Since the surge up of bitcoin and other altcoins between the years of 2017 and 2021, there has been many eyes on cryptos including scammers too. Scammers have also advanced their fraudstering strategies to steal funds from individual crypto holders and exchanges with huge funds.
As the work of these scammers is not stopping in any moment, crypto enthusiasts with crypto funds also have to secure their funds from getting stolen by these scammers. For this reason, people holding cryptos have to know the types of crypto wallets available for storage and how to use them well. I would be therefore talking about two types of wallets for storing crypto funds. We have two types of crypto wallets for holding or storing funds, namely, they are Hot wallets and Cold wallets.
1. Hot Wallets.
Hot wallets which are also called online wallets are only accessable by internet connection. Meaning, without internet connectivity one cannot access his/her crypto funds. These hot wallets function on phones, tablets, computers. Since they work on devices which use internet connection to function, there is a higher risk of malware attacks. Exchanges such as binance, idex, applications for holding or keeping crypto funds personally such as metamask, trust wallet, ledger Nano, zapit, web wallet such as bitcoin.com are hot wallets because they need internet connection to function to access one's crypto funds.
Among these hot wallets we have custodial wallets which are handled by the exchanges and non custodial wallets which are personally handled and managed by the individuals.
With the custodial wallets the exchanges have a complete control over them since they take care of them and the way for one to access his/her crypto funds on the exchanges is by entering his/her password he/she used when creating an account there.
With the non custodial wallets as personally owned, the key to access one's crypto funds is by importing the seed phrase (containing twelve words) which the account automatically generated when creating the account for the first time previously.
2. Cold Wallets.
Cold wallets which are also called hardware wallets are used to store or keep crypto funds offline. Meaning one can access his/her crypto funds offline without the need of internet connectivity.
Honestly, this is the safest wallets to keep one's crypto funds since there is no need of internet connection to access one's crypto funds which could bring malware attacks. One could keep his/her private keys safe by printing them out on a piece of paper or saving them on USB drive. Cold wallets are actually considered as 80 percent virus free since they don't work through internet connectivity which has a higher risk of malware attacks.
My choice of Wallet to use to keep my crypto funds safe.
Everyone has his or choice when it comes to everything including crypto wallets too. I personally prefer to use the hot wallets, particularly the non custodial wallets. Though they are vulnerable to virus attack but they work much faster than the cold Wallets. The cold Wallets on the other hand involve technical know-how or much knowledge to access them well unlike the hot wallets. This would not be good for those of us who don't have much knowledge on these complicated wallets to access them well.
This is why I prefer the hot wallets than the cold Wallets and I believe most people would choose hot wallets over cold Wallets.
Since there are risks involved with the use of hot wallets but still prefer to use them, there are some safety measures I would have to put in place. I prefer to use either metamask wallets or trust wallets as non custodial wallets which seem bit secured.
I would not put all my crypto funds in one metamask wallet or trust Wallet since I could be scammed in the process when connecting it to exchanges for trading or making transactions. For this reason I have to own multiple metamask wallets or trust wallets of which one would be holding my huge crypto funds and the other wallets would be holding my small crypto funds which would be only meant for trading with other exchanges and for other crypto activities.
Unfortunately, when I got scammed in the process of trading or making transactions, I wouldn't be affected that much because it would be small amount of crypto funds that I would be losing. This is the only way to shield myself from losing all my crypto funds, if unfortunately it happens, but I am not praying and hoping for that.
Note: This is not an advice, it is just my opinion.
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Great information . I use a few different wallet apps for on-chain gaming, collecting NFT's, and browsing dapps, etc . I try not store any large amounts of crypto in my Metamask or CB wallet Mobile wallets , and I only send funds to them if I plan on using them for something right away .
Scammers are always coming with something new. Now " Dusting Attacks " are the big one. They drop a big amount of some shit coin in your wallet . You think you got lucky and won an airdrop or something so you want to swap it for ETH and so you can cash out. The only problem is when you send the transaction fee to pay for the swap it goes to a scammers wallet instead of an exchange. It's a very sneaky scam .
Thanks for sharing your experiences ! That's how we all learn to avoid these schemes and scammers.