Topic: I never use wallet like a bank (Read 264 times)

This is true, mobiles phones especially androids have flaws, and always been the target, of hackers, since they are the most use devices now, and there are people who never care about securities they only use and not aware of what is going on on the background, laptop/desktop is way better to use, for this things like transactions, but I just want to remind newbies like me that the most important thing is security, and the things you do in your devices, be careful what you install and click even in laptops and desktops, this will help us secure what we have.

Whatever device you use, the responsibility for keeping your assets secure rests entirely with you. Avoid carelessness, even if it is stored on a personal laptop, you must also watch out for the worst things to happen.
Security depends on how you store it. You may think it's safe to keep it in your Laptop, but Laptops are not fire resistant. Asset security needs to be maintained, security depends on how people store it.

There are no guarantees if not tracking or watching because android is made and controlled by Google, it's still not safe to keep the detail, I will avoid to install a crypto wallet or other important sensitive matters.

of course, it will be different if we talk about hardware wallets because the sign is not in the phone, but if we use the hardware wallet on the phone, we don't need to shortcut explorer again.

I don't know why very confidence to keep it as storage on android?.
If you are online, google will watch your activity, maybe they will watch you when signing your password/pin while transaction on electrum.

Maybe Google is one of the companies that have a big data private key user if all bitcoiners keep it on the drive, Gmail, or another place in android. Google became one of the world's richest companies without hard-working again. because They just collect all Bitcoiners private key around the world.

That's all because of convenience or mobility, because of course now everyone uses a cell phone.

Generally, some people prefer to use a mobile wallet for convenience, there are other options available such as explorer. Also email notifications which can provide similar functionality while ensuring safety and security.

In my opinion, be careful and safety first when dealing with cryptocurrencies, and explore different options to find what works best for you.

The only thing that hacker can get access to your wallet is if they know your private keys. It doesn't matter what wallet you installed on your phone or never but once the hacker knew your wallet address you should be wary that what they just need is the private key for it to access the wallet and send those coins to their own wallet.

Suppose you are convenient with using your fiat wallet online and not really the crypto wallet then it's your choice if you want it that way but it depends on what was convenient to the user whether it's a bank wallet or crypto wallet it's just a matter of a choice. And there's nothing wrong with that if you really know what you are doing.

I think OP is not talking about storing Bitcoin but rather talking about notification when transaction occurs in relation to your address. If I understand the OP correctly, he try to compare the wallet app and banking app and then try to tell how easy it is to get notifications by attaching your address to explorer and subscribe for notifications using your email. IMO, I see no difference in both since you will have to have access to internet before you get the notification.

I have bitcoin wallet on my android (electrum), while I also have it on my laptop. But when we talk about security risks, especially about the possibility of hacking, then we have to review where the mistakes because both versions of the wallet (android and PC) are equally vulnerable to being hacked due to user error. To some extent I can still use the android and PC versions of electrum as storage wallet, but if the amount increases then hardware wallet is a better choice.

You have a valid point but you totally misunderstand what I am trying to point out because I am not talking about the Bitcoin mobile app wallet used here. I was talking about other app installed on the phone which has nothing to do with cryptocurrency but could do some harm to the wallet since the Google Play store and Apple store are not doing an incredible job to secure the app on their platform.

Congratulations. Now the explorer knows who you are. Well, not exactly who you are but your IP address can be traced by them and will be linked to the bitcoin addresses you search on their site.
Most of the explorers hold the data of users and their search with themselves so that they can keep tracking them.
We never know when this data gets leaked or is shared to other companies for their own profits.
So try to avoid using explorers at first place and better use bitcoin core wallet to trace transactions.

android is the common target of a hacker. Its better to avoid downloading or clicking any malicious sites and Its best to buy a laptop or a Personal Computer for there you can store what coins you have. And also making your wallet like a bank means that your coins that you save in your wallet is not permanent exact price because of the change of price of what coins you have? depends on time?

Yes I agree with you, having a wallet in your laptop can be easily hacked since it's browser. Many hackers target laptop and mobile phones because it's easy to make a fake wallet website that can drain your account or your privacy can be expose by the hacker.

I have no issue in my hard wallet because I know it's safe, I suggest it to my friend and they agree because it's very convenient to use and it's not risky to put money there.

