How To Choose My First Hard Wallet

[charlesmichel1]

I'm not a whale, but my portfolio consists of relatively big amounts of coins (BTC, ETH, EOS, LTC ZEC). I use Ownr wallet to store them. Now I'm considering to buy a cold wallet. Which one should I choose?

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[ranochigo]

Research on Ledger and Trezor. Both of them offers a huge catalog of altcoins for you to store from. Caveat is that for the device that stores more kinds of cryptos, it is only supported on the higher end devices. Be prepared to shell out a little bit more money for that.

My personal preference is Ledger over Trezor for your specific use case. You have to see what kinds of cryptos they offer though.

[Pmalek]

Either a Ledger or Trezor hardware wallet would be the recommended and most obvious choice. Both have their problems though.

Ledger recently had a big database leak where personal information of almost 10.000 (if not more) users were stolen.
Trezor, on the other hand, suffers from an unfixable bug which could allow a hacker with physical access to the device to extract the seed from a Trezor in just a few minutes and with relatively cheap hardware. If you decide to go for a Trezor wallet, it is recommended to set up a passphrase. The longer and more complex, the better).

Besides the seed, the Trezor T model can store a secret code on an SD card. Every time you want to use your wallet, you would need to plug in the SC card to unlock your wallet.

Christmas and the New Year are coming up. There will surely be some good deals and discounts by both vendors, so keep an eye on their official websites and social media.

[Lucius]

Now I'm considering to buy a cold wallet. Which one should I choose?

I think you've already got advice in which direction your search will go, and honestly other than those two choices, it's hard for anyone to recommend a third or fourth thing you should consider (although there are many more hardware wallets you can buy). Also, don't live in the belief that you are buying a cold wallet, because such a wallet should never come into contact with the Internet - you buy a device that keeps your private keys in the safest possible environment - but it is not resistant to human stupidity so you should always be careful with everything you do.

Christmas and the New Year are coming up. There will surely be some good deals and discounts by both vendors, so keep an eye on their official websites and social media.

Definitely don’t buy today, as discounts can be between 20% and 50%, so it pays to wait a few days. However, given the very bad pandemic situation in the EU, delays in deliveries should be expected due to the fact that some workers working in the delivery and sorting of shipments are ill and the whole process is slowed down. I don't know what the situation is in France and the Czech Republic, but Germany is going into a full lockdown in a few days.

[dkbit98]

You can first read my GUIDE How to buy a Hardware Wallet the right way to avoid giving scammers and hackers your personal information, name, address and main phone number, and never enter your seed words anywhere online, but keep them safe on paper backup.
I would also suggest choosing one of the Open Source Hardware Wallets, and don't go for the cheapest stuff.
Read some comparison for hardware wallets and make your own decision if you really need to buy Hardware Wallet.

[joniboini]

However, given the very bad pandemic situation in the EU, delays in deliveries should be expected due to the fact that some workers working in the delivery and sorting of shipments are ill and the whole process is slowed down.

So true. I buy an HW in early August and until now it has yet to be shipped. I think the situation might not improve in the new few months for worldwide deliveries. Buying from an official reseller near the buyer countries might be an alternative if he needs the device asap.

[Lucius]

joniboini, if it’s no secret to share information on exactly which manufacturer it is and did you buy it directly from them or from resellers? In August, the situation was quite good in the EU and I do not see that the shipment can be delayed by 4+ months.

In my country, the situation is such that some shipments in domestic traffic are delayed by up to 7 days - the reason is that many people in sorting centers became infected with Covid-19 and warehouses are simply cluttered with shipments.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Research on Ledger and Trezor.

OP, listen to ranochigo here.  If you look on Amazon you'll see that there are tons of hardware wallets, but if you're concerned at all about security, ease of use, and a good track record it basically comes down to these two. 

And as far as Ledger wallets go, I would recommend the Nano S over the X simply because it can do everything OP needs it to, without the extra (and basically unnecessary) frills that the Nano X has.  I can't give an opinion about Trezors because I've never used one, but I'm well aware that they have a good reputation.

I would also suggest choosing one of the Open Source Hardware Wallets, and don't go for the cheapest stuff.

Definitely.  And I think some of the more expensive ones (at least on Amazon) have questionable security.  I've never heard of a lot of them, and I'd bet you that at least some of them aren't open-source.

[FinneysTrueVision]

The database breach makes me weary of Ledger. As long as you're not worried about being phished then it is a good choice for a hardware wallet. Their wallet has had a great reputation and has excellent security. You can say the same thing about Trezor. It is a great wallet for storing large amounts of crypto.

[ranochigo]

The database breach makes me weary of Ledger. As long as you're not worried about being phished then it is a good choice for a hardware wallet. Their wallet has had a great reputation and has excellent security. You can say the same thing about Trezor. It is a great wallet for storing large amounts of crypto.

