Topic: Needing help on Wallet Selection (Read 153 times)

Thank you so much! Your information was very, very helpful!

Yes, it is. When you first set up your hardware wallet of choice, it will generate for you a seed phrase of either 12 or 24 words depending on which model you opt for. Duplicating your wallet to another hardware wallet is a simple as entering these words on your second wallet.

Your coins are not actually stored in your hardware wallet and never actually leave the blockchain. What your hardware wallet stores is the private keys which allow you to "unlock" and spend your coins. The seed phrase is used to deterministically generate those private keys, so the same seed phrase will always generate the same wallet with the same private keys accessing the same coins. By entering your seed phrase in to a second hardware wallet, then that hardware wallet simply uses it to generate and store the same private keys as on your primary hardware wallet.

You don't need multiple hardware wallets to achieve this, though. The words your wallet generates for you is enough to completely restore all your bitcoin and altcoin wallets (unless you also use an additional passphrase, in which case you need the passphrase too). You should write down these words on paper (never back them up electronically!) and store them somewhere safe and secure. If you want multiple back ups, then it is as simple as writing down the words on to multiple pieces of paper and storing all the copies separately. If you are worried about someone finding one of these back ups, then the simplest option is to use a complex additional passphrase as mentioned above and back it up (again on paper) separately.

You can read both Ledger's and Trezor's passphrase information pages here:
https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005214529-Advanced-passphrase-security
https://wiki.trezor.io/Passphrase

Thank you all SO much! I am going to go with the hard wallet. The potential of earning interest and rewards through staking, yield farming, etc is attractive, but not enough to put my portfolio at risk. I will be researching to compare the Ledger Nano X, Ledger Nano S, and Trezor wallets...

Is it possible to have the same coins stored on multiple hard wallets? I would definitely want multiple backups in the event of theft, fire, water damage, etc...

Go for it. It's a very good mix of security and convenience.
Since you seem to be in a hurry, Trezor and Ledger are the best choices, also keep in mind that Ledger had the store (not the wallet!) hacked and many customers' addresses have leaked onto the internet. And their wallet is not open source. On the other hand I do have Ledger wallet and I'm happy with it.

Also, think how many types of coins you plan to hold. For Bitcoin and few other coins the basic/cheaper wallet is usually fine (at least in case of Ledger). For more you may need one of those with bigger memory.
The best wallets usually support hardware wallet and I recommend you use them (Ledger, MEW, ...) instead of Ledger live, for example.

Ledger is a closed source wallet but it is still somehow safe than regular software wallets because keys are not exposed online.
You also need to buy ledger wallet and spend money and that is something you may miss.

Open source hardware wallets like Trezor, Coldacrd or Bitbox would be the best for holding your coins.
As far as I know there is no staking or lending for Bitcoin on ledger wallet, but only for few stable coins like DAI, USDT and USDC and staking for altcoins like Tezos, Tron, Cosmos, Algorand and Polkadot.
Earning interest for Bitcoin means that you would have to give up ownership of your Bitcoin and you would receive small interest for that from BitGo or other centralized custodian.

Not all open source wallets are safe. Open source means that you can read all parts of the code and verify it yourself. If you cannot, then you must trust others who have done so.
Open source is more secure with more experts review the code.

Some stake-based (PoS) currencies enable you to do it safely but you need a lot of money to make a reasonable profit.
The total profit i made from 6000 dollars is 40 dollars/month. If that is enough with you, then buy a hardware wallet and use decentralized methods.

Then a hardware wallet is probably going to be your best bet. The other options would be a paper wallet or an encrypted airgapped wallet, but both are not newbie friendly, require some technical knowledge to set up securely, and are far easier to go wrong with than a hardware wallet.

There is no wallet or service which will allow you to hold your own coins and also pay you interest, because there is nothing in it for them. Every service which pays you interest earns their money by taking your coins and lending them out or investing them. If you want to hold your coins securely, then you cannot earn interest. If you want to earn interest, then you have to risk your coins.

I assume by decentralized you actually mean non-custodial, i.e. you hold your own private keys and you don't trust someone else to.

A centralized platform holds your private keys and approves all your transactions, this means they can restrict you from spending your funds should they wish to, that is not really control.

Users of Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies are attracted to freedom and decentralization, this makes open source platforms the preferred alternative.

You won't be missing anything. A hardware wallet (Ledger or Trezor) is always a great choice. The wallet software (ledger live) gives you the ability to stake but even if it didn't, you would still be able to link it with MetaMask and stake/farm on decentralized platforms.

Hello,
I have been mulling over what wallet is best to go with for almost a week now and need some help. 

I thought I'd solved the problem when I came up on Celsius because I love the fact that I could earn interest on my holdings...Then I read that it was not a decentralized platform. From my understanding that would be my earnings at risk since someone else holds the keys. I've had someone tell me that isn't as much of a concern if you are just "hodling" and that if I can move my currency around, I AM in control... 

Then my research led me to TRUST wallet. I was concerned about it being open source, but I researched that an open source code platform could actually be safer than a closed source one...

I am considering a hard wallet like Nano Ledger, but what features/benefits would I be missing out on with a hard wallet?? 

My primary strategy is to BUY and HOLD, ie hodl, my currency. I need a wallet that is secure, pays on staking, pays interest, and based on security aspects I prefer decentralized. What wallet should I look into?? This has been a daunting task because the choices are overwhelming...but I need a solution QUICK!

Thanks in advance.