Crypto wallets: How do they work and what are some options

Crypto wallets: How do they work and what are some options?

One key difference between traditional finance and crypto is the ability to send assets to different locations quickly, without divulging sensitive personal information.

All you need is a wallet and its associated public asset addresses. You can send coins or tokens from one exchange to another, to a personal wallet, or to someone else’s wallet for payments, etc. You can also send crypto from your personal wallet to an exchange. 

Several different wallet categories exist, including software wallets, hardware wallets and paper wallets. 

Your account on any given crypto exchange should also have a separate address for each of your assets on the exchange. (Some assets, however, operate on the same blockchain as other assets, so their addresses may be the same. ERC-20 tokens, for example, are built on Ethereum’s blockchain, so each ERC-20 asset’s address is typically the same as your Ethereum address for that exchange or wallet.)

Each type of wallet comes with its pros and cons. For more on wallets, including pros and cons, as well as different wallet options and brands, check out Cointelegraph’s deep dive on the topic.  

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