How To Keep Your Cryptocurrency Secure
I am finding more people I know are getting in Cryptocurrency and a few are doing quite well. With that said I wanted to write up an article with some tips on how to keep your Cryptocurrency secure.
Your Cryptocurrency Is Never 100% Safe
The sooner you get this into your head the better. There are new scams popping up everyday, some easy to spot and others not so easy, like the DNS phishing attack on MEW. When you have the mindset that people are coming up with new ways to steal your funds you stay alert, always looking for possible pitfalls.
Keep Your Coins In Private Wallets
I am always surprised at how many people still don’t do this. Get a secure wallet that you own the private keys to and store your mid to long term investments in a wallet under your control.
Be sure to set up your wallet correctly including backing it up in a safe place along with the seed to access the wallet stored in a seperate and equally safe location. This way if someone comes across the backup they won’t have the seed and vice versa.
Hardware Wallets
Where possible keep your Cryptocurrency on a hardware wallet such as a Ledger. It adds a layer of physical equipment to your funds making it harder for someone to get to your funds. If you don’t have one make sure to only buy one from a trusted source such as their official website. There have been cases where people have bought tampered Ledgers from Ebay leading to lost funds.
Seperate Email Addresses
Keep your exchange email addresses only used for exchanges and nothing else. An example would be registering an email such as “exchanges8971946235293665@protonmail.com” and using that email for your exchange accounts. To step it up a level you could create a new email for each exchange.
Google Authenticator
This is a must for everything! Every exchange, email address and even social media accounts should be locked down with 2FA. Another very important step to this is to keep your GA on a device not connected to the internet.
Go buy a cheap smart phone, boot it up and download Google Authenticator. Delete everything else on the phone and then put the phone in flight mode. Never connect the phone back to the internet that way it stays isolated from the outside world similar to your hardware wallet.
Be sure to keep the backups code in a safe place, which leads me to my next point.
Get A Safe!
A fireproof safe is a wise idea. Keep your authenticator and backup codes such as your hardware wallet seed in here. Make sure it’s a safe that someone can’t just walk in and take with ease.
Summary
Hopefully the above is useful and given you some ideas on how to keep your Cryptocurrency as safe as possible. Find a setup that works for you and your circumstances.
Everything I write is for entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as financial advice. If you find what I have written useful please use it as a base and research further.
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