Do you use cryptocurrency? Looking for a reliable place to store your virtual money and provide safe transactions? Then this article is definitely for you. The modern market offers a slew of options of e-wallets. Some of them offer flexible conditions, while others require additional fees. If you want to exchange Monero to PancakeSwap or work with other currencies, you will certainly need the e-wallet that works for you. Keep reading to have a deep dive into the subject.
What is a Cryptocurrency Wallet?
To store and spend Bitcoins, you need a dedicated wallet. The point is that crypocurrency isn’t stored anywhere. It is designed to store digital keys that provide access to the Bitcoin address and the ability to sign transactions. Remember that cryptocurrency transactions cannot be reversed, so if you plan to deal with electronic coins, you might want to pick one from the best desktop Bitcoin wallets listed below.
What are the Best Bitcoin Wallets?
Storage methods can be different: from a sheet of paper with a key to modern applications. The safety of digital money depends on how deliberate your choice will be. If you lose or accidentally delete the private key, it will be impossible to restore access to your storage. The decent options provide a secure backup and consistent data protection.
There are such types of wallets:
- mobile devices;
- desktop;
- paper;
- hardware;
- web-based.
Since cryptocurrency is very popular among users, Bitcoin e-wallets are compatible with the majority of platforms, including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, Android.
The best Bitcoin wallets for mobile & desktop are considered such as follows:
- Bitcoin Core (desktop, Linux/MacOS/Windows). C++/Qt based tabbed UI. Full-featured thick client that downloads the entire block chain, using code from the original Bitcoin client.
- bitcoind (desktop, Linux/MacOS/Windows). GUI-less version of the original Bitcoin client, providing a JSON-RPC interface.
- Multibit (desktop, Linux/MacOS/Windows). Lightweight thin client for Windows, MacOS and Linux with support for opening multiple wallets simultaneously
- Armory (desktop, Linux/MacOS/Windows)
- . Enterprise grade Python-based client.
- Electrum (desktop, Linux/MacOS/Windows, and mobile, Android). A blazing fast, open-source, multi-OS Bitcoin thin client/wallet with a very active community.
- Mycelium (mobile, Android/iOS). Awarded the prestigious "Best Mobile App" award by Blockchain.info in 2014, the Mycelium wallet for Android provides several security features.
Each wallet has its own characteristics and offers its own ways to protect data. Some of them combine, for example, mobile and desktop versions. The choice depends on how often you plan to use Bitcoins, how much you plan to store and how you will spend the funds. These are essential factors to make a formal decision.
Features of Desktop Wallets
Desktop wallets are special software that requires installation. Such programs are excellent options since they provide high security measures. You can be sure that all your transactions and operations are protected and nobody will reveal your data. There are two types of desktop wallets: thin and thick.
In a nushell, here's the core difference between them:
- THIN clients download a complete copy of the headers for all blocks in the entire block chain.
- THICK clients download a copy of the entire chain, including all transactions (not just headers).
As Satoshi Nakamoto (the inventor of Bitcoin) writes, "[the thin client] can't check the transaction for himself, but by linking it to a place in the chain, he can see that a network node has accepted it, and blocks added after it further confirm the network has accepted it." If we take "X" to be the "number of blocks added after it", then a thin client essentially trusts that a transaction X blocks deep will be costly to forge.
This is very different from the trust model in the "thick" client: the thick client verifies that a transaction's inputs are unspent by actually checking the whole chain up to that point -- there is no "X blocks deep" involved here. At that point it uses "X blocks deep" to decide how likely it is that a longer fork in the chain will emerge which excludes that transaction.
Final World
E-wallets are intended to securely store your data. When picking an appropriate way for data storage, think about how often you will use the wallet where you plan to pay: only on the Internet or pay for products and services offline. Carefully weigh all factors to outline all the risks and benefits of using an e-wallet for PC.
