Chapter 2 — Hot vs. Cold Wallet
Today we will start with security. The most important advice I can give you is to secure your assets at all costs. In order to make transactions and store your valuable Tokens and NFTs you will need at least 1 wallet. But what is a wallet?
Your wallet is like your bank account. You can make transactions, buy, send and store your tokens on it. You have an overview of all your assets and can swap them into a different one.
Since it is used on the Internet it is always at a risk of getting attacked and “drained” by scammers. Usually they create fake websites where you have to log in with your wallet and BOOM… all gone.. its really that fast if you are not careful. You would never expose your credit card or your bank account details to a third person, would you? So let’s get into securing your wallet.
Basically there are 2 different types of wallet: Hot and Cold Wallets
A hot wallet is the browser based wallet which you use for logging into websites, market places etc… A cold wallet is a hardware device which u use to secure your transactions and your precious seed phrase.
The Seed Phrase is a randomly generated combination of 12–24 words which will be given to you when creating your wallet. Never EVER give this to anyone, never store it on a device which is connected to the internet and only use it with the wallet when you need to register the wallet to a computer. Write it down and put it away. If you loose it you wont be able to recover your wallet so store it in a place you remember ;).
Before even thinking about getting into crypto buy a Cold Wallet. I recommend Ledger since they have a dope App which will make things easier for you. The Ledger acts as an extra security level since it encrypts your seed phrase and transactions. You have to confirm EVERY transaction on the hardware device connected to your computer. Until now there hasn’t been a hack of a cold wallet.
You will always have to go online with your wallet but by using a Ledger you have way more security and can decide which assets you need in your hot wallet if u choose to.
I personally have most of my assets on 2 Ledgers: one for Metamask and one for Phantom (I will get into the different Blockchains soon)
Hope you enjoyed this little guide. Please join our private Telegram Channel for more HERE
Stay safe Fam 👻
