Looking to buy my first hardware wallet

[Titanium99]

I've read the hardware wallet mega thread, but still don't have a clear answer on what wallets are recommended and which ones to stay away from. What are the best hardware wallets on the market today, and which ones would you recommend for storing mainstream coins like BTC, ETH, SOL, MATIC, etc.? I'm looking for a cold wallet for long-term storage, and am open to air gapped solutions with a solid track record as well. Which ones would you recommend and why?

Thanks in advance! This community is very helpful, and it's a blessing that there are resources like this beginners forum for those of us who are early in our crypto journey.

[1715263186]

1715263186

[1715263186]

1715263186

[1715263186]

1715263186

[Charles-Tim]

These can be helpful:

AirGapped Hardware Wallets
Open Source Hardware Wallets

I will recommend Trezor though, it is completely open source, but if someone stole the Trezor from you, the person can be able to get hold of your seed phrase which can be used to steal your coins, but if you use passphrase along with seedphrase while generating keys and addresses, different keys and addresses will be generated entirely. But if you forget your passphrase (best to backup your passphrase also, but in different location), you will not be able to access your coins as well. So, seed phrase and passphrase are as important as your coin because you will need both to access your coins.

[Hispo]

Trezor One and Trezor T are good and the company behind them  (satoshilabs) have a good record within the crypto community, their wallets are open source and easy to use.

However, they coin disponibility is not the best one, specially the Trezor One. It has Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash, Zcash,etc.
But it does not have solana, etc.

But I'd say you take a look at the coins available: trezor.io/coins/
and see if any of those devices satisfy your demands, otherwise, I'd recommend you to check if Ledger devices are more attractive for your situation, just keep in mind they have had some problem with leaks some months ago. As a rule of thumb, you should avoid to provide personal information when ordering a HW as much as possible.

If you have any qustion, feel free to ask.

[LeGaulois]

Trezor and Ledger are usually the most recommended since they are the most popular. Not a lot of people use other products

If Trezor doesn't support Solana and Matic, Ledger supports the ones you mentioned.
It's true that they had a data leak, but it was only customer data. Nothing about the security of their products was involved. As of today, it's still the most growing company in revenues/employees and the most used hardware wallet.

Hard to say which is the best, each of us has different needs and expectations. There are a few other HWs but both are the most used for sure and are dominating the market

hint: Ledger will surely have a discount in the following days (if that matters)

hint 2: if you're 'afraid' to provide your personal info to Ledger and have an account on Amazon, you can buy a wallet on Amazon.

edit: I checked Trezor's website, and unlike what the person above says I see MATIC and SOL

[aoluain]

Trezor and Ledger are the best known ones. One thing I will add is buy your hardware
wallets from source and avoid buying from sellers on ebay and amazon for example because
they could potentially have been compromised unless you can verify a trusted seller.

https://trezor.io

https://www.ledger.com

There is a section on the forum for hardware wallets with some alternative suggestions
to Trezor and Ledger > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=261.0

Not sure if this is the mega thread you mentioned...

[sunsilk]

All of those are supported by Ledger: Ledger supported coins and tokens.

Speaking about my experience, they've shipped it to my address when I've purchased it years ago and IIRC, I've paid directly to the manufacturer.

Well, a clue about their latest version of the X, it has the most bugs but if you want the older type which is the S version and I think many of us here owns that version and it is still running like brand new since it's being kept at all times.

[Cookdata]

but if someone stole the Trezor from you, the person can be able to get hold of your seed phrase which can be used to steal your coins, but if you use passphrase along with seedphrase while generating keys and addresses, different keys and addresses will be generated entirely.

I'm afraid this is not true but it is open to corrections!

When Trezor wallet gets stolen, for any bad actor to get in, it will require the Pin for Trezor wallet because it will be locked and encrypted, it can only be possible if the person knows the Pin to the Trezor wallet before they can spend from it, the person needs to do 10,00 combination of password to get the right one since Trezor uses 4 digits as a pin.

However, It is always recommended to back up the seed phrase in a secure place but if you misplaced the seed phrase or stolen and during the generation of the seed phrase, you add a seed extension or passphrase, it will be difficult for the person to get into your wallet because the seed phrase will produce a different thing.

[PX-Z]

hint 2: if you're 'afraid' to provide your personal info to Ledger and have an account on Amazon, you can buy a wallet on Amazon.

Isn't ledger will still need user's information  even using amazon for shipping? Although ledger might not be going to include your whole personal info e.g. name, contacts and address to their database but they will still include you to their mailing list (names and emails) for marketing purposes.

Well, this is only when you use the official amazon shop of ledger. Buying on their affiliate amazon shops is different but you need to trust them not selling a customized one which i doubt they will.

[Myleschetty]

If Trezor doesn't support Solana and Matic, Ledger supports the ones you mentioned.

