Crypto wallets are still a hot topic amongst the crypto fam, and here i will try to help you understand them better.
Yes, the main idea that Satoshi Nakamoto had when he presented Bitcoin was built around creating a digital currency that will provide freedom from financial institutions, but also the ability to make personal and business financial transactions anonymously. Anonymity these days is definitely a luxury, and with that being said it is important to know where you can store your crypto and which are the best anonymous wallets.
This agenda remains the same today, although the old financial institutions are doing their best to divert crypto from DeFi path.
In this article, I will try to help you stay anonymous and on a charted course of decentralization with the best crypto wallets on the market.
The first and the most important choice, when it comes to safety and anonymity in crypto is to choose one of two ways to store and share your coins. The first one is the software crypto wallet, the program which provides a certain level of security and anonymity. The second option is the hardware crypto wallet, which is much more secure, but it brings some expenses for that level of safety.
Of course, both crypto wallets are options much more anonymous if you use the VPN (Virtual Private Network) to cover your tracks.
The Best Software Anonymous Crypto Wallets in 2022.
1. Guarda Wallet
The Guarda is a non-custodial, multiplatform, privacy-focused crypto wallet that allows you to securely buy more than 50 cryptocurrencies and securely store more than 400,000 digital currencies and tokens across 50 blockchain networks. The wallet also offers the option for crypto staking with up to 40% APY.
The Guarda is a hybrid wallet that is available on both mobile devices and desktop PCs. This wallet works on iOS and Android for mobile, and Mac, Windows, or Linux for PCs. The Guarda can also be added as an extension to your Chrome browser, allowing you to interact with decentralized applications (DApps) directly from your internet browser, which makes it much more convenient to use.
What is of most importance for our topic, there are no credit checks, or account registration required. Everything is kept private and anonymous.
The security is provided by ensuring that private keys and backups are generated on the user’s device and encrypted with the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
2. Samourai Wallet
The next one is the Samourai wallet and which is an Android-only crypto wallet with some really unique characteristics. The Samourai Wallet is built to be “the most private and anonymous bitcoin wallet.” Privacy-oriented features found in the Samourai Wallet include no address reuse, Tor and VPN support, and no linkage between change outputs and the stonewall technique.
This feature guarantees you won’t use the same address twice by warning you if you already used the address for earlier transactions. Additionally, by not linking previous change outputs the app avoids leaking valuable metadata about your wallet, alongside Tor and VPN support allows users to cover transactions through an anonymous IP address.
This wallet is available for free on the Google Play Store.
3. Electrum Wallet
The Electrum is one of the oldest lightweight crypto wallets for Bitcoin operating in this space since 2011. Being a lightweight client means you needn’t download the whole blockchain while transacting through it. This wallet generates a new address for every transaction. This process is automatic until a default limit of 20 new addresses. After this, users will have to generate new addresses manually.
The well-known anonymous bitcoin crypto wallet gains a privacy boost when used on Tails OS. The Tails is a live system that aims to preserve your privacy and anonymity. It helps you in using the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship almost anywhere you go and on any computer without leaving any trace unless you ask it explicitly.
Electrum Crypto Wallet supports third-party plugins and hardware wallet pairing, which means that you can integrate your existing hardware solutions, including KeepKey, Trezor, and Ledger Nano.
It’s available on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and Android.
4. PINT Wallet
The PINT is a self-hosted multi-currency crypto wallet & P2P Marketplace that is highly intuitive to store, manage, receive and send several blockchain assets such as Bitcoin Cash(BCH), Ether(ETH), Litecoin(LTC), Dash( DASH), Dogecoin(DOGE)…
It is one of the best anonymous Bitcoin crypto wallets that allows you to control private keys by backing up the seed with you. It offers AES256 encryption for all the transactions performed within the platform.
Apart from that, the Pint crypto wallet doesn’t require the disclosure of any personal information like phone number, email, ETC., and it has Tor inbuilt feature that helps you stay anonymous while transacting in BTC and other assets.
The PINT is also available for free on the Google Play Store and it is available only for Android devices.
The Best Hardware Anonymous Crypto Wallets in 2022.
1. Ledger Nano Series
The Ledger Nano Series is one of the most popular anonymous crypto wallets in the market. The hardware crypto wallets allow users to store their crypto assets securely and privately, with much greater safety than the software crypto wallets.
Once you acquire the Ledger Nano Series wallet, you need to undergo a one-time set-up that produces a 24-word seed phrase and the selection of a pin to secure the wallet. After this, users only require the pin and the physical presence of a hardware key, to access their wallet and sign transactions, and the seed phrase is an additional layer of security in case you lose your hardware key device.
In the Ledger Nano Series, you can choose between the Nano X and Nano S. Both of them are with USB connections, for use on desktops, while the Nano X has Bluetooth functionality that makes it compatible with mobile devices. The Nano S is around 150$ and Nano X is around 250$. These wallets are not free, but if you are really into crypto and really want to preserve your privacy, this is a small price to pay.
2. Trezor Hardware Wallet
The Trezor is a hardware, multi-currency wallet that helps you to store your coins in a safe way. It is easy-to-use hardware, where you can easily plug it into your computer or smartphone, and randomly generate a PIN code that keeps your device safe and secure.
It is recognized as Ultra-secure offline storage, with support for more than 1500 cryptocurrencies for trade and Over 65 cryptocurrencies for U.S-based investors. Trezor allows you to recover access to your coins & assets from your offline backup and from many users’ experiences it is known to have an Intuitive & convenient interface.
The Trezor Model T or Trezor One hardware wallets are able to be linked to a third-party validator or staking pool. They can also use the Exodus wallet as a staking interface.
The company offers security packages in the range of 69$ to 530$, depending on what level of security you prefer.
3. BitLox
BitLox is a Hong Kong-based start-up that creates highly secure privacy-oriented hardware wallets for its customers.
It provides the absolute privacy solution through an unbeatable combination of BitLox Ultimate Hardware Bitcoin Wallet and BitLox Military Grade USB Vault with TAILS OS preinstalled. Its web tool is also TOR-compatible which helps in a very convenient and easy-to-use experience.
At this moment, the company presents its products as “The World’s ONLY Standalone Secure Hardware Crypto Wallet”. They also claim their product to be Indestructible shockproof & weatherproof because of its metal case, and with a 2″ full matrix advanced e-paper display – which can display your address QR codes when fully powered off.
BitLox wallet has the capability to store up to 100 wallets (each containing a practically unlimited number of addresses) which helps you in containing your privacy. The one feature which is very interesting to me is a hidden wallet feature (up to 50 hidden addresses on one wallet), where your hidden data is indistinguishable from random bytes and only you can even know they are there and random byte structure means you maintain plausible deniability.
This is overall a very interesting device, with multiple different features from the competition, and an affordable price of around 150$ for their BitLox Ultimate device with a 5-year warranty.
Conclusion
As you can see from these several examples, there are different ways to preserve your privacy and keep the safety of your assets. Although software wallets are mostly free and often more convenient to use, I would always recommend some of the hardware wallets I mentioned, because the level of security is incomparable between software and hardware wallets, and the price of safety in a world of blockchain technology is never too big.
What is your take on crypto wallets? Which one is your favorite?