Recently, many people have been asking me about cryptocurrency wallets, so I’ve organized my understanding and shared it with everyone.

To be honest, choosing a cryptocurrency wallet does have some barriers. Based on the operating mechanism, they are mainly divided into cold wallets and hot wallets. Cold wallets can be stored offline, offering the highest security, suitable for long-term large holdings; hot wallets are online wallets that require internet connection, offering greater convenience but relatively lower security.

If you plan to hold assets long-term, my recommendation is to prioritize hardware cold wallets. Ledger Nano is a good choice, supporting over 1,000 cryptocurrencies, with high security and relatively simple to use. It comes in two models, Nano X and Nano S, with the former being more expensive but more feature-rich, and it can connect to your phone via Bluetooth. The most important thing is, even if the hardware is lost, as long as you keep the backup phrase of 24 words safe, you can restore all your assets anytime.

For small amounts used in daily transactions, I use hot wallets. Trust Wallet is a fully open-source decentralized option, with a clean interface, support for Chinese, and good security. Users hold their private keys, giving them 100% control. There are also other hot wallets like MetaMask (the little fox), which is very popular, especially if you frequently interact with DApps.

When choosing a cryptocurrency wallet, my core advice is: first, select products that are open-source and market-tested, such as Ledger, MetaMask, imToken, etc. Second, stay away from wallets where the development team is unclear and private keys are managed by the project team, as the risk is too high. Third, check the project’s official website to verify the company's authenticity and team background. Fourth, never use wallets that custody private keys, as that defeats the purpose of self-custody.

Honestly, there have been quite a few recent cases of hot wallets being hacked or stolen, so my current strategy is: store large assets in hardware cold wallets, small amounts for daily transactions in hot wallets, and for frequent trading, use major exchanges. This way, risk is diversified, and security is higher.

One last important reminder: no matter what cryptocurrency wallet you use, be sure to keep your private keys, backup phrases, and passwords safe. If these are leaked, your assets are gone. I’ve seen too many cases of people losing their recovery phrases or being scammed through phishing links, so emphasizing this point is well justified.