Morning, STEEMers!

With all the commotion going on, hard fork, soft fork ... who knows where we'll end up being 2 years from now?!? All that counts is your cryptos to be safe! I'm sure that you've seen what hackers can do when given the opportunity, and so, the need of safe storage for cryptocurrency is number one priority for those of us caught in the fever of BITCOIN and the cryptoverse. Well, In this new post I'll be telling you about few of the best solutions regarding cryptocurrency wallets.

Wallets can be categorized into 4 groups:

1. web wallets /online wallets
2. software wallets
3. hard wallets
4. paper wallets
   The first two are considered hot wallets and the last two are cold wallets.

The most important part of owning a wallet is to be the single owner of that wallet. You do this by being able to control your private keys. A private key is like your ID card when trying to access you bank account at the bank. Wallets like Electrum LTC Wallet have your private keys stored by a third party and they have easy access to them, which is not a good thing.

So, lets talk a little bit about these wallets. I'm sure that most of you know what and when to use but it's a good thing to have all the info in one place.

Web wallets /Online wallets

These are the easiest kind to use, as easy as creating a new account, and accessible from anywhere around the world. The downfall is that all the keys are stored online and as I mentioned before this is not a good thing making them a good target for hackers. Online wallets should be used only for making small everyday transactions. If you hold a large number of Bitcoins, you REALLY NEED to stay away from online wallets.

Software wallets

These are the other hot wallets out there. They require you to download a software that will be your wallet. This kind of wallets allow you to store your private keys, thus giving you a greater level of security. But still, not even these wallets are 100% safe due to malware. These software wallets can run on multiple platforms, for example JAXX can run on Android, Mac, IOS, Windows and Linux, but of course not all of them have this capability.

Hard wallets

Hard Wallets (short for hardware wallets) are stand-alone hardware cold-storage devices that generate keys on the fly while making a transaction. These wallets have to be plugged into a computer in order to make transactions, but when your done you pull it out and you have a 100% safe wallet. No one can get to your BITCOINS when there is no connection to the actual wallet. If you own or will own this kind of wallet ... DO NOT LOSE IT! If you regularly deal in BITCOINS, you should invest in Hard Wallets like TREZOR or Ledger wallet. Have some peace of mind :D.

Paper wallet

A paper wallet is just a printed out form of your public and private keys. Paper Wallets are more secure than using software or online wallets because you physically have your keys printed on a piece of paper. While more secure than the hot wallets mentioned above, a paper wallet can be destroyed in many ways, or even photographed by someone near you. So, it is important to make multiple copies of this paper and hide them in a vault :D.

What I use

Now, we've been throw the multiple types of wallets but the question is what wallet to use?
Let me tell you what i use and what i found good at them. For now I'm using Exodus and Jaxx as software wallets because they have ShapeShift built into the interface in order to allow for rapid conversion between various altcoins and cryptocurrencies. Beyond having ShapeShift integration, both wallets are multi-asset wallets that let you store your private keys. Worth mentioning is that, despite not having a mobile version like JAXX, Exodus has the possibility to customize the user interface :D.
Here are pictures of the latest Exodus and JAXX wallets where you can see the supported coins:

Another perk on JAXX's side is the possibility of creating QR codes with the wallet address or transaction requests.
Both JAXX and Exodus have great usage in the cryptoverse being, from my perspective, the best software wallets out there.

I don't own a hardware wallet (why would I, I haven't got one full BITCOIN yet) but I can tell you that there are a few out there that are great, like Ledger, Trezor or KeepKey.

As for online wallets, those are the wallets that you use for exchange. I use Bitfinex, Bittrex and Poloniex. They all have 2FA Token activation making them a bit more secure.

What wallets do you use? :D

Best regards,
Your fellow newb STEEMer,
Valentin

Take the time to be the best you can be!