The Wallet

The wallet is the place where you store your coins, where you can receive coins and from where you can send coins. So, you should consider what kind of wallet you're going to use. A wallet consist out of a public key and a private key. The public key is like your bank account number which is used to send money into your wallet. The private key is like your personal identification number and should NEVER be revealed. It decodes the encrypted informations of your wallet. Who ever has the private key is the owner of that wallet and has the power to cash out.

Personally, I always prefer to put my coins on a hardware wallet. It is very safe, I’m the owner of the private key and fast actions are still possible. If there’s no hardware wallet for my desired coin available, I always go with a paper wallet because computers are just to easy to hack and I want to be the owner of the private key of my coins.

To make up your own mind, I made a short overview of the existing options: Online Wallet, Desktop Wallet, Hardware Wallet, Paper Wallet, Sniper Wallet.

Online Wallet:
Once you bought coins on a market place website, your coins go automatically into your online wallet which comes with your chosen market place account.

Pro’s:

• You are able to sell your coins fast from everywhere
• Fast sending coins to other wallets is possible
• Your private key will be managed by the market place site (You don’t have to worry to lose it)

Con’s:

• Market place sites are always targets of hackers
• You don’t manage your private key yourself (You have to trust the operator)

Desktop Wallet:
You download a software Wallet onto your computer. By creating a new wallet in your chosen software, a public key will be created. Also, the private key will be created and stored on that machine. Now you can send your coins from your online wallet into your desktop wallet.

Pro’s:

• You manage your private key
• Fast sending coins to other wallets is possible

Con’s:

• Computers are easy to hack (your private key can be stolen)
• You are responsible not to lose your private key
• Developers can potentially insert malicious code into the software without you knowing about it.
• sending coins are only possible on the pc you have the private key on

Hardware Wallet:
This is my favourite for keeping large amounts of coins. A hardware wallet is a physical device which stores the wallet’s private key directly on it. The device doesn’t need to be connected to the internet to create the private key. I’m using the Ledger Nano S and I’m super happy with it. Why? It works perfectly well and every outgoing transaction needs to be physically approved by pushing a button on the device. So, even if I would get hacked while my ledger is connected to my pc and someone would want to steal my coins, I would need to approve the transaction on my device.

Pro’s:

• You manage your private key
• Fast sending coins to other wallets is possible
• very safe
• If you lose your device or it gets damaged you can restore your wallets on a new device

Con’s:

• You have to spend money on a device (depending on the amount of coins you have, totally worth it)
• Sending coins are only possible if you have the hardware with you

Paper Wallet:
You generate a public key and a private key for your chosen coin and then print it out. Always generate your private key OFFLINE and always print on a privat (not connected to any network) printer. To do so, you go on "wallet generator" and download their website. Then unplug your ethernet cable and make sure your wireless internet access is disconnected. Now you can open the html file, go on paper wallet, choose the currency you want on the top right corner and click on randomly generate. Print it out, close everything and you’re done.

Pro’s:

• It’s not connected to a computer
• very safe

Con’s:

• It takes some time to create
• It can easily get damaged or lost
• Once you cashed out some or all of it the private key is revealed in the internet and you have to create a new paper wallet if you still want to keep some coins
• Cashing out your paper wallet isn’t fast and only possible if you have the private key with you

Sniper Wallet:
A Sniper Wallet is a wallet designed to handle very fast transactions. Such a transaction is pushing itself forward, overtaking all transactions already waiting. For this purpose, the so-called "gas limit" is significantly increased. Especially in the business sector, fast wallets are becoming more and more important. With such a sniper wallet it is possible to push ahead on an ICO to get to a specific and desired investment faster then everyone else.

I haven’t found much more informations about the sniper wallet so far, therefore I can’t really tell other con's and pro’s except that it is fast with transactions...

And now it's up to you to choose the option that fits you best.