Topic: Using mobile phone as a full mobile wallet (Read 623 times)

Trustwallet is a mobile wallet, Metamask is a web wallet. Web wallet are the most vulnerable to online attacks.

Do not get this wrongly, this is not about hardware wallet, hardware is secure, but this is about airgapped wallet, a wallet on a truly airgapped device are one of the most safe and secure wallets, airgapped wallets are cold wallet.

If I were you, it's better to invest in a hardware wallet to store your assets. It's a lesson I've learned so hard after my 3 Metamask/Trust Wallet accounts have been hacked due to the malware that I didn't know and it was a costly mistake in my part for felling off in the hacker's antics.

Right now when I do transactions using my Metamask or Trust Wallet, I only left a few dollars for each blockchain (e.g,  Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, etc.) for gas fee payments, buying certain tokens in private or presale campaigns or minting NFTs.

Bear in mind though, that the words that are actually acceptable are delimited to a list of 2048 words. Although adding a few characters to words may seem to disguise it a bit better, someone capable of contrasting against the list will likely spot the extra added characters.

Additionally, if they were to be added as trailing characters (i.e. act-> acted; action-> actionable), there are wallets (i.e. Ledger) that will guess the word based on the first few characters you input for each word.

All in all, even though it could be an extra measure, it may not really deem effective really.

Cold storage is nothing without a secured private key, using another mobile phone for storing your keys or transacting a payment won't be secured enough, this still can be hacked, forget this idea and buy a hardware wallet, the hassle will be less.

Well, I don't see much of a hassle with using a phone as a mobile wallet if it hodls less than a single Bitcoin. All this talk about safety of funds and wallets depends on humans using them and not on the apps. It's the way I see it. People got to be very careful and mindful while at it. I don't see why anyone hodling an appreciable amount of Bitcoin on their phone should not be weary of links they click.

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Who does that without expecting to reap the repercussions of their thoughtless and needless act? Surely, the penalty always comes.

Smart move.

thanks for your guides. hardware wallet is expansive Ledger and trezors.

what about to use any linux distro on Virtualbox as cold wallet? u can turn there off internet forever. Is that good?

Using a mobile as a full mobile wallet may be a far better idea. I exploit a mobile wallet and therefore the number of lost and stolen items is far lower we will easily hide its information and make the transaction much easier. I can transact from anywhere I would like.

Well, this sounds like a good idea if you can afford two phones. But there are people here that might no be able to afford two phones.
- My advice for you is to try as much as possible not to save your private key on your e-mail.
- write down your private key on a piece of paper. Don't write it down letter for letter, try and add some few extra letters so as to avoid someone using it in your absence...
- ALWAYS CLEAR YOUR CACHE

Using a mobile wallet is indeed more efficient, practical and portable. The risk of a mobile wallet certainly depends on the security of the smartphone and also depends on the user. Do not install third-party applications that you do not trust. To anticipate when the phone is lost, use screen lock security and make sure your phone is still connected to the internet to keep track of it when your phone is lost.

I agree to this. When we are making signing transactions it is kinda risky sometimes. Our wallet can be easily detected and hacked. But since the other is only used by monitoring then yes it is safe. For me it is also OK to put my wallet on my mobile phone coz unlike desktop or laptop or pc, I can bring it everywhere. But of course I am very carefulcoz I might misplaced ot lose my phone which happened to be my everything.

I don't think that this would be a great idea because there also a possibility that the second phone might be broken and stolen by other people. Having a phone and using only for online transactions is not 100% sure as well because all things happen online can be hack or attacks by hackers. The offline wallet will still be the safest wallet for me it is the safest wallet compared to other types of wallets. It is not accessible by hackers, the only thing Tuscan be the reason for losing your money when using it is when it gets broken.
Such an informative reply mate, thanks for sharing, I will try this one someday.

I haven't tried it yet because I don't have another mobile phone but it is indeed a good idea to use other phone for wallet. Base on previous post about someone (theif) breaking in to your house and steal yoir gadgets left at home is to create a hiding place for your phone to hide and It is possible to do so just make sure it is hard to notice that there is a hidden compartment.

Yeah of course it was a good idea because I've done it. I actually had two smartphones before. One for texting, music and accessing this forum — the phone I normally used outside — and the other one is for my wallet digital wallet as well as the storage for my important files and notes. Unfortunately, the latter one broke due to excessive gaming . Nevertheless, I can say that it was a good way of securing your account against theft or getting misplaced. But this is only practical if you have two phones already.

In fact it's better to remove the sim card or to only use an out of order one if your device can't work without one.
Because a malware could try to send your seed by SMS or by a phone call if it can't connect to internet.

I don't stay home coz i work mobile so it is easiest for me to have my ohone as my full e wallet. I store all my coins in different wallets over my mobile phone.

There is always a chance that something bad happens, but there is something called a backup that works on the same principle for any type of wallet. When something is stolen or broken, we use backup to recover lost information. The only difference with what is stolen is how good the protection of a particular device is, or rather to say how long it will take a thief to hack protection and steal assets.


I wouldn't agree that the thing is so simple, it actually depends on the device itself - whether it's a smartphone or a hardware wallet. Security in for example Trezor HW is somehow compromised because there is an unrecoverable exploit that allows a thief to retrieve a seed in a very simple and fast way if the user has not set a passphrase.

Looking at the average smartphone, these newer ones have a fingerprint reader, PIN and face locking, but I think every mobile wallet is had PIN lock (at least Electrum is have), and you can encrypt your data as additional protection. Which would be easier to hack in a specific case, Trezor HW or smartphone locked with PIN/fingerprint + extra pin for crypto wallet+data encryption?

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It is never wise to underestimate the enemy, in this case malware, spyware or adware - and I personally have great confidence in Malwarebytes Premuim protection who has been serving me very well for years. What is a problem for most of those who do not want to use commercial av/antimalware programs is their cost and the old myth that they use too much resources and slow down their computers. But on devices that have sufficient RAM, this impact is almost negligible.

I also use this type of strategy, one phone contains all my crypto currency wallets, while i have my seeds saved privately.

The only thing i do not agree with is anti malware, either for your mobile phone, or your laptop, you do not need anything called anti malware.
For your phone and pc, all you have to do is activate the windows malware defender thats inbuilt with the devices, then you are safe.

Chances of your second phone with mobile wallet app being stolen, lost, broken, becomes suddenly a brick after a new firmware update is higher than simply holding funds on a ledger/trezor like hardware wallet.

Imagine your are keeping your phone at home and suddenly someone brakes in. First thing he will steal will be gadgets like phones, laptops - something that will be easy to sell in pawnshop. But who would take cheap usb flash drive, sorry crypto hardware wallet?

Plus this hardware wallets have built in security, and your mobile has? Pin code ? Home screen protection code ?

Someone has shared the same idea before and it's also with the use of an extra laptop. But rather than using a phone as a cold storage better to use the hardware wallets that we use like ledger.

Sell the phone that you won't use anymore and use the money to purchase a hardware wallet.

Kinda off topic but why not buy a hardware wallet and use it with your phone with otg cable? That will be much more secure imo. Will be more convenient than having 2 phones as well.