Everyone needs a secure way to store Bitcoin, Ethereum and Altcoins. The general “rule” most people use with crypto currency is “cold storage” (offline storage) for large amounts of bitcoin or altcoins and “hot storage” (devices connected to the internet) for smaller amounts of crypto. There is no 100% safe and secure method for storing crypto currencies at this time, the options below cover the most secure methods currently available.
Best Free Crypto Wallets for a First Timer
When you are new to crypto, sometimes you just need a secure, trusted wallet for your first transfer to store coins securely. These 3 are all approved by the bitcoin development team for storing bitcoin and are free wallets that are NOT connected to an exchange.
Each has their own benefits for specific user preferences, whether you want secure storage on iPhone, Android or Desktop, these are all great options.
Cryptocurrency Exchange Wallets
Anyone buying bitcoin or altcoins should be aware that Crypto Wallets on Crypto Exchanges are the property of the Crypto Exchange. You do not own bitcoin or altcoins that are stored in a bitcoin exchanges “free” wallet, the exchange owns it.
Some bitcoin exchanges use their total crypto held by all customers as assets, to obtain investments and loans based on their customers holdings. It is never a good idea to keep crypto on an exchange OR send crypto directly to an exchange wallet from gambling winnings.
Exchanges use wallet tracking for banks and government regulation in certain countries. Coinbase, Gemini and others will refuse to cash out funds received to a customers wallet, directly from a gambling website address.
The solution players use to these problems are to request a cash out from gambling sites to a wallet NOT connected to an exchange. Then transferring funds to their exchange wallet to request a withdrawal.
Another good option is to use wasabi wallet which allows users to obscure the source of their bitcoin on the blockchain.
Best Bitcoin Hardware Wallets
Currently the most popular offline storage method for bitcoin and altcoins. Since their sole purpose is to store crypto currencies, unlike laptops and phones, the use of hardware wallets will continue to increase.
Storing bitcoin and altcoins on a hard drive or USB is NOT recommended, however many hodler’s use this method. The small disadvantage with using a hard drive to store crypto is that your private keys could be exposed since when transferring through your computer with any wallet. The popular hardware wallets like Trezor and Ledger, don’t allow your private keys to touch a computer.
Trezor stores Bitcoin, Ethereum, ERC20 Tokens, Litecoin, Dash, Zcash and many others covered in our Trezor review
Ledger Nano S stores Bitcoin and more coins than Trezor. However, it’s total capacity for each device is 4 crypto currencies in total.
Storing bitcoin is very safe with both devices. Trezor can hold more crypto (in data capacity) on one device. Nano can hold more altcoin’s than Trezor suppprts but would require multiple devices to be an altcoin trader.
Desktop Wallets
Exodus wallet is impressing a lot in the crypto community with their recent release. For those wanting a light and stable wallet without all of the bells and whistles, the Electrum wallet has been a standard since 2011.
Iphone Wallets
Breadwallet for iOS or Android has been popular for years and has a few hundred thousand users on the app. There are MANY wallets in the app stored released by exchanges or third parties that we aren’t really sure we should trust.
We’d go with Breadwallet or Blockchain Wallet on IOS currently.
Android Wallets
Coinbase wallet for Android is the most popular mobile app for crypto currency in America. The exchange is popular and trustworthy, however their long term goals to regulate and control bitcoin with the banks leaves keeps many away from the exchange.
We would go with Green Address, Coinomi Wallet or Mycelium Wallet for Android.
Paper Wallets
The safest of the “safe” crypto wallets…that gets stored in your safe.
Paper wallets aren’t actually as secure as the hardware wallets at this point for storing bitcoin. There will always be those that argue it’s still relevant but everyone who used to do this back in 2013 has pretty much stopped thanks to better solutions available now.
Three options used and trusted still by many people are:
This site is intended for people over the age of 18 that never gamble what they can’t afford to lose.