicated task for me. I'm sure that there are some a ton pitfalls (mainly theft of bitcoins) that I don't know or haven't heard about yet and which would affect a lot on the choice. I would appreciate some help on this topic from people who has some experience regarding such types of wallets.

We're  talking about web wallets here so I fixed a few things in your OP.

Web wallets are convenient. That's really all they have going for them. They're reliable I guess in the sense that the websites don't go down a lot. But what's more reliable is a wallet where you don't have to rely on a 3rd party to hold your keys.

For safety I would suggest a paper wallet created offline (cheap) or hardware wallet such as trezor (expensive).

For convenience web wallets I guess. You have access to your bitcoins with a username / password so you can access them anywhere. Mobile wallets are much better options though (try mycelium. I love it. Bread wallet for ios is good too).

Reliability really would be other wallets whether it's paper, hardware, desktop, mobile. Anything where you hold your own keys. Anything is better than a Web wallet because at some point a web wallet will go down (whether from a hack, or maintenance).

Those would be my suggestions.

[Hazir]

Op, go for Blockchain.info as yourdefault online wallet. From my experience it is the best solution. Why?

1. Blockchain. info was never hacked, they have state of art security implemented. They don't store your personal data, everything is encrypted with your password.

2. They will give you access yo your private keys (something that many online wallets never do).
You will be able to export it to software wallet of your choice in case of trouble.

3. I never heard about accounts being blocked by Blockchain.info - something that Xapo or Coinbase are doing quite frequently.

[Yuuto]

Well, the aspects that you definitely need to consider before choosing are:

- Do I have control over my private keys?
- How much fees do they charge?
- Do they pay miner fees for me?
- Do they have a cool interface that I like to work with?
- Have they got a proven track record?
- Do they have proof of funds and a responsive support team?

[Herbert2020]

I'm in need of choosing a "right" (safe, convenient, reliable) online bitcoin wallet for my funds but because of the variety of such wallets and lack of experience in this field it's quite complicated task for me. I'm sure that there are some pitfalls that I don't know or haven't heard about yet and which would affect a lot on the choice. I would appreciate some help on this topic from people who has some experience regarding such types of wallets.

the first and most important thing that you have to know is that using a web wallet is considered the least safe way of keeping your coins and there are lots of different risks involved with this type of wallet.

if you accept those risks now there are two categories to web wallets.
1) those which don't have access to your private keys
like blockchain.info
these wallets have the benefit that you control the private keys and nobody can take that from you. for example the site can not tell you how to spend your bitcoins.

2) those which have access to your private keys
like coinbase
the downside is that these sites are forcing you to follow their rules for using your bitcoin. for example you can not use bitcoin to gamble while using coinbase otherwise they will close your account.
the benefit of these web wallets is that they are newbie friendly and you don't have to worry about things like how much fee should i include to be high priority and all that stuff.

[pedrog]

blockchain.info is everything you need, read all about security precautions you should take in order to keep your coins safe, make backups and you'll be fine.

[ipanks]

main aspect is i will choose the safe and secure although i know there is no places is safe and secure, but at least the website that offering online bitcoin wallet must using 2FA, email verification for login and withdrawal.

[Kevin77]

Choosing online wallet must be depends on your personal preferences.
I have blockchain.info, coinbase and xapo accounts. But, I use only Xapo for my daily needs to save tx fees. For the same reason I left blockchain.info and coinbase has many regulations like using it for gambling sites is a violation of their TOS, so not using it.

Almost all the features/functionalities/advantages are available with every web wallet providers. If you have a reason then go for a web wallet, else stick within desktop wallets.

[Robertqueen2]

As we are talking about online wallets, no doubt blockchain is the best online wallet, because it gives you many choices to highly secure you account, in addition, it is easy to use and fast, that made blockchain the most used online wallet.
Some users complain about the transaction fee, but it isn't big problem in my opinion.

[neochiny]

~
Thanks for the detailed answer. One of the reasons I'm interested in online wallets like Xapo, Coinbase you've mentioned and other (Spectrocoin, Cryptopay, Bitpay, E-coin according to Google) is because they offer not only wallet but also bitcoin cards. According to their statements it is possible to load such type of card with bitcoin and use it like usual bank card. As it's not so many places where it is possible to pay with bitcoin I thought such card could help me a lot with that inconvenience.
As for Mycelium you've recommended it seems they offer some card, have you ever tried it?. Or using such type of cards is not a good idea?

