Turn Your Old Phone into a Free Hardware Wallet on Metamask

Do you have an old iPhone or Android phone no longer being used?  If so, you can turn that phone into a hardware wallet for Metamask.  The popular wallet, in both phone app and browser extension forms, now allows you to store your private keys offline for free.

If you prefer to go the more traditional hardware wallet route, then please refer to my article from last week - Which Hardware Wallet to Choose?

While the eventual choice I came up with there will set you back about $150, this option is completely free.  A new partnership between Metamask and AirGap has lead to this capability, something that should be welcomed by Metamask users.  Metamask confirmed this in a recent tweet stating "MetaMask now supports @AirGap_it Wallet, a free app on Android and iOS that turns a phone into a hardware wallet."

Once set up, users can check their cryptocurrency balances, approve transactions as well as buy and sell both cryptos and NFTs.  It is absolutely critical to keep your private keys stored offline to protect your crypto from many different forms of hacks, malware attacks and phishing schemes.

When choosing this hardware wallet you will need to use two phones.  On your everyday phone you will download the AirGap wallet application which will then work in conjunction with the AirGap vault that needs to be downloaded on your old phone.  One word or caution, the old phone should only be used for the AirGap vault and the phone should have the most recent versions of updates and firmware loaded.

Once set up and your Metamask wallet is secured by AirGap, all transactions will have to interact with the vault before they can be approved.  This means that even if somebody gets access to your Metamask wallet, they can't take out your crypto or NFTs without the private keys stored on your old phone.  In-other-words, unless someone gets physical access to your old phone they are locked out of removing anything in your wallet.  This extra layer of protection when using the two-phone approach is worth pursuing to keep your crypto safe.

AirGap currently works on both the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain networks so it supports a wide variety of decentralized apps built on two of the more popular networks.

Metamask also support the two main hardware wallets I compared last week in Ledger and Trezor, in addition to Lattice and Keystone.

So if you use Metamask and currently don't have a hardware wallet, make sure you secure your account using that old phone.