Wallets
Where to store crypto.
Hardware and software wallets, with the trade-offs that decide which is right for you. Sourced and dated.
Coinbase Wallet
Coinbase Wallet is a self-custody software wallet made by Coinbase that puts the user in control of their own private keys. Get one thing straight first: it is not the same as a Coinbase account. The regular Coinbase exchange app is custodial, where Coinbase holds the keys to the crypto on your behalf. Coinbase Wallet is a separate product where the keys sit with you, and you can use it without holding anything on the Coinbase exchange at all.
Exodus
Exodus is a self-custody software wallet for storing, sending, and swapping cryptocurrency from one app. It is a hot wallet, meaning the keys live on an internet-connected device rather than on offline hardware. The company behind it, Exodus Movement, was founded in 2015 by JP Richardson and Daniel Castagnoli, and the wallet has stayed focused on one idea since then: make crypto easy to handle for people who are not technical.
Ledger Nano X
The Ledger Nano X is a hardware wallet: a small physical device, about the size of a car key fob, whose only job is to hold your crypto private keys offline and sign transactions without ever exposing them. Ledger, a French company, launched it in May 2019 as the Bluetooth-enabled step up from the older Nano S. It is cold storage, meaning the secret that controls your coins never touches an internet-connected machine, which is the whole reason a device like this exists.
MetaMask
MetaMask is a self-custody software [crypto wallet](/learn/what-is-a-crypto-wallet) you run as a browser extension or a phone app. It launched in 2016, built by ConsenSys, and it is the wallet most people meet first when they start using apps that run on Ethereum. Self-custody is the part that matters: you hold the keys, so you control the funds, and no company can move them or freeze them for you.
Phantom
Phantom is a self-custody software wallet that started on Solana and grew into a multichain wallet. It launched in 2021, built first for the Solana blockchain, and quickly became the most-used wallet for Solana. Over the following years it added support for more chains, so it now covers Solana alongside Ethereum, Polygon, Base, and Bitcoin, with Ethereum and Polygon arriving in May 2023 and Bitcoin in December 2023.
Rabby
Rabby is an open-source, self-custody software wallet for Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains, built around making each transaction safer to sign. It comes from the team behind DeBank, the DeFi portfolio tracker, and that origin shows: Rabby is aimed at people who interact with on-chain apps often and want to understand what a transaction will do before they approve it. It is a hot wallet, with keys held on the user's own device.
Trezor
Trezor is a hardware wallet, a small electronic device that stores the private keys to your crypto and keeps them off the internet. It is made by SatoshiLabs, a company in Prague. The first model, the Trezor Model One, was created in 2014 and is described by the maker as the world's first hardware wallet. Later devices, including the touchscreen Model T and the newer Safe range, followed the same idea.
Trust Wallet
Trust Wallet is a mobile, self-custody crypto wallet that works across many blockchains. It was founded in 2017 by the Ukrainian developer Viktor Radchenko and was bought by Binance in July 2018, the exchange's first acquisition. Since then it has stayed a free app aimed at people who want to hold their own crypto without going through a custodian.