Playing With Crypto? You’ll Need a Wallet (or Several)

Buying and selling NFTs or transferring digital currency is going to require a little leap of faith. Here’s how to get started.

IF PEOPLE WHO buy cryptocurrencies intended only to hold on to them as speculative investments, there’d be no real need for crypto wallets. Exchanges and online brokerages that convert dollars to, say, bitcoin would store all that digital currency for you like so much money in a bank account.

But crypto wallets (aka “blockchain wallets”), which have been around since the early days of Bitcoin, serve a lot of purposes beyond just HODLing that cryptocurrency with no fees.

Wallets can also store digital collectibles like NFTs that you might want to buy, sell, trade, or transfer to someone else, or even to another wallet you own. They can make it easier to send and receive digital money to and from other people’s accounts, crypto exchanges, or digital marketplaces. And, because they’re typically decentralized, even if they’re created by an exchange like Coinbase Wallet or Binance’s Trust Wallet, you control the account. That means only you are responsible for what’s in the wallet, remembering the password and secret seed phrase that unlocks the wallet, and managing the funds that it holds.

While the concept is simple—a place to store your cryptocurrency and use it—choosing a crypto wallet can be an incredibly intimidating experience. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 different wallets to choose from. Some handle only a few popular cryptocurrencies; others let you trade and store obscure types of digital tokens. Ready to get started?

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-choose-set-up-crypto-wallet/