Trezor supports Matic and Solana is the only coin mentioned by the OP that the wallet did not support. Like the saying, "the devil you know is better than the angel you don't know".
I believe it's better to go for well known and reputable hardware wallet than some new and unpopular hard wallet listed above.

I checked Trezor's website, and unlike what the person above says I see MATIC and SOL

Could you provide the link because i don't see SOL on the list here?

[Charles-Tim]

but if someone stole the Trezor from you, the person can be able to get hold of your seed phrase which can be used to steal your coins, but if you use passphrase along with seedphrase while generating keys and addresses, different keys and addresses will be generated entirely.

I'm afraid this is not true but it is open to corrections!

You are actually wrong. Trezor do not have secure element and because of that, it makes such attack easily possible. But the use of passphrase would be helpful to avoid the attack as explained above.

During an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Kristýna Mazánková, head of PR at SatoshiLabs, and Josef Tětek, Trezor's brand ambassador, discusses how...

Tětek then explained that it's still not the end of the world if hackers manage to find one's recovery seed, as the inclusion of a passphrase makes the recovery seed useless by itself. "If you have your Trezor setup, with a recovery seed written down and protected with both PIN and passcode, there's no way to hack the device at all," says Tětek. However, he warned:

"Without the passphrase protection, there is the possibility to read the seed from the device if you have very specialized equipment."

You can read more about the attack that can reveal the seed phrase from here: Researchers Extract Seed Phrase From Trezor Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallets in Minutes

Could you provide the link because i don't see SOL on the list here?

Trezor do not support solana, but Ledger Nano supoorts it, but I can not recommend Ledger Nano because they are careless with customers personal information.

[tranthidung]

Cryptocurrency hardware wallets can get hacked too
How to hack a hardware wallet? from Ledger academy.

Because hardware wallet requires investment to buy it so some people prioritize discount than security and choose to buy hardware wallets from secondary market, not official stores. That consequently put them into risk of buying secondary hardware wallets with 'backdoors'.

For those people, it's bad because they sacrifice their initial reason to use hardware wallet, safety. Rather than buying secondary hardware wallets to save a little cost, they should use free open-source non-custodial wallets, it would be better.

[dansus021]

i would say all what hardware that mention is capable of doing lot of thing, especially nowadays hardware wallet is doing lot of capabilites including altcoin and token and have strong software too

personally im using Safepal Hardware wallet a hardware wallet backed by binance labs so far so good it accept solana aswell cardano bunch of altcoin and token air gapped wallet and the mobile software is reliable too

[Maus0728]

I've had my Ledger Nano S for approximately 2 years, but after about half a year of use, the screen began to fade, which I find extremely frustrating. Just a few months ago, I decided to get a new OLED screen to replace the faulty one^[1], and I contacted Ledger support, who fortunately sent me a brand new Ledger Nano S for free!!

Too bad, I am one of those people who experienced this kind of OLED screen issue^[2]. I am not just pretty sure if the cause is the quality of their oled screen or how I keep the ledger nano inside its original box.

I also have my Trezor Model One which serves as an alternative wallet for any NFT-related asset I own. So far, I haven't discovered any issues with the product after using it for about 7 months. But then, both of which serve their purposes well enough as long as you take of your seed phrases not getting leaked and don't do anything stupid (e.g., storing your seed phrase online, taking picture of it..).

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5393971.0
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/kq6dmq/ledger_nano_s_got_the_dim_screen_problem/

[mk4]

I've had my Ledger Nano S for approximately 2 years, but after about half a year of use, the screen began to fade, which I find extremely frustrating. Just a few months ago, I decided to get a new OLED screen to replace the faulty one^[1], and I contacted Ledger support, who fortunately sent me a brand new Ledger Nano S for free!!

Too bad, I am one of those people who experienced this kind of OLED screen issue^[2]. I am not just pretty sure if the cause is the quality of their oled screen or how I keep the ledger nano inside its original box.

I also have my Trezor Model One which serves as an alternative wallet for any NFT-related asset I own. So far, I haven't discovered any issues with the product after using it for about 7 months. But then, both of which serve their purposes well enough as long as you take of your seed phrases not getting leaked and don't do anything stupid (e.g., storing your seed phrase online, taking picture of it..).

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5393971.0
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/kq6dmq/ledger_nano_s_got_the_dim_screen_problem/

Fortunately, it seems like the screen issues are rare issues. We just tend to think that it's a common occurrence because of the complaints from the Ledger subreddit. But in fact the Ledger subreddit is pretty much a de-facto customer support forum hence it's expected for us to see complaints there.

[Kalchef]

Trezor and keepkey are both good choice but whichever you decide to go with make sure its a open source hardware wallet.

[Cookdata]

but if someone stole the Trezor from you, the person can be able to get hold of your seed phrase which can be used to steal your coins, but if you use passphrase along with seedphrase while generating keys and addresses, different keys and addresses will be generated entirely.

