What is the safest token wallet? This is an impossible question to answer, like what is the tastiest fruit? You want to keep your AMS tokens safe in a wallet, as described here, but how do you pick the best one? If you ask five experts, you get six answers.
The most sensible answer is probably: the best wallet for you depends on what you need. What is the safest safe? can probably be answered with something along the lines of Fort Knox, but that’s not something you want in your house.
What follows is an overview of several wallet solutions that are used by many people. We will also tell you what we use ourselves, at amsterdreams. By no means will we try to give an overview of every solution in the market and we won’t try to attempt to pass that value judgment on ‘the best’. If you have time and the subject interests you and matters to you, the best way is still to do your own (internet) research. Google is your friend.
Software solution – computer
The most common place to store your wallet is in your personal home computer. Since most interactions with your tokens often take place on websites, including amsterdreams and Uniswap, the most common place for a wallet is as a plugin to your web browser.
A popular choice is MetaMask, with an estimated user base of more than 20 million people. MetaMask is a free and open-source wallet that integrates with the popular Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Brave browsers. For those not well-versed in software lingo, open source means that the program code is publicly available (here, to be precise). Open source adds another layer of security because any errors are seen by many eyes and it’s virtually impossible to build in ‘backdoors’ for nefarious purposes. If you’re a software engineer, you can even enhance it yourself to your liking.
Here is a guide on how to install Metamask in your browser.
A versatile (and also free and open source) wallet that runs as a desktop application is Frame. It can be, but does not have to be, integrated into a browser. Although you need browser integration to interact with a website like Uniswap, not having a connection between your browser (that could be exposed to malicious code on the web) and your wallet is a security advantage.
Frame is installed on your system as an application, just like Microsoft Word. You can create a wallet and digital keys and then simply copy the public key into the amsterdreams website when you buy your tokens. The wallet itself will never be connected to any website.
Software – mobile device
In many countries, the majority of internet access comes from mobile devices. We also increasingly manage our finances with them, from banking apps to contactless payment. And for that reason, next to the value of the device and (let’s be honest) the fact that we can’t do without it, we almost always have our phone in our pocket. Running a wallet on your mobile device then makes a lot of sense.
The first app here is…once again MetaMask. Based on a lot of the same code as the computer version, the MetaMask app is a wallet that keeps your keys encrypted on your phone.
Rather than having a browser plug-in, however, MetaMask for mobile works the other way around. Phone and table platforms, like Apple iOS, are more closed than computers: you are not allowed to install plugins or extensions for security reasons.
That means you can’t access a website using Safari or mobile Chrome and then call up the MetaMask plugin. Rather, you start the MetaMask app and then browse to the site.
Another very popular choice is called MEW, which stands for MyEtherWallet. This was one of the first Ethereum wallets, going back to 2015. MEW integrates with the MyEtherWallet.com platform, which means you can access the site using any other device or browser, but always keep your keys safe on your mobile device.
Hardware wallets
The kings of security in wallets are the hardware ones. The reason for this is that the keys are stored in a specially designed hardware dongle that looks like a USB pen drive. The keys never leave the device.
The design of a hardware wallet has been optimized to be unhackable. If you’re a pessimist, you might say that nothing is unhackable and who knows. What helps in the case of a hardware wallet, is that they are only connected to the computer or mobile device when they are used for a transaction. The rest of the time, they are offline. For this reason, they are sometimes also called ‘cold wallets’.
It is easy to add a layer of physical security to a hardware wallet, like locking it in a safe or bank vault. This is a bit more impractical with your laptop or mobile phone!
The two most popular hardware wallets are Ledger and Trezor. Being hardware, they are obviously not free – prices start around 80-100 EUR or USD. Like an extra lock on your front door, they are not so easy to use as a software-based wallet, but they can give extra peace of mind as they can be physically locked away and are not always connected to your computer, let alone the internet.
Here, it’s good to mention that if the device that a software wallet runs on, i.e. a laptop or a phone, gets stolen, that does not immediately mean that your tokens are at risk. The software wallet apps have additional safeguards like a password or face verification. It is safe to say that your tokens are as safe as anything else you have on your phone, like your photos or Apple / Google Pay.
Do you need a hardware wallet? If you’re reading this introductory article on wallets, you probably don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of tokens. Hopefully, where you live, you don’t need the kind of personal security that requires you to lock your valuables away in a safe the whole time. So probably not. But the devices are relatively inexpensive and if they can help you sleep better at night, hey, maybe they’re worth it.
Can I change wallets?
Absolutely. The choice you make for your first wallet does not have to be the choice you make for life. You can start with a simple software wallet and then buy a hardware wallet later. All you will have to do in that case is transfer your tokens from your initial wallet to the address of your new wallet.
What does amsterdreams use?
We use several wallets for different purposes. We have a combination of MetaMask on Apple iPhone and Mac with the Google Chrome browser on the latter. We also use a number of Ledger hardware devices that are locked away at a secure third party, when not in use.
Further reading
The web is bulging with information about token wallets. They are sometimes called web3 (for World Wide Web 3.0). Important for use with amsterdreams is that you need one that works on the Ethereum blockchain. Therefore, we recommend a good place to start is the official wallet comparison page of Ethereum at https://ethereum.org/en/wallets/find-wallet/ .
