Most people would carry their money around in their wallet, right? A wallet is as ubiquitous and necessary complement as a belt or a watch.
Wallets come in a variety of colors, designs, materials, etc. Some of them are almost a fashion statement.
And just as you carry your fiat money inside a physical wallet, you need an equivalent medium to keep your cryptocurrencies in.
While crypto wallets may not be as fashionable items as their fiat counterparts, they are just as important.
There is a wide array of crypto wallets available out there. Some are online-only, others are hardware-based, etc. Here’s a list of the ten most popular wallets on the market right now, in no particular order.
This list should be treated as information only, as we in no way recommend or endorse any of these products. As with everything else in the crypto world, use due diligence and your best judgment when choosing one wallet over another.
Top 6 Crypto Wallets
MyEtherWallet – One of the deciding factors to choose one crypto wallet over another is the price. The affordability of a particular item may appeal to certain investors, so a free wallet is always going to be a popular choice.
MyEtherWallet is a free, open-source solution specialized in Ethereum and ERC20-based tokens. It has been around for a while now and has been recommended time and time again by market experts.
Nano Ledger S – Another hardware wallet, the Nano Ledger S can store a multitude of cryptocurrencies. This wallet contains a secure chip that stores private keys in isolation from the rest of the device. The Nano S is pretty portable too, and quite affordable (around $60 at the time of writing), making it a popular choice among crypto enthusiasts.
Atomic – The Atomic Wallet is a multi-currency solution capable of holding over 300 cryptocurrencies. A key feature of this product is the ability to perform Atomic Swaps, that is, swapping one currency for another. Atomic is available for all major operating systems, and also offers iOS and Android apps.
KeepKey – Hardware wallets are not particularly pretty to look at, but they do the job quite well. These items look something between oversized USB sticks and small backup drives.
The KeepKey wallet falls into the hardware category. It has been around since 2015, and while it currently only supports a small number of currencies, KeepKey is a secure and affordable solution for your crypto piece of mind.
Coinbase – The Coinbase solution is an online, hot wallet, with all the added risks that this entails. It is integrated within the Coinbase exchange however, so security risks should not be any higher or lower than any other online platform.
The exchange/wallet combo has proven popular, as it provides a one-stop solution for your crypto trading and storage needs.
Trezor – This product is perhaps one of the best-known hardware wallets currently available for purchase. Trezor is remarkable as an offline Bitcoin wallet that operates as a cold storage solution (that is, not connected to the internet).
Trezor enables the user to store a great diversity of currencies and has a well-known reputation for security. It’s a little on the expensive side though, coming in at around $80-$90 at the time of writing.
Jaxx – Jaxx is a multi-currency, hot wallet that can store over 60 currencies. Crucially, Jaxx includes an exchange feature that allows the user to swap one currency for another.
Jaxx became known for all the wrong reasons as one particular user lost a large amount of coins due to a vulnerability in the wallet’s code.
Conclusion
Which crypto wallet to choose comes down to personal taste and suitability for your own needs. Because of this, you are strongly advised and encouraged to research each possible wallet and pick one that adapts to what you need.
On the Jaxx incident, users are encouraged to exercise caution and common sense when dealing with crypto wallets. Just as you wouldn’t readily transport thousands of dollars, or any other currency, inside your own physical wallet, it is recommended that wallets are used to store limited amounts of cryptocurrencies, to prevent large-scale theft.
