Bitcoin Wallets
There are basically four (4) major types of bitcoin wallet. Users can choose what type of wallet depending on various criteria and purpose. Obviously the primary purpose of a typical bitcoin wallet is to store bitcoin. However some bitcoin wallet providers create the wallet to suit the desire of a user such as: Privacy, Security, level of control over wallet, fixed, modifiable or variable transaction fees, Transparency, speed of transactions, multi sig, and hardware.
The four major types or (classes) of wallets are:
- Desktop wallets
- Mobile wallet
- Hardware wallets
- Web wallets
The table below shows bitcoin wallets according to these four categories listed above.
| Name | Android Mobile wallet | Apple Mobile wallet | Desktop wallets | Web wallets | Hardware wallet | More information |
| AMORY | No | No | Yes | No | No | Click here |
| BITBOX02 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Click here |
| BITCOIN CORE | No | No | Yes | No | No | Click here |
| BITCOIN KNOTS | No | No | Yes | No | No | Click here |
| BITCOIN WALLET | Yes | No | No | No | No | Click here |
| BITHER | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Click here |
| BITPAY | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Click here |
| BLW | Yes | No | No | No | No | Click here |
| BRD | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Click here |
| BTC.COM | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Click here |
| COIN | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Click here |
| COLDCARD | No | No | No | No | Yes | Click here |
| ECLAIR MOBILE | Yes | No | No | No | No | Click here |
| EDGE | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Click here |
| ELECTRUM | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Click here |
| KEEPKEY | No | No | No | No | Yes | Click here |
| KOINKEEP | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Click here |
| LEDGER NANO S | No | No | No | No | Yes | Click here |
| MYCELIUM | Yes | No | No | No | No | Click here |
| OPENDIME | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Click here |
| TREZOR MODEL T | No | No | No | No | Yes | Click here |
| TREZOR ONE | No | No | NO | NO | Yes | Click here |
| WASABI | No | No | Yes | No | No | Click here |
Bitcoin Wallets
THE BASIC CRITERIA FOR SELECTING A BITCOIN WALLET
- Control over Wallet: The main purpose of having a bitcoin wallet is to send and receive bitcoin at any given time and without restrictions of whatsoever. In other words, a user should have an indefinite control over wallet. Some bitcoin wallet doesn’t have full control over because of their terms and conditions of services. Hence third parties may freeze or take away funds if users breach their terms.
- Privacy: Bitcoin is easy to use and individuals may prefer to keep their transaction secret or discrete so that people are not aware of their business. Most wallets with large sums of money are sometimes monitored in the Blockchain due to the influence it may have in the forex market. Thus, spying on transactions with IP addresses and locations of individuals may be done. However, some Bitcoin wallet provides try to make user experience a degree of privacy by the ability of users to create new bitcoin addresses or rotation of addresses. Some wallet providers also have a non disclosure of information to peers on the bitcoin network. In other to resolve location privacy, the use of TOR networks or PROXY to prevent others from associating transactions with IP address are used by some bitcoin wallet providers. Others may have low KYC (Know your Customer) requirements.
- Transaction Fees: Bitcoin wallets have different transactions fees. Some charge for either sending or receiving Bitcoin. While others may have variable fees for sending Bitcoins according to priority in the blockchain. Some certain wallet providers have the ability to even modify fees after it has been sent to another wallet address for faster execution/ transfer thereby making transactions confirmed earlier within a given time.
- Transparency: Bitcoin is electronic money and anyone providing a means to store, send and receive it must be transparent –That is – All source codes for the wallet application should be available for the public to check, verify and appraise. Some Bitcoin Wallet provides (e.g Coinomi) is not open source and third parties may view or even manipulate the bitcoin balance and transactions. It may also have an open gateway for hackers or intruders to have access to the wallet.
- Security (Validation and second factor authentication): The safety of bitcoin in any wallet cannot be over emphasized. Some Bitcoin wallet providers provide only One factor authentication (e.g. Username and password to login) while other wallet provide two or second factor authentication (e.g. use of verification code gotten by text message, email or via an app on a mobile device such as Google authenticator to access wallet.
Furthermore, some wallet providers have the ability to validate on full nodes on the bitcoin network. Consequently, third parties are not needed for processing transaction. Caution however must be taken when selecting such network as some users have been complaining about huge data usage (e.g. 6GB a day) by such bitcoin wallets even on idle mode on daily bases. The reason is wallets that fully validate transactions and blocks on its own .
The other secondary requirement include:
- Hardware Wallet: There are Bitcoin wallets that connect to external or internal hardware to function properly. This has a good security feature. It is also easy to use and ECO friendly. This is a good option if QR scanning is not needed to send or receive bitcoin.
- SEGWIT and Bech32: SegWit is a new technological development. It uses blockchain space more efficiently. This also have a tremendous effect on the fees paid by making transactions. The Bech32 is a special address format by SEGWIT. A feature of this technology is the LIGHTNING NETWORK which supports transferring bitcoin without having to record each transaction on the blockchain. Hence faster transaction with lower fees.
- Multi- Signature (MultiSig): Some bitcoin wallet providers support multiple signatures for transactions to be done. This is widely used for corporate entities that involve multiple parties owning a fund. The use of more than one key to authorize a transaction creates a layer of security for all parties involved.
Consequently, it is advisable to check all features before using any wallet. For more information, scroll above on list of available Bitcoin wallet.
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