I have some Bitcoin and Ethereum on Coinbase since 2018. Coinbase never failed me, but they ask for more and more personal details. Last requests made me look for alternatives. I read wasabi is one of the best privacy focused wallets, but what do you use? Im not trying to hide anything from goverment or anything like that, I just want safe place for coins that doesnt feel like someone is tracking every single step I make
Edit: made sentence more clear
What is wrong with a paper wallet? An offline “cold storage” approach
Ive heard about paper wallet, but honestly I cant keep my papers safe enough to trust that approach.
The coins are on the blockchain, what you save in a wallet are the keys to access them.
Contrary to the common believe you don’t need a hardware wallet to keep your keys safe, what you really need is a air gapped or cold storage and you can achieve this in many ways. I found that one of the best ways to do it is grabbing an old phone and following this guide
https://medium.com/@fbonomi/a-bitcoin-cold-wallet-based-on-qr-codes-e8c130b3181f
Tldr: install the wallet and never connect the phone to the internet again and use QR codes to sign transactions using the camera. Super practical, cheap, truly air gapped and doesn’t attract attention like a hardware wallet. Additionally I would disable the wallet app when you don’t use it, so the wallet will not be visible in case someone else grabs the phone (you can do this by installing the app as a system app using adb). And don’t forget to save the seeds of the wallet in safe place and always use fully FOSS wallets like electrum.
A hardware wallet like the trezor, or if you want to read a bit into what ledger has been doing one of those (they had a few controversial changes)
This or at least something self-custodial. Anything with Blockchain is inherently public, but the problem with centralized exchanges is that they hold the tokens for you (or worse, Contract For Difference), and really only have a fraction of the true capital to unwind if shit hits the fan.
A hardware wallet is a great option, so is cold storage which you can do with a cheap $50 laptop. Most important is keeping backups. Think about how you will access your coins when your laptop or hardware wallet dies. Think about ways to prevent loss due to natural disaster. Multi-sig and shamirs secret sharing scheme are two ways to store coins in such a way that you won’t lose them if your house burns down without having to trust a single party to custody them.
Trezor is a solid choice. https://trezor.io
I suggest Mycelium https://wallet.mycelium.com/
It’s the best one for anonymity, which I have found so far.
Not your keys not your coins.
If your just storing long term, look at paper wallets. Totally offline is the gold standard, it can’t be hacked
how high are the fees on coinbase these days?
If you want low fees for buying and selling BTC, strike is awesome, supports more countries, and supports Bitcoin lighting which makes tx fees crazy low for sending money to other people or your other wallets. Coinbase doesn’t, so getting BTC off coinbase is expensive as you have to pay main chain fees. Those can be $1-$12 depending on the day.
BISQ is also great, self-custody, and decentralized for making trades, but more complex. Look into it if you trade regularly.
From worst to best places to store your crypto:
- Online KYC exchange
- Online non KYC exchange
- Offline on your computer/phone
- Offline on a USB key/SD card
- Offline on a cold storage like Ledger or Trezor
What non KYC exchange exist today do you know? I guess I could use one in the future when I decide to exchange from crypto to crypto or from crypto to $
Thank you <3
Ok I see Coinbase is 1, but it used to be 2 AFAIK. Ill probably use my old phone, will try it these days.
Thank you for the list, its much more clear now
