Having a wallet where you own your private keys is a must!

[TotleCrypto]

If you keep up with current crypto events it seems that every month or so there is a new hack and millions in Bitcoins are stolen. In many of these cases, hundreds of Bitcoins were left on exchanges or mining pool wallets where these coins were more vulnerable — this is because you don’t actually own your own private keys — the exchange does. This is just one of the many reasons why it’s essential to keep your digital assets in a wallet where you have full control over your own private keys.

What is a private key?

A private key is a string of random characters used to secure the coins you hold in your wallet. This is the key that allows you to spend your cryptocurrency and it should never be shared with anyone. Giving someone your private key is like giving them a full set of keys to your crypto kingdom!

This private key goes hand-in-hand with a public key or wallet “address”. The private key allows you to verify that you have ownership over the public key and the coins connected to it. For instance, when someone wants to send you some cryptocurrency to your wallet they are sending it to the address or public key of your wallet that corresponds with the private key that you hold. This allows verification that you are the owner over this private key, and the crypto attached to it. This “trustless transfer” of cryptocurrency allows for two parties to make a transaction without a 3rd party and also without having to reveal your private key to the other person.

Owning your own private keys is an important aspect of any truly decentralized platform, whether it be an exchange, wallet, or intermediary like Coinbase. When you deposit ETH into the Totle Portfolio management system you have 100% control of your private keys, and no matter how many coins you diversify across, this never changes. Leaving your crypto in a location that doesn’t let you own your private keys is like leaving your money in bags outside a bank.

Wallets we recommend

There are a ton of great wallets out there that allow you hold onto your own private keys. When it comes to digital asset portfolio management systems like Totle, having a solid Ethereum based wallet is a must. Here are a few Ethereum based wallets that offer the option of owning your own private keys.

MetaMask — This is our go-to wallet for Ethereum based tokens and allows you to hold your own private keys. Working as a Chrome based plugin, it simply overlays on top of your browser and can be accessed easily and effortlessly when needed. The interface is simple, yet powerful, and MetaMask is a popular option for integration with Ethereum based decentralized apps or “DApps”. We recommend using it to enter the Totle Portfolio Tournament to interact with our platform!

Ledger — This is one of the top hardware wallets on the market. It’s is a physical device that looks similar to a USB key. It allows you to store your coins and ERC-20 tokens offline and is considered one of the most secure solutions for managing your crypto. Plus it integrates really well with the next online wallet on our list, MyEtherWallet.

MyEtherWallet — This is one of the staple online wallets, but it is a little more tricky to use. It has a web interface as well as a chrome extension and also works with Metamask.

Exodus Wallet — A great desktop-only client that allows you to own your private keys. They have support for a wide variety of coins and the interface is absolutely beautiful. While they support a lot of coins, they don’t yet support ERC-20 Tokens. A solid wallet for everyday use nonetheless.

As you can see there are quite a few options when it comes to choosing a wallet that is right for you. No matter what wallet you choose, it is good practice to make sure the wallet lets you hold your own private keys. No one just gives out their ATM PIN number or their login for their online banking account to random strangers to hold and the same should go for your private keys. Keep them secret and guard them close, because nothing is worse than waking up to an empty wallet!

Are we missing anyone's favorite wallet??

Link to our original article we wrote: https://medium.com/@totlecrypto/why-having-a-wallet-where-you-own-your-private-keys-is-essential-519d9a374d8c

[Anti-Cen]

Jaxx is a good wallet to apart from it not being hack proof because the 12 word catch phrase
gets saved to disk but if you run it on an android device and use a spare MicroSD card for the
app then it starts to look safer.

Yes agree you need to own the private keys and coinbase cannot even be trusted to pay
the $10 signing up bonus so you would have to be stark raving mad to trust them with large
amounts

ShapeShift in Jaxx allows you to sell BTC and buy another currency and we all know Coinbase
goes down when BTC has a spike so it's not a bad backup plan because high BTC fees from
miners is killing the goose that laid the golden egg IMHO

[novikov433]

The best solution is the Ledger. if you forget the password you can not restore it anyway, because the bust is performed only on the CPU brute. So it's better to buy a ledger. I was robbed by hackers -2000 and now I forgot my password -2000 so be sure to take the Ledger. It is better to do everything one time than once, to make mistakes and lose.

