Topic: Good hardware wallet for new users ? (Read 474 times)

Lucius,

If you employ all of Trezor T's capabilities its about as safe as it can get.  Been studying and using trezorctl "deep" for the past few days.  I have a spare and I am blowing away/resetting/etc.... and I find trezorctl very powerful in the right hands.  There is NO realistic hack of SEED with use of the latest SD card protection, assuming you handle the SD card properly.  Of course the additional password added to the SEED is further strength.  I selected 24 words using trezorctl and then added 35 characters of BIP password for storage accounts!  Overkill, yep!

I especially like the new PIN wipe/delete feature I enabled using trezorctl.  If I want to intentionally wipe my trezor I simply enter one simple PIN and boom its cleared out!  Don't know what I would do if presented with the $5 wrench attack, since I now have the option to present them/him/her with a PIN wipe code instead of my long real PIN.  I do have an in between option with several hidden wallets, but that may now work out for me either.  My SEED is in my bank deposit box.  Could get ugly if I did give the wipe PIN,  hmmmm?

For those reading along: know that the wipe PIN feature works great on Trezor 1's too.  I have it on a handful of them just in case - you never know.

Thank you for your explanation..

You don’t necessarily have to lose the HW, the device can be stolen or hacked and put back in its original place so the owner finds out it was hacked only when connect it to the UI. It should also be noted that passphrase does not represent absolute security, it is also important that it is not too simple and subject to brute force hacking.


It makes more sense to me than that the device allows it to be done as many as 16 times (in case of Trezor). In case you have to reset the device for some reason, it makes more sense to do it with three wrong PINs, than with as many as 16, between which the time is doubled for each subsequent attempt. It is almost impossible for me to enter the wrong PIN 3 times in a row, unless I want to do just that.

I am not familiar with cobo vault pro.

Trezor T is very secure and one of the hardware wallets that is easiest to use, however potentially vulnerable if lost unless you use a passphrase.
It is fully open source, this is the perfect wallet for the average person.
Online security is excellent.
Very good wallet.

Leger nano X, close source, however it is very secure, however if you enter the pin wrong 3 times it self reset which makes no sense, other hardware wallets it is like 15 times, it has bluetooth which make it easier to use with a cell phone.
Very good wallet.

Keepkey, it is based on the trezor one code but not as updated. using it with shapeshift is buggy, however you can use it with the original keepkey chrome client, or electrum, mycelium, and maybe wasabi.
For the price you can not go wrong it is by far the cheapest of all hardware wallets, however it is less secure than trezor or ledger, I do recommend this wallet for low amounts of money since it is more secure than any software based wallet, but I would not recommend this wallet for large sums of money.
Keepkey other than large screen useful for older people, and low price, has no advantage from either from ease of use or security.
moderate security, very low price.

The most secure hardware wallet seems to be the coldcard mk3, it has a lot of security features that the other wallets do not have, the trade off it is highly technical not for newbies, and bitcoin only.

I personally prefer to have multiple hardware wallets for different purposes.
For ultimate security coldcard mk3.
For an online password manager trezor T
for u2f ledger X, and then trezor T, since ledger X makes it easy on cellphones due to bluetooth.
for making up my seedfile coldcard mk3.
to play around with small amounts: keepkey

Even if a hardware wallet is lost or stolen even though most are vulnerable to physical attacks, the attacks are difficult and most thieves would have no clue on what to due.

Since she is not technical leave out coldcard (advance wallet), and keepkey since she would most likely use shapeshift encounter bugs and get a bad bitcoin experience, my recommendation is Trezor T since it is the easiest to use while being secure at the same time, it uses a web gui for a bitcoin client, the only thing you will need to tell her is to never provide the seed to anyone plus you get a password manager with it.

Hey mate, thank you for your suggestion. It's too late for her now. She already ordered Ledger Nano S device. 

Ledger Nano S was my first hardware wallet purchase and I am very happy with it. I can only recommend it to your friend as well. However, a woman might prefer the Nano X more. It looks better, has a bigger screen, and if she becomes interested in other altcoins sometimes in the future, she wouldn't have to worry about the storage space. It is not a problem to uninstall an app you are using and install some other you need at that moment, but some people might not like that.     

The Ledger Nano S is a hugely popular product as far as hardware wallets go, much more popular than any of their previous models. I'd be very surprised if Ledger shot themselves in the foot and pissed off the majority of their customers by discontinuing support for a product like that. They will stop selling the Nano S long before they discontinue support for it.

Further, even if they did turn around tomorrow and stop supporting it, even stopped it syncing up with Ledger Live for some unknown reason, there's nothing to stop you from continuing to use your Nano S for as long as the internal hardware functions with a client like Electrum.

I would be much more worried about hardware failure over the long term than about Ledger discontinuing support. Most of their updates are just to support more shitcoins or add useless KYC invading exchange features anyway.

I was lucky as well mate, I bought it when there was 50% sale promo. But I have decided to switch on Nano X due to lack of less memory size in S version. Now I am using X as my main device and Nanu S for backup device. 

It is completely clear to me what the differences are between the S&X models, and it is also clear to me that the main factor when buying the device is price. It is also clear to me that there is a difference between those who already own Nano S and those who are hesitant between S&X. From your perspective of the current owner, there is no logic to invest in a new model because it does not make any difference to you, and the price does not suit you either.

