Whenever we talk about cryptocurrency, besides the equipment you need to mine it, or money to straight out buy it, we always talk about one more important part and that is the crypto wallet.
The reason behind this is the fact that there is no way to own and hold a cryptocurrency if you don’t have the right type of wallet to store these on. Now whether it is Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other bigger or smaller cryptocurrency you do need a wallet for it and the type of it as well as the number of wallets is all up to you.
This meant that you can have only one wallet to hold all your crypto or you can have multiple wallets holding different cryptos. It all comes down to personal preference and the ability to find your way around. If you are the type of person that likes to know where' each of your coins is then you may opt for multiple wallets. If you don’t care about the organisation and you don’t like to hold multiple addresses with seed phrases and keys all around then you may opt for only one. Again, it is all up to you.
Today we are talking about the management of crypto wallets and throughout this article, we will give you some tips on how to best manage multiple wallets, if you have them.
Before we start giving you the tips on how to juggle the crypto wallets you need to know, if you don’t already, that there are two types of wallets – Software and Hardware wallets.
Software wallets are just as their name states, wallets that you can’t hold in your hand but can access online, via the internet and a specified app. Every exchange on the internet probably has its iteration of a software wallet, and those that don’t are allowing you to use some other hot wallet. The term “hot wallet” means that you are allowed to log in to your wallet, access the keys you have stored there or even send and receive funds.
Hardware wallets, as opposed to the first ones, are something you can touch, hold and carry around. They are usually the size of a thumb drive or a USB stick and these have your private keys stored as well as all your coins. You can use these to shift your coins around and you can use them to trade crypto. Some of the hardware wallets have a built-in interface that allows you crypto trading. These are considered to be a safer solution for crypto holding because they are pin and password protected even after you lose them. These are referred to as “cold wallets” because you don’t need to connect them to the internet to use them.
To those of you that are thinking that this article is redundant and not necessary we are telling you – to keep reading. Many of you are thinking that multiple wallets are a hassle, and we agree but it is necessary to have more than one wallet for your crypto. If you decide to use one wallet for everything you are holding that you are pretty much putting all your eggs in one basket. This is the number one piece of financial advice you will get everywhere' – Never, Never put all your eggs in one basket. What happens if you lose that basket, what happens if your basket of eggs gets stolen?! What then? Then you are pretty much in a world of complications and problems and we all know that when issues and crypto come together, it is rather hard to recover.
Since we established that having multiple wallets is good let’s try and give you some tips on how to manage them.
Whenever you opt for multiple wallets the first thing you need to know, write or remember is how many of the wallets you have opened and where'. If you are able and if you can it is a good idea to have different wallets across different mobile devices. This way if one gets stolen, broken or hacked the other is totally fine and safe. Now when you wrote down or registered all your wallets on one device or multiple devices what is the next thing to do?
The next thing is to try something called Ledger Live. This piece of software will allow you to have multiple wallets synced in one place. This makes everything so easy and handy. You will need some basic knowledge of the software and how the merge goes but after a tutorial or two online, you will easily manage to add your wallets and keep track of them. This software is best for those that like having multiple wallets and it allows you to track all of them on a single screen.
One thing that is important to know is that Ledger Live will not be supporting all coins and all types of wallets. This is something you need to pay attention to and it will also be visible in the software. These that are compatible will be ticked as such but those that aren’t will be branded as “Required third party wallet” or “unsupported”.
In the end, the most important thing to know here is that yes you can hold multiple wallets, yes you should do it and it will be a smart financial move, you have to be organized when it comes to PIN management, password and seed phrases safe keep, but the benefits are huge.
You can have your wallets spread across multiple mobile devices if you prefer it that way, for some security or you can utilize the software we mentioned at the end – Ledger Live which will allow for all your wallets and coins to be visible in one place. You can track payments and send the coins, you can trade and manage all your wallets, all in one place. Everything is up to you and according to your personal preference.