There's a way to prevent hacking or drain your wallet in your mobile phone and laptop:
1. Make sure that your browser that you clicked is real and not fake
2. Having a hard wallet
3. Double check your transaction(check your seedphrase or address)

If you don't want to your access of bitcoin wallet from smart phones then you can install watch only wallet alone which is more convenient than using the explorer everytime when the transaction is receiving or sending. Or we can use the smart phone wallet as secondary wallet just like your wallet where you don't have too much money, just small amount from your primary wallet so even if your wallet get hacked due to smartphone attack then you won't lose much.

Many despise Android phones, yet I prefer them to iPhones. The reason for this is that they are open source, and as a developer, you can go through their libraries on GitHub and test what they have been doing on their gadget and test run what they are doing in the background, whereas iPhones with proof of security are closed source, and you have little idea what they do in the background. Nevertheless, it is not recommended to keep large amounts of bitcoin on your mobile wallet, but you may use a mycelium mobile wallet with a few little sats if you wish to spend some without having to sign your cold wallet with your Computer every time.

One way to avoid having your phone or laptop hacked is to not install any wallets. As long as you can keep it somewhere safe, a hard wallet is the safest option. If we are anticipating transactions, we can easily access bitcoin explorers to check our wallets. If we want the same level of convenience as when we use our smartphones to conduct online banking, this may sound difficult. Perhaps it will change in the future once bitcoin arrives at its value stability and we can utilize it effectively for our day to day use.

I mean it would be nice if we can use bitcoin wallets like other bank wallets since it was so convenient to use compared to buying bitcoin and putting it in a secure wallet or hardware wallet. Accessing your bitcoin on your phone easily sending it easily having all of that transaction etc was just convenient enough that is why a lot of us still uses a bank, and we really still need to use bank and fiat, I mean it's still inevitable it's our country currency, and as much as we want we can't really use bitcoin to buy in all of the stores that we wanted especially on local stores or market. I think I would agree that a laptop is better than a smartphone since something like electrum can only be opened on a laptop, also in the long-term investment you surely needed to use a secure wallet that your gonna access on your pc or laptop, and then maybe for quick transactions you can use your smartphone.

As long your mobile phone not tracking with malware and restrict website I sure there are not any target from scammer, actually all mobile banking have higher protecting and not easy for hacker access to your mobile banking. Right now with technology advances need access mobile banking for every payment transaction to make it easy and faster but that trues have complicated problem when receiving money need to access or log in first in the mobile banking account.

Difference with cryptocurrency, received payment from the other wallet not required log in to our wallet account just tracking trough explore or etherscan to know about transaction have been success or not.

I bookmarked my bitcoin address dude, for example like this: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/bc1qek59lrtacstczn4wyjn9v630eyhjgk6kjxzp68 which I can check it any time without worry.

If only for increase your investment, you don't need to install wallet, you need to install an exchange which purpose to buy from fiat to crypto, then sending it to cold wallet.

I've installed a wallet on my special laptop on home, but I rarely use it (because always work in office), so kinda lazy if to use it for exchanging bitcoin or swapping to fiat.

A  trusted source can be compromised so downloading softwares, apps from official sites is not enough. You must verify what you download.

You must verify PGP key of developers to verify apps or wallet software files you downloaded.

Examples
[GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum
Verifying Bitcoin Core

We all have different understandings of the use of Bitcoin. Although mobile wallets are prone to attack but that doesn't mean all Bitcoin mobile wallet app users are naive about what they are doing because some individuals use mobile as their means of paying through BTC since they leave on it. If we want BTC to achieve the great purpose it was destined for, we must also have a mobile or crypto debit card to use BTC as mobile banking.

There is a telegram bot that provides transaction notification for in and out crypto transactions of a wallet.

This is why people are advised not to make use of or download apps that are not from a trusted source.

Every online bank or wallet can be easily hacked when someone knows your secret, even if you are using a laptop, as long as it is online banking or wallet, even if you didn't install the application in your phone, if someone finds out your private keys, he will get you. What we should do to avoid being hacked or scammed in our wallets or banks is to not believe in anyone and keep our phones or laptops away from them, even our best friends, because these days Most people are easily damaged by friends or those they trust.

It's necessary for personal finance and I am doubtful if someone are not following their payment (get paid or not) to continue their work.

Many options to check your wallet balance but why not have your own wallet and check it in your wallet.

Do you know that explorer can track many things when you enter your address on their explorers? Like IP address.

Why do you have to sacrifice your privacy and things you can do on your side by relying on a third-party website (explorer)?

