5 Easily Avoidable Mistakes When Using Your Crypto Wallet
Crypto-currencies are here to stay and millions around the globe have taken to it like ducks to water. Despite its volatility, crypto-currencies provide a slew of priceless advantages compared to their fiat counterparts. Many crypto investors and traders have been on the receiving end of frustration and loss by making easily avoidable mistakes when handling their crypto wallets.
In this article, we present to you the five most common of such errors, so that you can be mindful of them and avoid stepping into the same traps. This will not only save you money, but it also saves you from a lot of frustration and disappointment.
Once you’ve ensured these easily avoidable mistakes are sorted, you can get back to exchanging your crypto-currency and regular transacting. And, who knows, seeing as it’s been gaining popularity in the online gambling scene, why not try your hands at a game of chance? But, in the spirit of giving you sound advice, we need to warn you to be mindful if you haven’t chosen an online casino, because not all are reputable and operate legally. That’s why it’s worth checking out a good comparison website. This will guarantee that whichever operator you’ve decided to register at is a reliable and trustworthy one. We’re sure you’d agree that after going through the effort of safeguarding your funds with a crypto wallet, maintaining that same level of security by choosing the right casino is of utmost importance.
And with that, let’s roll up our sleeves and unpack the 5 most common crypto wallet mistakes people still make in 2022.
Irretrievably Losing your Crypto Keys
Did you know that an astounding 3.7 million BTC are currently either lost, burned or simply inaccessible? There are tons of stories about how early investors cannot access their crypto tokens simply because they don’t know/have the wallet keys. Some of these people have lost hundreds of millions of dollars simply because they don’t have access to their own crypto wallets.
Many others have lost access to their wallets and the funds therein because they’ve not kept their keys confidential and hackers have somehow engineered their hands onto the keys and stolen the funds.
So here’s our tip: When you create a crypto wallet, make sure you never share the private keys with anyone else and also make sure you don’t forget the private keys yourself. You could make have hard copies of the keys in case it slips your memory.
Storing all your Crypto in a Hot Wallet
There are two types of crypto wallets, namely, hot wallets and cold wallets.
- Hot wallets are basically those that are on the cloud. They are always online. While they are mostly safe, they aren’t 100% immune to cyber attacks from skilled hackers. Hot wallets are very convenient if you need to access, buy and sell crypto tokens frequently. But the compromise is that they are never 100% safe. Therefore, it would be a wise idea to only store an amount of crypto that is required for day-to-day trading and other operations, but to save the majority of your crypto assets in a cold wallet.
- A cold wallet, in layman terms, is like a USB stick. It is a piece of hardware which is protected with cryptographic keys. When the cold wallet isn’t plugged in, it is disconnected from the internet and therefore it is not possible for anyone online to hack into it. A cold wallet, on the other hand, could be damaged physically or simply lost. So, you need to weigh the pros and cons of these two types of wallets and store digital assets in them accordingly.
So here’s our tip: Only store crypto money that you will need immediate access to, on a hot wallet. A cold wallet should be where the bulk of your balance is stored.
Sending Money to the Wrong Wallet
So if you were making a traditional bank transfer and messed up and sent it to the wrong account , you could contact your bank and they might be able to do something about it….. in most cases (let’s hope not when someone transfers a mistaken million to us!)
However, if you enter the wrong public address when sending money from one crypto wallet to another, you’re not going to see that money ever again unless the unknown owner of the receiving wallet is kind enough to send it back to you.
Crypto transactions are not reversible and there is no bank that you can call. It’s foolhardy to think that such a silly mistake isn’t one that you would commit. It’s surprising how many people have made this rudimentary error and paid the price for it.
So here’s our tip: Be SURE TO DOUBLE CHECK the address of the wallet you are sending funds to. And you know what, if you want to triple check, that’s OK too!
Using a Public Wi-Fi
You don’t know which sketchy dude is sitting at the seat in the internet café next to you and hacking into your device. Most public Wi-Fi networks are not encrypted and any data that you send or receive over such networks could be visible in plain view for opportunistic hackers.
So here’s our tip: Don’t log into your crypto account on a public wifi network.
Setup a Stop-loss
Crypto is volatile and the value of a token can plunge by huge margins just overnight. You cannot always continuously monitor the value.
So here’s our tip: Set up a stop loss. This way your wallet will automatically sell certain coins when their reaches the stop-loss limit. As the name suggests, it stops you from facing losses.
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