You should know that in this circle, 99% of exchanges have potential risks of running away.

Among the many options, making your own cold wallet is relatively safer.

Following the theft of the TP wallet and the hacking of the BK wallet, the world-renowned hardware cold wallet Ledger was also hacked. Although it was discovered in time and the user suffered little loss, all decentralized applications using the Ledger library may be affected by the attack. There are rumors that Sushi has been attacked. I have seen people say in some places before: Any hardware may have a backdoor, and it is not recommended to use hardware wallets on the market. Someone on Reddit also shared the incident of Ledger wallet assets being stolen. On the X platform, someone also exposed that there may be a backdoor in its algorithm that can steal user private keys, but it is difficult to tell whether it is true or false. For the sake of safety, I personally think that making a cold wallet is the relatively safest way at present.

The two situations that people in the cryptocurrency circle are most worried about are: freezing of withdrawals and theft of wallets. These two problems that exist in practice are not difficult to solve. Let's systematically explain wallets...

(It must be made clear that the private key is equivalent to the asset. Whoever owns the private key is the owner of the blockchain asset.)

1. What is a wallet?

A wallet is a file that stores a series of private keys. Simply put, any physical or virtual item that can store private keys can be called a wallet, such as a piece of paper with private keys written on it, a computer with private keys stored on it, etc.

2. Classification of wallets

1. Cold wallet and hot wallet
Bitcoin wallets can be divided into cold wallets and hot wallets according to the storage method of private keys.
(1) A cold wallet is a wallet whose private key cannot be accessed from the Internet. Usually, the security of Bitcoin private keys is ensured by "cold" devices, such as computers, mobile phones, and notebooks with private key addresses that are not connected to the Internet. Although cold wallets avoid the risk of private keys being stolen by hackers, they may face physical security issues, such as device loss or damage.
(2) A hot wallet refers to a wallet whose private key can be accessed through the Internet. Typical hot wallets include Metamask and Imtoken installed on computers or mobile phones. Hot wallets are mostly online wallets. When using them, it is best to set different passwords on different platforms and enable secondary authentication to ensure asset security.

2. Full-node wallet and light wallet
According to the way blockchain data is maintained and the degree of decentralization of the wallet, it can be divided into full-node wallets and light wallets.
(1) The representative of full-node wallets is the bitcoin-core core wallet, which needs to synchronize all blockchain data and takes up a large amount of memory, but can fully achieve decentralization.
(2) Light wallets rely on other full nodes on the Bitcoin network and only synchronize data related to themselves, which can basically achieve decentralization. IMTOKEN, Little Fox, etc. are all light wallets.

3. Centralized wallets and decentralized wallets
Depending on the control of private keys, wallets can be divided into centralized wallets and decentralized wallets.
(1) Centralized wallets do not back up private keys during creation and do not rely on blockchain networks. All data is obtained from their own centralized servers. Transactions are efficient and funds can be transferred to accounts in real time. The account registered on the trading platform is a centralized wallet.
(2) During the creation of a decentralized wallet, the private key (mnemonic phrase) is recorded and backed up by the user himself and is generally not accessible to others.

4. Other types of wallets
Wallets are also called by many different names, such as web3 wallets, hardware wallets, software wallets, etc. In fact, they are just different places where private keys are stored. In essence, they are all private key storage tools.
After understanding the various forms of wallets, you will understand that a wallet is actually a management tool for private keys, addresses, and blockchain data. The key is to understand this sentence.

3. How to make a cold wallet

1. Find a clean mobile phone (Apple is recommended for higher security).
2. After connecting to the Internet, go to the official website to download the mainstream wallet. After the download is complete, remain disconnected from the Internet.
3. After disconnecting from the Internet, generate a private key address and back it up manually (three copies are recommended).
4. Keep the backup properly.

For those who hoard coins, how can you check your wallet assets? My suggestion is to go to the blockchain browser and enter the address to query.

Remember, whoever holds the private key is the real owner of the blockchain assets. Whether using a cold wallet or a hot wallet, as long as others know your private key, they can transfer your blockchain assets.