Register a blockchain explorer by email to get notification on my wallet balance changes. It's very bad advice.

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If you are worrying about hack on your device, you can simply import your wallet in Watch-only mode. You can see balance, transaction history but nobody can steal your bitcoin.

• Creating a Watch-only wallet in Electrum

I think you're a bit confused with what OP is saying, he meant to tell us not to install and use a wallet on our phone as a bank, it's too risky for our bitcoins. If you want to check your transaction status instead, just use explorer, don't log into your wallet too often by smartphone.
But instead of buying a new computer to store bitcoins, I would buy a hardware wallet that would suffice and also be more secure.

All versions are vulnerable and this will not change, which is why it is important to regularly upgrade them with security patches. The only problem is that most smartphones stop receiving such patches after 2-3 years because they are no longer the priority of the manufacturer.


I would not agree that it is only the operating system that should be blamed, because users are actually the ones who install various apps without even checking what they are actually about. I haven't had any problems with malicious apps on my smartphone, so I believe that anyone can achieve this if they only follow some basic rules. These rules are actually very simple and consist of not downloading apps that are relatively new and have a small number of downloads, and to also be careful what permissions you give to any app you install.

I appreciate your concern but those mobile wallet app users are just like desktop users, if they know what wallet app they've downloaded, kept the keys on safe then there's not that much difference but only the device they use upon accessing the wallets that they have.

Even the desktop wallet users are also targeted by hackers, these hackers, phishing methods and other types of reverse engineering, they're all targeting us and they don't mind whether we're desktop or mobile users.

Much better to save and buy a hardware wallet. But either goes effective as long as the user knows how to use them properly whether it's a mobile wallet that has keys, the same with desktop wallets and also for hardware wallets.

Yeah, although there are a lot of advantage of using banking apps, it's one of the most targeted apps by cyber criminals and even if you have a good security practice, they can still hack someone because they are just one step ahead of this game.

And with crypto, it's more evident, our phone is always connected, and worst if we forget about it and used public Wifi, we might exposed ourselves to this criminals who might be just roaming around and looking for their next victim. So just be careful with our online wallets being installed in our phone.

That's right, what he mentioned was not to store bitcoins in the browser. But to see in/out transactions through explorer, he bookmarked it in the browser. In this thread, the OP explained that he doesn't like installing applications for his financial tracking while using traditional banks where we need to install applications or come to an ATM to see transaction records.

Because Explorer is not a place to store money, but only to see the transaction records, so this will not threaten an assets. This means, for any need, he doesn't need to log into the wallet to check for new transactions. A simpler thing than traditional banking wallet.

This is not even a safe practice because many people will tell you that having your wallet in your laptop is as the same thing as having your wallet on your mobile phone. This is because with your laptop, you also install applications and also do some other things online. The advice sounded like it is the ultimate, while it is not.
If you care much about the security of your funds and you got alot of bitcoin to save, then use cold storage metho where you don't even need to visit online at all with the device with which you saved bitcoin.

I understand the fear OP. We live in a very sensitive society, recently it has been discovered that new android OS versions which includes android operating systems running versions 11, 12, 12L, and 13 are vulnerable, reason they are advised to update when ever there is a new release.

And with the numerous applications and malware circulating both on place store and the web one might just give in to hackers too cheaply. It is more safer offline or preferably on paper. Android users are just at the mercy of their operating systems.

The one thing that will put your portfolio at high risk is carelessness and misinformation, even if it is stored in a laptop or you have a hardware wallet if you don't know the basics and the latest about securing your coins no wallet you can use and can secure it.
Security starts on yourself, not on your device, you are your own bank, and a bank has all the security in place to secure their money in vaults from bank robbers, so your mindset should focus on security and not the kind of wallet that you're using.

Be it a laptop or phone you're using for your wallet the responsibility still rest on you to safeguard and keep your gadget off internet hack. It's same risk both laptop and phone user face as long as both gadgets are use to surf the internet. Best safe tips is to avoid any suspicious sites/links, get a strong antivirus protection against malware's or anything as such. And learn to keep secret or private your financial life.

i use 2 smartphones and one of them is an iPhone 11, all my digital wallets, i installed on my iPhone but social media applications or other, i use on other smartphones, to keep my iPhone safe, i never access any wifi there, i just access my digital wallet that is on my iphone with private network and open it only when i need it ^{(increase my investment, to pay for something or exchange)}

i always maintain the security of my personal data and data wallet, especially with lots of bad news that smartphones have been hacked, lost or so on ^{(the internet is a wild world, dangerous for the trivial person)}.