[cryptocent94]

If you keep up with current crypto events it seems that every month or so there is a new hack and millions in Bitcoins are stolen. In many of these cases, hundreds of Bitcoins were left on exchanges or mining pool wallets where these coins were more vulnerable — this is because you don’t actually own your own private keys — the exchange does. This is just one of the many reasons why it’s essential to keep your digital assets in a wallet where you have full control over your own private keys.

What is a private key?

A private key is a string of random characters used to secure the coins you hold in your wallet. This is the key that allows you to spend your cryptocurrency and it should never be shared with anyone. Giving someone your private key is like giving them a full set of keys to your crypto kingdom!

This private key goes hand-in-hand with a public key or wallet “address”. The private key allows you to verify that you have ownership over the public key and the coins connected to it. For instance, when someone wants to send you some cryptocurrency to your wallet they are sending it to the address or public key of your wallet that corresponds with the private key that you hold. This allows verification that you are the owner over this private key, and the crypto attached to it. This “trustless transfer” of cryptocurrency allows for two parties to make a transaction without a 3rd party and also without having to reveal your private key to the other person.

Owning your own private keys is an important aspect of any truly decentralized platform, whether it be an exchange, wallet, or intermediary like Coinbase. When you deposit ETH into the Totle Portfolio management system you have 100% control of your private keys, and no matter how many coins you diversify across, this never changes. Leaving your crypto in a location that doesn’t let you own your private keys is like leaving your money in bags outside a bank.

Wallets we recommend

There are a ton of great wallets out there that allow you hold onto your own private keys. When it comes to digital asset portfolio management systems like Totle, having a solid Ethereum based wallet is a must. Here are a few Ethereum based wallets that offer the option of owning your own private keys.

MetaMask — This is our go-to wallet for Ethereum based tokens and allows you to hold your own private keys. Working as a Chrome based plugin, it simply overlays on top of your browser and can be accessed easily and effortlessly when needed. The interface is simple, yet powerful, and MetaMask is a popular option for integration with Ethereum based decentralized apps or “DApps”. We recommend using it to enter the Totle Portfolio Tournament to interact with our platform!

Ledger — This is one of the top hardware wallets on the market. It’s is a physical device that looks similar to a USB key. It allows you to store your coins and ERC-20 tokens offline and is considered one of the most secure solutions for managing your crypto. Plus it integrates really well with the next online wallet on our list, MyEtherWallet.

MyEtherWallet — This is one of the staple online wallets, but it is a little more tricky to use. It has a web interface as well as a chrome extension and also works with Metamask.

Exodus Wallet — A great desktop-only client that allows you to own your private keys. They have support for a wide variety of coins and the interface is absolutely beautiful. While they support a lot of coins, they don’t yet support ERC-20 Tokens. A solid wallet for everyday use nonetheless.

As you can see there are quite a few options when it comes to choosing a wallet that is right for you. No matter what wallet you choose, it is good practice to make sure the wallet lets you hold your own private keys. No one just gives out their ATM PIN number or their login for their online banking account to random strangers to hold and the same should go for your private keys. Keep them secret and guard them close, because nothing is worse than waking up to an empty wallet!

Are we missing anyone's favorite wallet??

Thanks​ for this wonderful piece it's so enlightening​

[TotleCrypto]

Jaxx is a good wallet to apart from it not being hack proof because the 12 word catch phrase
gets saved to disk but if you run it on an android device and use a spare MicroSD card for the
app then it starts to look safer.

Yes agree you need to own the private keys and coinbase cannot even be trusted to pay
the $10 signing up bonus so you would have to be stark raving mad to trust them with large
amounts

ShapeShift in Jaxx allows you to sell BTC and buy another currency and we all know Coinbase
goes down when BTC has a spike so it's not a bad backup plan because high BTC fees from
miners is killing the goose that laid the golden egg IMHO

Yeah JAXX is a solid wallet for sure. It is a great option for mobile, but yeah the issue with the 12 word catch phrase I didnt know about!

[Beefcake]

Ledger is really good.  i was reading reviews on amazon, where the nano s god some bad reviews.  It was hilarious because they gave one star reviews based on the fact that the box was not sealed with a secutrity sticker.  But it says somewhere, either on the box, or in the instructions, that there is no need for a security sticker!  RTFM lol.  Anyway it might be best to buy from Ledger and not  a reseller.  Either way it is a good wallet if you have enough bitcoin to make a 100$ HW wallet worth the trouble.