I'm afraid this is not true but it is open to corrections!

You are actually wrong. Trezor do not have secure element and because of that, it makes such attack easily possible. But the use of passphrase would be helpful to avoid the attack as explained above.

well, I'm not far from the truth, this is one of the implications of being an open source, they let down their security. I watched the video and some line of python codes was used to jailbreak the password which makes it easy to penetrate into the device after removing a part of the cheap board.
This happen in 2020 and I'm seeing it for the first time and others using it as hardware will see the demerit of using Trezor without the seed extension, most members don't know these because if they do, they wouldn't be recommending Trezor without strict warning of the passphrase as most do advise sometimes.

[m2017]

Could you provide the link because i don't see SOL on the list here?

Trezor do not support solana, but Ledger Nano supoorts it, but I can not recommend Ledger Nano because they are careless with customers personal information.

Yes, you are right, it is not advisable to recommend Ledger after many discussions of the shortcomings of this company on the forum:
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5391971.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5370521.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5389867.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5358741.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5394439.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5403001.0 - the last of the topics discussed about product malfunctions (with Ledger Live software) of this company, although this problem has already been discussed not for the first time here.

Yet, if you choose between these two brands, then at the moment, Trezor has the best reputation.

[Pmalek]

...I'd recommend you to check if Ledger devices are more attractive for your situation, just keep in mind they have had some problem with leaks some months ago.

Both manufacturers have had issues with personal data leaks, but the one that Ledger caused is a much more serious one and involved more user data. 

As a rule of thumb, you should avoid to provide personal information when ordering a HW as much as possible.

Easier said than done. If the manufacturer doesn't ship to PO boxes or the courier in your country doesn't deliver to PO boxes, you have to ship the package to a real address. One way around it is to have it delivered to your place of work. But whoever sees the package and accepts it will obviously know about your crypto interest.

Some other things you can do is pay with Bitcoin instead of PayPal or Credit cards. You can create a brand-new or temporary email address just for the hardware wallet purchase. If you live in a country where you can purchase an anonymous SIM card without connecting it to your real identity, that's not a bad idea either.

edit: I checked Trezor's website, and unlike what the person above says I see MATIC and SOL

MATIC is supported by both Trezor devices. SOL (Solana) is not supported at all. Don't mistake Solana for the Sola Token that can be stored on a Trezor. No idea what that is.

Isn't ledger will still need user's information  even using amazon for shipping? Although ledger might not be going to include your whole personal info e.g. name, contacts and address to their database but they will still include you to their mailing list (names and emails) for marketing purposes.

If you buy the HW from Amazon, it's Amazon who sees your personal and shipping information, not the HW manufacturer. The Amazon reseller has the devices in their possession, so no interaction is required with Ledger. You have to sign up or opt in for the mailing list to be included in it.

@Titanium99
If you live in the USA, you might want to check out the Foundation Passport Batch 2.
n0nce wrote a great review of the first edition of this HW > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382675.0. The second one is better and solves several issues seen in Batch 1.

[dkbit98]

I've read the hardware wallet mega thread, but still don't have a clear answer on what wallets are recommended and which ones to stay away from. What are the best hardware wallets on the market today, and which ones would you recommend for storing mainstream coins like BTC, ETH, SOL, MATIC, etc.? I'm looking for a cold wallet for long-term storage, and am open to air gapped solutions with a solid track record as well. Which ones would you recommend and why?

Someone recently said that using hardware wallets for storing shitcoins is like using a vault for storing a bunch of bananas.
There are only a few options for airgapped hardware wallets, that is Passport wallet made by Foundation, Keystone wallet, Coldcard Mk3 and some DIY wallets like SeedSigner and Krux.
From all wallets I mentioned only Kestone is supporting some alctoins, and all others are only supporting Bitcoin, and I think this is better for security.
There are some alternative options that are not airgapped but they are ok and open source like Trezor and Bitbox that support Bitcoin and other altcoins.
I would only use open source hardware wallets and you can find full list of wallets in topic I created below:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5288971.0

[Welsh]

Trezor if you want to just use it without needing to learn all that much. ColdCard if you want the best security, while still having the benefits of a hardware wallet, although it takes some setting up, so if you aren't confident, I'd absolutely recommend Trezor over ColdCard for the complexity issue.

There's other alternatives, but these have everything that you'll ever need. The price of a Trezor is decent, whereas you'll be paying a little more for the ColdCard, and depending on where you live might have to pay a hefty shipping bill also.

Any hardware wallet that doesn't have a secure element could be compromised, but the chances are still slim. Someone finding your hardware wallet, which should still be locked up under key, and secured physically as much as possible, and at the same time finding someone capable of breaking into it physically, is slim. Although, remember it can be done.

That goes for anything though, usually I say if someone has physical access to any of your devices, whether that's your computer or hardware wallet, assume it might've been compromised.