But if you consider that buying hardware wallets is a long-term investment, then those who buy them today may still need to invest in a new model that will certainly have much longer support than the older model. Imagine a potential situation where someone bought a Nano S this year, and in 2 years Ledger says it will no longer upgrade firmware for the same model. But I guess that’s a risk most can live with.

But these hardware limitations are completely irrelevant in OP's case, where she is going to be buying only bitcoin and using it for long term storage rather than day to day spending, so she needs neither the extra storage space nor the Bluetooth connectivity.

I am in the exact same boat. There is no need for me to spend extra for a Nano X, since I have only BTC and XMR apps installed on my Nano S devices, and I have never had the desire to use them with my phone (although I still could with a USB cable if I wanted). I certainly wouldn't call that a hardware "limitation". Why spend $50 extra for features you aren't going to use?

If money isn't an issue, then OP's colleague would be better off buying two Nano S devices and using one as a back up.

From a security point of view, the Nano S is quite a decent hardware wallet, I don't think there is any doubt about it - but it is also a model that has hardware limitations, especially when it comes to storage, so any future firmware must be adapted to it. If money is a limiting factor then Nano S definitely makes sense, but if $50 doesn't mean too much to someone in life then it definitely makes sense to buy Nano X.

I’ve compared it to buying smartphones that can be quite expensive, and yet tens of millions of devices costing more than $500 are sold every year. I paid only $90 for my Nano X and $700 for my smartphone - but both make sense as an investment for at least the next 5 years.

Thank you for sharing your honest feedback about buy good hardware wallet for new users. I just want to share my co-worker is happy to buy ledger Nano S wallet.

I agree with this as well as the opinions here recommending a Ledger over any of the rest of the hardware wallets on the market.  The only other one I've tried is the Keepkey, so I can't say anything good or bad about the Trezor or the rest, but the Ledger Nano S is such a neat little device that works great.  If you're a newbie who's not very tech-savvy as OP's friend apparently is, I don't think you could go wrong with the Nano S (or the X, though I haven't yet tried it).

Stay away from the Keepkey, though, that's my opinion on that one.  I found it to be inferior to the Ledger in almost every aspect, and I regret buying one.  It's a nice-looking unit, but it's complete garbage as a hardware wallet IMO.

I also recommend the Ledger for a new user, either Nano model would be good.  I think the Ledger is a bit safer for newbies to use even with the basic set-up.  It doesn't require any additional steps or knowledge to secure it from physical attacks, like some of the other wallets you listed.  If you're friend is only storing a few coins on her wallet, the Nano S is all she needs.  The Nano X is definitely a cool upgrade, but I don't find any of the added features to be necessities. 

I've owned and used the Ledger Nano S, Nano X, Trezor One, Trezer T, as well as the KeepKey.  I personally prefer the open-source nature of the Trezor wallets, and consider the Trezor T my favorite.  They do require some knowledge and additional setup to mitigate physical attacks, which isn't difficult, but it's worth acknowledging if you are recommending it to a newbie. 

Just a heads up to OP that while the Nano S has small memory(hence only can handle a few altcoin apps), you can simply uninstall altcoin apps and reinstall them sometime in the future if you need to send out your funds. You don't lose access to your coins buy uninstalling their apps.

Personally, Ledger Nano S is fine if you are just holding bitcoin and few of the altcoins supported by Ledger, Ledger Nano S has only limited storage space in which only 2 or 3 application of altcoins can be installed on the device.

Moreover, you can actually do a lot with Ledger Nano S if you are going to integrate the use of Electrum as an interface to use when managing you bitcoin transaction. The only difference with Ledger Nano X is the Bluetooth functionality, wider screen and large storage capacity.

I agree to this, all of us don't really know what happens when we logged out of our exchanges and letting our coins sleep to their mattresses. It is alarming tho, according to CipherTrace report in 2019, there were over 4 billion crpytocurrency that has been stolen and most of these are from exchanges. The risk in putting our funds in an exchange is literally unknown, even the most trusted and reputable ones got breached also.

As my fellow bitcoiners already mentioned above their suggestion, obviously those are the popular ones that you can get right now, I highly recommend the Legder tho.
It will just vary on the price point you are preferring to, actually all of them are 95% safe.

Thank you for your suggestion. I think she is going to hold just bitcoin only. I am going to ask her if she has interest on other coin. 

There can be a lot of different opinions about that, but in my opinion, I am Ledger Nano X wallet is the best and then comes Trezor T wallet, of course there are features that Trezor T outperforms Ledger Nano X but in general the Ledger Nano X features are more and better as they support More coins and cheaper. You can see a comparison between Ledger Nano X, Trezor T, KeepKey here:
https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/trezor-keepkey-ledger/

There are so many risks and security issues storing your coins in a web wallet or exchange they are almost too numerous to count. Similarly too numerous to count is the number of users who have lost funds from either a web wallet or exchange due to shady operating practices or hacks. You must place complete trust in the operator of the site to not exit scam, not to confiscate your coins or freeze your account because you breached some known rule or limit, not to spring unannounced KYC on you and seize your coins if you don't comply, not to store your coins in a hot wallet, not to have any malicious employees, to have good and robust security systems, to encrypt your keys, etc. You cannot back up your keys or seed phrase, because you don't get access to them. You are vulnerable to phishing attacks or to having your accounts hacked or compromised by malware, browser extensions, apps, etc. You have less privacy and less security. When you use a web wallet or exchange, you don't actually own any bitcoin; the service in question owns the bitcoin. All you have is an IOU, and if they choose to not fulfill that IOU for any reason, there is almost nothing you can do about it.