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Bitcoin Wallet

What Is A Bitcoin Wallet?

What Is A Bitcoin Wallet?

A Bitcoin wallet is an app or software that enables you to send, receive, and store bitcoin. Although the term “wallet” is commonly used, bitcoin wallets don’t actually store money in the same sense as a physical wallet. All bitcoins are recorded or “stored” online on the blockchain and a wallet is how you move bitcoin from one address to another.

A more accurate name for a wallet might be a “keychain” since a wallet only stores the private keys required to send bitcoin.

Different Types Of Bitcoin Wallets

There are 6 main types of wallets and each one has features that the others don’t.

– Mobile Wallets: These are best suited for smaller amounts
– Desktop Wallets: Highest level of functionality with the most features
– Hardware Wallets: highest level of security
– Lightning Wallets: able to transact on the lightning network for low-cost near-instantaneous payments.
– Web Wallets: lest amount of security but high level of convenience
– Paper wallets: A common way to write down your seed phrase to recover your bitcoin wallet if it is ever lost.

Let’s go into some detail on each one.

Mobile Wallets

A Mobile Wallet is a bitcoin wallet that runs on a mobile device such as an iPhone, Android, or tablet device.

Since mobile wallets run on your smartphone/tablet and have the ability to connect directly to WiFi and cellular towers, they are the most convenient type of wallet for making over-the-counter purchases.

Since mobile wallets are able to connect directly to the internet and cellular networks, it’s not advised to hodl large amounts of bitcoin in a mobile wallet because they are somewhat vulnerable to online attacks and malware.

After you have downloaded a mobile wallet and have begun to familiarize yourself with how wallets work, the next step is likely to be a desktop wallet.

Desktop Wallets

A Desktop Wallet is a bitcoin wallet that runs on a full desktop or laptop operating system like Mac, Windows, or Linux. Desktop wallets usually come with more advanced features that offer their users increased functionality that are not available on other types of wallets.

Desktop wallets are able to create transactions with the most control such as setting custom fees, manually selecting which UTXOs to send, export public keys, and more.

Desktop wallets offer the most robust functionality of all of the bitcoin wallets but they don’t provide the same level of convenience as a mobile wallet or lightning wallet.

Hardware Wallets

A Hardware Wallet is a physical device that has been designed specifically for storing your bitcoin private keys in a secure offline device.

Think of hardware wallets like a digital safe or vault for your bitcoins that are incapable of building transactions on their own. Typically a desktop or mobile wallet is needed to create a transaction and the hardware device is used to sign the transaction.

True hardware wallets do not have any sort of WiFi, Bluetooth, or cellular connectivity. In order for a hardware wallet to send bitcoin, it either needs to physically connect to an internet-connected device with a cable or use a special type of transaction called a partially signed bitcoin transaction and then transfer the details of that transaction to an internet-connected device so it can be sent across the bitcoin network.

Lightning Wallets

A Lightning Wallet is a special kind of wallet that is capable of transacting on a second layer of the bitcoin network known as the Lightning Network (LN). Lightning wallets allow for small, cheap, and instant payments which are better suited for making over-the-counter purchases like a cup of coffee.

Lightning wallets can run on either a desktop or mobile device but not all lightning wallets are the same. Since the lightning network is a second layer, it may require special hardware like running a bitcoin node.

Web Wallets

A Web Wallet is any bitcoin wallet where your private coins are stored entirely online.

Web wallets can be your own wallet where you store your own private keys online (like some lightning wallets) or they can be on a third-party server under someone else’s custody like at a bitcoin exchange. Wallets at exchanges are often referred to as custodial wallets because someone else has custody of your bitcoin.

Note: Web wallets are not a suggested method of storing bitcoin since they often put someone else in control of your private keys like a third-party custodian.

Paper Wallets

A Paper Wallet is a bitcoin private key and a corresponding address written or printed on a piece of paper.

Paper wallets began as a way of storing private keys completely offline to protect them from being compromised but they have become much less popular in recent years as better alternatives have been adopted. Today, the most common form of paper wallet is 12-24 word seed phrase written on a piece of paper.