Software wallets are wallets that you can access via websites or applications that you install on your computer or smartphone. Hardware wallets are pieces of hardware devices that store your private keys.

A software wallet may be convenient to access and trade, but it also comes with a high risk of being hacked. Hardware wallets store your private keys offline and eliminate the risk of hackers stealing your private keys.

Keeping your cryptocurrency on a software wallet or exchange puts your holdings at risk. Getting a hardware wallet is the best way to outsmart hackers and avoid losing your digital assets.

With a hardware wallet, your private keys remain completely offline. Even when you send or receive transactions, your information remains sealed off from your computer, the internet, or any centralized company server. This makes it nearly impossible for hackers to access and steal your cryptocurrency while you are transacting with others online.

Ultimately, getting a hardware wallet is a critical step in the process of responsibly investing in and protecting your crypto assets.

We understand that this can be confusing as there are many factors (features, price, functionality, connectivity, etc) to consider when purchasing your first hardware wallet. If your own research still leaves you confused, you may talk to us via WhatsApp and we may be able to assist you in choosing the best one for your needs.

Blockchain essentially allows all of your crypto assets and transactions to be stored on the blockchain network, and not on any of the third-party services. Therefore whatever happens to the manufacturers, you will still be able to access your transaction history and assets via a third-party website or wallet using your recovery words.

Yes, they are!! Rest assured, all our devices are original, untampered and sent to you in the same condition as we receive it.

When you first initialize and set up your hardware wallet, a 12, 18, or 24 word mnemonic seed phrase will be generated that represents your private key. This list of words should be written down and stored in a safe location.

As long as the list of words is backed up on paper or in other physical form, you can enter it into any compatible software or hardware wallet to recover your assets. Many users who have not adequately protected their recovery seeds have tragically lost all of their crypto assets.

We recommend storing your seed phrase in waterproof and fireproof metals for additional safety measures. We sell some products for this exact purpose, please check on our stores.

You will need to use the recovery seed to regain access to your crypto assets if your hardware wallet is reset, lost, stolen or damaged. Make sure to copy down the recovery seed correctly – even if only one letter of one word of your recovery seed is written down incorrectly, you will not be able to use it to access your crypto assets.

All of your crypto assets are technically not stored on the actual hardware wallet physical device. The information for each crypto asset is stored on a collective decentralized network known as a blockchain. The sequence of words that you wrote down is the key that gives you access to your crypto assets.

The words in your recovery seed come from an industry-standardized list of 2048 words known as BIP39. This means that you can recover your crypto assets on any BIP39 compatible wallet.

For example, if you have crypto assets on a Safepal and the Safepal gets lost or damaged, then you can enter in the recovery seed from the Safepal into a Cool Wallet and recover all of your crypto assets.

There are also software wallets that allow you to enter in BIP39 recovery seeds. However, software wallets are much more vulnerable than hardware wallets, because the recovery seed is stored on a computer that is connected to the internet.

You should never take a picture of your recovery seed, never type the recovery seed into a computer or phone, never save it in cloud storage and never upload the seed on the internet. Cryptocurrency assets are worth billions of dollars and are therefore a target for hackers.

There are viruses and malware running 24/7 with the sole purpose of searching and finding sequences of 12, 18 or 24 words. If one of these viruses was to find a recovery seed stored on a computer, then the hacker behind the virus would gain access to all of the crypto assets associated with that recovery seed.

Even with antivirus software, no device connected to the internet is invulnerable to attacks. Therefore, storing your recovery seed entirely offline is absolutely necessary.

We recommend using a stainless steel recovery seed backup tool to store your recovery seed.  As explained earlier, this allows you to recover your assets in the event that the hardware wallet is lost, stolen or damaged.

Your hardware wallet can generate an unlimited number of recovery seeds. Every time you reset or wipe the device and then initialize the hardware wallet as a new device, a new sequence of 12, 18 or 24 words will be generated.

If your recovery seed gets compromised, then you can create a new recovery seed. In this scenario, you would login to the hardware wallet with the compromised recovery seed, send your crypto assets to another wallet or an exchange, reset the hardware wallet, create a new recovery seed, and then send your crypto assets back to your hardware wallet with the new recovery seed.

Multiple hardware wallets with the same recovery seed would allow you to access the same crypto funds in multiple locations. For example, you could have one wallet at your office and one at home, enabling you to make transactions from different locations with the same wallet.

Finally, many investors like to spread their assets across multiple hardware wallets with different recovery seeds and addresses. This helps diversify against risk of loss for large holdings.

If your device were to fall into the hands of a third party, a PIN number or other security measure will prevent them from accessing your funds.

As long as you have your 12, 18 or 24 word seed, you can enter it into any compatible software or hardware wallet and recover your assets.

Don’t worry! You can still store your seed securely. The way the recovery seeds work is such that you only need the first 4 letters of each word in the seed. For example, if your seed word is “witch”, storing “witc” on your recovery seed backup tool is sufficient as it is unique.

While rare, some wallets do ask for the entire word. The list of full words can be found here. Only one word on the list will start with the first 4 letters.