If I maybe right OP isn’t talking about storing bitcoin on Explorer. Bitcoin Explorers are used for many purposes, OP is using his to check for transactions status either maybe the transaction is pending or there is have been confirmations rather than opening is wallet and checking if the transaction has reflected on it. This is done by copying the transaction ID into the explorer or checking using the public address. Public address doesn’t online doesn’t mean your wallet can be compromised, it is only possible when the hacker has access to your private keys. Although a wallet address can be used by third party to monitor the transactions process of that wallet, that is how much comes in and what goes out

OP how did you put Bitcoin on an explorer? Are you talking about the browser? How many times have newbies been warned to never store Bitcoin on anything else than the Electrum wallet or hardware wallet? And you aren't even a newbie, this is a bad practice that could lead to loss of funds.

This is really dangerous especially when you are been into searching for more details on internet since provably you might be at risk to stumble on a phising site or malware which can cause you a financial loss. But if you use separate device for using those wallets and never click anything links nor try to open up some fishy website then I think its fine. Since using those reputable web wallets is somehow can give you a good convenience especially when you try to transact and you are away at your home.

We just need to be more careful on action since so that no hacking issue will occur, also we need to be updated on the wallets we are using to know the controversy happening and can do counter action if something strange happen to them.

That's your choice OP, I do believe that having a crypto wallet on your smartphone is safer than having it on a browser, I found that ridiculous, I can uninstall my wallet from my smartphone since I have the recovery seed, but right now or should I say that since the past few months now I have been buying altcoins and bitcoin, imagine having to reinstall the wallet and import my recovery seed over and over whenever I found a new altcoin to add, it's stressful, and moreover this is why it's called hot wallet.

As long as it's online, It's risky. No matter what device you are using. Hackers can get access to your laptop. Suppose you want to be careful with your wallet. You can be with your android device as well. But, in recent days, Hackers improved their malware. They steal data through the framework. You can read more here Android malware targets 13 bitcoin wallets and 400 banks Shared by lovesmayfamilis. taufik123 Shared about it here https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.61893757.

Let's back where I was. You can use two things. If you really want to hold for a long time. Use Hardware wallet and never store your information online. If you do transaction everyday or couple of times a week. Keep small amount (What you need) of Bitcoin on your Non Custodial Android wallet.

It is not a wrong thing to have bitcoin wallet on your mobile phone as long you dont store large amounts of bitcoins on it and just use it as a hot wallet.



Having your wallet installed on laptop is not much safer than having it on phone as in both ways you can get hacked as long as laptop is connected to internet. It would be safer if instead using Windows you have linux or macOS as those are less prone to malware attacks.

Best way to protect your crypto are hardware wallets so those who have money for laptop should have money for hardware wallets too.

As much as I wanted to use crypto at all, but we should remember that we still need fiat money to use in our daily lives. Its not as if simple things can be bought by crypo. Yes adoption is kicking in but not all accept it yet. There is a choice not to install mobile wallet and use only the card of your bank and only withdraw when you need the money. About monitoring its the same.

Some people get used wallets like banks (mobile banking) just for tracking or knowing if get received money from someone or payment.

But, I don't like them, because we're in a crypto world where don't need to install a bitcoin wallet like mobile banking on your phone if want just to know if received money or payment a week.

Yes, I did it on explorer, I just put my bitcoin address into explorer and bookmark it on the browser (simple, on chrome android, setting it as a shortcut in hope page phone).

If want more detail and receive notifications like mobile banking, you must register in your email on a specific explorer and subscribe.
So if any transaction is on that address, you will receive a notification in your email.

*Note:

We should know, Handphone is one of the target hackers to watch your activity, your life is being watched because too many applications out there we can't research if that is safe (close source).

especially if you are careless and always installed in what you like.

As I can see on the service board, many applicants as user phones and prefer on his phones to install the bitcoin wallet, it's very dangerous for beginner (ex bounty hunter altcoin who never use bitcoin wallet but expert use metamask, trust wallet, coinomi, or another altcoin wallet),

so be careful, start saving now, buy a laptop and create bitcoin wallet there, don't trust too much on your android because you being wathed by hacker.

change immediately your habits before it's too late.