[vv181]

Its essential if you want full control over the amount you own, your possibility of getting hacked is decreased and almost unhackable, if you store it in the offline wallet. There are some quotes "It's not your Bitcoin if you don't have the private keys. and It's really true, we don't want people to gain control over the money we have. Personally, by having a hardware wallet they money we keep on that is really safe. I hope the hardware wallet in the coming month or years become more affordable so many people can have it.

[reflector]

Its essential if you want full control over the amount you own, your possibility of getting hacked is decreased and almost unhackable, if you store it in the offline wallet. There are some quotes "It's not your Bitcoin if you don't have the private keys. and It's really true, we don't want people to gain control over the money we have. Personally, by having a hardware wallet they money we keep on that is really safe. I hope the hardware wallet in the coming month or years become more affordable so many people can have it.

Already there are many bitcoin hardware wallet for long time. Trezor and Ledger Nano is widely used by the investor level bitcoin holders as of now. Still there are many people using the online wallet.
Some wallets like Coinbase and others would not be shared the private key to you also. For that they will say that it would be for your security reasons only. Keeping fund in the desktop wallet is enough to hold the fund.

[TotleCrypto]

The best solution is the Ledger. if you forget the password you can not restore it anyway, because the bust is performed only on the CPU brute. So it's better to buy a ledger. I was robbed by hackers -2000 and now I forgot my password -2000 so be sure to take the Ledger. It is better to do everything one time than once, to make mistakes and lose.

yeah having a large amount of coins it is best to keep them in a hardware wallet.

[TotleCrypto]

Thanks​ for this wonderful piece it's so enlightening​

You are welcome! Make sure to check out Totle.com for more info about our upcoming portfolio manager!

[cl37007]

Thanks for the write up OP. Definately agree with you that you should store your crypto in a wallet where you own the private keys. Only time it should be anywhere else is if it's on an exchange and you are buying and selling

[TotleCrypto]

Thanks for the write up OP. Definately agree with you that you should store your crypto in a wallet where you own the private keys. Only time it should be anywhere else is if it's on an exchange and you are buying and selling

EXACTLY! Store the bulk of your coins in your own wallet and move just what you want to trade to the exchange of choice.

[eternalgloom]

OP, you've written the exact same article on Medium, you have to be careful with just copy pasting it here. In this case, I don't think you did it with bad intent, since you are the original author.
You should at least add the source and make sure you do add some original comments in the original post.

https://medium.com/@totlecrypto/why-having-a-wallet-where-you-own-your-private-keys-is-essential-519d9a374d8c

[TotleCrypto]

OP, you've written the exact same article on Medium, you have to be careful with just copy pasting it here. In this case, I don't think you did it with bad intent, since you are the original author.
You should at least add the source and make sure you do add some original comments in the original post.

https://medium.com/@totlecrypto/why-having-a-wallet-where-you-own-your-private-keys-is-essential-519d9a374d8c

Yes I did repost this original article we wrote in both places, didn't think that was much of an issue but I like your advice and will follow for next time!

[eternalgloom]

OP, you've written the exact same article on Medium, you have to be careful with just copy pasting it here. In this case, I don't think you did it with bad intent, since you are the original author.
You should at least add the source and make sure you do add some original comments in the original post.

https://medium.com/@totlecrypto/why-having-a-wallet-where-you-own-your-private-keys-is-essential-519d9a374d8c

Yes I did repost this original article we wrote in both places, didn't think that was much of an issue but I like your advice and will follow for next time!

Just edit this post and add the link to the article, also mention that you're the author
In case a mod sees this and thinks you're spamming

[TotleCrypto]

OP, you've written the exact same article on Medium, you have to be careful with just copy pasting it here. In this case, I don't think you did it with bad intent, since you are the original author.
You should at least add the source and make sure you do add some original comments in the original post.

https://medium.com/@totlecrypto/why-having-a-wallet-where-you-own-your-private-keys-is-essential-519d9a374d8c

Yes I did repost this original article we wrote in both places, didn't think that was much of an issue but I like your advice and will follow for next time!

Just edit this post and add the link to the article, also mention that you're the author
In case a mod sees this and thinks you're spamming

Updated! Thanks buddy!