For storing majority of your btc, it's still recommended to use a desktop wallet like electrum,core. You could just send enough to a web wallet for spending,payments,etc.(small amount)
Blockchain.info and Coinbase are okay but they don't have bitcoin card. Xapo offers bitcoin cards but they usually require verification.

Check out Cryptopay, they have multi-sig wallets as well as Bitcoin Cards, with/without verification.
(You could try out their card, I think they still have a giveaway https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1384807.0 )

[pooya87]

I'm in need of choosing a "right" (safe, convenient, reliable) online bitcoin wallet for my funds but because of the variety of such wallets and lack of experience in this field it's quite complicated task for me. I'm sure that there are some pitfalls that I don't know or haven't heard about yet and which would affect a lot on the choice. I would appreciate some help on this topic from people who has some experience regarding such types of wallets.

you should know that the safest wallet is always a cold storage which is a wallet that you never let it connect to internet because it is built on a computer that is never connected to the internet.

for more convenience you can install a wallet application on an offline computer and then create raw unsigned transactions online on another pc and then sign them on your offline computer and then broadcast them online = max security.

also read this topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631151.0

[vladozlat]

For storing majority of your btc, it's still recommended to use a desktop wallet like electrum,core. You could just send enough to a web wallet for spending,payments,etc.(small amount)
Blockchain.info and Coinbase are okay but they don't have bitcoin card. Xapo offers bitcoin cards but they usually require verification.
Check out Cryptopay, they have multi-sig wallets as well as Bitcoin Cards, with/without verification.
(You could try out their card, I think they still have a giveaway https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1384807.0 )

Thanks for the link. I've looked through the topic and visited their website. Their wallet and bitcoin card with ability not to disclose personal details looks like an tempting offer among online wallets. But there is one interesting thing I've noticed on their website. They say they somehow use BitGo to provide their security. I've googled BitGo and it appeard that they provided security to Bitfinex which was hacked recently. It seems that it still not clear whether BitGo or Bitfinex was guilty or maybe both, at least I couldn't find such information. That's quite disturbing information about Cryptopay in my opinion, don't you think so?

[vladozlat]

also read this topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631151.0

Thanks for the link on the topic. Many useful information at one place

[neochiny]

For storing majority of your btc, it's still recommended to use a desktop wallet like electrum,core. You could just send enough to a web wallet for spending,payments,etc.(small amount)
Blockchain.info and Coinbase are okay but they don't have bitcoin card. Xapo offers bitcoin cards but they usually require verification.
Check out Cryptopay, they have multi-sig wallets as well as Bitcoin Cards, with/without verification.
(You could try out their card, I think they still have a giveaway https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1384807.0 )

Thanks for the link. I've looked through the topic and visited their website. Their wallet and bitcoin card with ability not to disclose personal details looks like an tempting offer among online wallets. But there is one interesting thing I've noticed on their website. They say they somehow use BitGo to provide their security. I've googled BitGo and it appeard that they provided security to Bitfinex which was hacked recently. It seems that it still not clear whether BitGo or Bitfinex was guilty or maybe both, at least I couldn't find such information. That's quite disturbing information about Cryptopay in my opinion, don't you think so?

I can't answer your concerns regarding BitGo and their tie to the recent Bitfinex hack, since no one's really been able to establish clearly where the fault came from. But it could indeed be cause for doubts/concern.
Only thing I can say is if you're really worried about it, then try asking Cryptopay about this matter and see what they've got to say. Otherwise, if you're not satisfied with either the response or the presence of that link then it would indeed be better to search for other options. 

[jacktheking]

If I were to use an online wallet for whatever reason, the main aspect that I will be looking into is the reputation of the company. Followed by the security of the online wallet. The reputation come first because new online wallet can easily shut-down even with the best security - they 'said' they offer.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

<snip>

First of all congratulations on asking such answer.<snip>

WTF??? 
The only wallet I really ever use is Mycelium for Android, and it's great.  I don't trust online wallets where you have to log in, like blockchain.info and such.  Can you really ever trust this sort of stuff in bitcoinland?  And yeah, don't ever, EVER keep bitcoin or any altcoin or cash on an exchange.  It's almost a 100% chance of getting it stolen.