I think that is a valid concern and they were definitely lacking in that part as compared to the other companies who do a regular scrubbing of their customer's data. That's why when purchasing a HW wallet, you're recommended to try to use a PO box or an alias which is what I usually do.

Trezor does have an existing SD card seed extraction vulnerability but that requires physical access and the passphrase to be cracked. Not a very big deal but it's definitely something to be concerned about. (If I'm wrong, please correct me. I haven't been following Trezor for awhile).

[Rath_]

Trezor does have an existing SD card seed extraction vulnerability but that requires physical access and the passphrase to be cracked. Not a very big deal but it's definitely something to be concerned about. (If I'm wrong, please correct me. I haven't been following Trezor for awhile).

The SD card reader actually helps to mitigate the seed extraction vulnerability because along with the PIN, the secret stored on the SD card encrypts the storage. Unfortunately, the SD card reader is available only on the Trezor T and the SD card protection can't be turned on easily. The passphrase cannot be extracted since it is never saved anywhere. It is a big deal for people who store their devices out of their sight for long periods of time.

[Lucius]

Regardless of whether someone is more in favor of this or that manufacturer, both major players have, to our great regret, shown quite a bit of amateurism in their business. Now it’s just a matter of someone’s perception of who messed up more, Ledger or Trezor? In my opinion, however, Ledger is the one who caused a much more difficult situation for his users, considering that a phishing campaign is underway that targets individual users whose complete data has been hacked.

Trezor, on the other hand, has fallen victim to the hardware it has built into its devices and this cannot be fixed - the only protection is to use a passphrase/SD card, which is again an option that many do not even know exists.

If, by any chance, there is a third option, I would seriously consider that alternative, because I do not want to ask myself what other surprises await us from these professionals.

[Pmalek]

If, by any chance, there is a third option, I would seriously consider that alternative, because I do not want to ask myself what other surprises await us from these professionals.

What about the credit card-looking BITHD Razor? It is open-source, but it has somehow gone under the radar. I remember reading several reviews about this particular device and some of their other products on the forum. They launched a marketing campaign in which they shipped their devices for free to trusted users who inspected them and posted reviews.

This is their ANN thread.
Their forum representative hasn't been online since July.
They are still updating their Twitter page, but perhaps the company isn't doing so good.

[Lucius]

What about the credit card-looking BITHD Razor? It is open-source, but it has somehow gone under the radar. I remember reading several reviews about this particular device and some of their other products on the forum.

I know this HW because several members got a chance to test it for free, and they wrote their review. Furthermore, I think that at that time the biggest drawback was the price around $150 (now $99.99+shipping) which was a bit too expensive compared to the competition, and the fact that it is a card type HW, but crypto users do not prefer to carry these devices with them (mostly). In my opinion, another disadvantage is that this device only supports Android/iOS and does not work on desktop computers.

I think these devices have their application for those who use Bitcoin as a means of payment in physical stores and do not want to carry devices like Trezor/Ledger which might attract attention - yet this is a card-type HW that is even smaller than a standard bank card.

[bob123]

Choose either a Ledger or Trezor device. That will be your best bet.

Both of them have their pros and cons.

Ledger's database got breached for example, resulting in some customers data being leaked. This did not affect the security of the hardware wallets tho.
Trezor on the other hand has an unfixable hardware vulnerability which requires you to take some extra precautions to stay secure.


Both are perfectly fine for your use case. Just research them both a little bit and decide based on your gut feeling. But i would definitely recommend to stay with one of these two.

[HCP]

What about the credit card-looking BITHD Razor? It is open-source, but it has somehow gone under the radar. I remember reading several reviews about this particular device and some of their other products on the forum.

I know this HW because several members got a chance to test it for free, and they wrote their review. Furthermore, I think that at that time the biggest drawback was the price around $150 (now $99.99+shipping) which was a bit too expensive compared to the competition, and the fact that it is a card type HW, but crypto users do not prefer to carry these devices with them (mostly). In my opinion, another disadvantage is that this device only supports Android/iOS and does not work on desktop computers.

Personally, this was the biggest issue, that it was Android/iOS only... I do most (if not all) of my crypto related activity using a desktop/laptop computer... not on my mobile device. Also, you were kind of "locked" into their "BitPie" wallet, which I don't really like. It also comes with a custom USB power connector due to the form factor of the device precluding it from using a standard micro or USB C connector. Pricewise, it was probably a bit expensive on release, the current price (~US$99) is probably "OK"...

Otherwise, the device was actually pretty neat and worked OK. I didn't have any issues with it.


Having said that, I'd probably still go with either Ledger or Trezor if I were buying a new hardware wallet today. IMO, they still offer the best combination of price/feautres... If money wasn't an issue, I'd probably try a coldcard.