The increase in hacks/phishing attacks has exploded exponentially in same fashion to the price of crypto currencies in the last year. From Slack messages, Myethrwallet scams (notice the spelling error), exchanges with misspellings, and Twitter look alike account scams. Everyone is trying to steal your crypto since it is an easy and high priced asset to steal with very little chances of getting caught. A hardware wallet is a great way to protect your crypto assets.

How do you keep your money safe with all of these bad actors?

The good news is there are actions you can take to prevent people from stealing from you. One of the first steps to security is buying a hardware wallet. I know you are probably saying “But they are to expensive.” The thing is you never know what your Crypto balance will turn into. If you put $1,000 into ETH at the beginning for 2017 you would have around ~$90k in Ethereum. If you put $1,000 into NEO last year~$900,000 at the time of writing this. You don’t want to regret getting $100 of a coin stolen from you that could be work $$$$ in the future. One of the first steps to protecting this is buying a hardware wallet.

The key reason you need to buy a hardware wallet is…

A hardware wallet stores your private keys on the device and they never leave the device. If you do not know what a private key here is an simple explanation. Your private key is what is used to send a transaction on a blockchain network. It is your unique signature. If someone can find your private key they can steal your crypto instantly. Your private key is your most important and valuable asset to protect. A normal web wallet or PC wallet will give you access to your private key, in doing this you open yourself up to vulnerabilities of someone see/finding your private key. In a hardware wallet, your private key never makes it to your computer. It signs the Transaction on your wallet and then broadcasts it to the network.

I have not seen any news of a hardware wallet being hacked. Buy from a verified buyer or from from the source and you will have nothing to worry about.

The two main wallets available currently are the Ledger and Trezor. The Ledger has a lot more coins and install able apps available but I have heard people having trouble using and installing apps on the device. The Trezor is a little bit easier to use but I does not have as many coins.

You can purchase a Ledger or Trezor at the links below. There are also how to guides on how to use the wallets.

Ledger

Ledger Nano S

Trezor.io

Amazon Trezor

Single Pack

Double Pack

Also published on Medium.