🔥How To Keep Your Bitcoin And Crypto Safe In 2022 🔐

I’ve seen people lose their Bitcoin in every way imaginable, so I want to help you avoid the most common mistakes. Read on for the best way to keep your crypto safe for many years to come.

A hardware wallet is the best way to store Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. There are three good options: Trezor, Ledger, and KeepKey. I prefer the Trezor, but pick any of them, then write down your seed on paper, and put that paper in a safe.

1: It keeps your crypto in your custody so no one can take it away.

2: It keeps crypto offline in cold storage, so you are safe if your computer or phone is hacked.

3: It cannot be hacked like a computer because it has no Internet connectivity.

4: It secures your crypto using a seed phrase that is easy to write down on paper and store in a safe place indefinitely.

5: It can be used with any number of devices, so you don’t need to worry about migrating your coins between computers.

Most of you are not using a hardware wallet. You keep Bitcoin with an exchange like Coinbase, or an app running on your phone or desktop. But these come with major risks:

1: Computers and smartphones are vulnerable to malware that can and will steal your crypto. Even an iPhone can be jailbroken to extract your wallet seed.

2: The exchange holding your Bitcoin can be hacked, go out of business, or have its assets seized or frozen by the government.

Many people who decided to keep their Bitcoin in an app came to regret it. Bitcoin Core took a few hours to sync in 2013 but now can take weeks. Multibit was a great wallet in 2015 but now doesn’t work on many computers. Many people who got Bitcoin in 2010 forgot the password they used by 2019.  Modern computers are notoriously insecure.  Key loggers and remote access trojans can record your keystrokes and copy all your files. At one point in the lifetime of Windows XP, it only took a few minutes for the average computer to become infected once exposed to the Internet.

When you buy cryptocurrencies, you are betting that our economy will experience a dramatic shift to digital money. We have no idea which businesses or apps will survive that shift or how long it will take. Imagine if you had to pick just one company to bet on the future of the Internet during the dot com boom. Are you smart enough to pick Amazon.com rather than Pets.com? The only thing that you can trust to survive almost any economic upheaval is a backup stored on paper (or even better, metal) under your control. 

Did you know that DVDR’s can fail in as little as five years?  Flash drives might fail after 10 years. Hard drives last 3-5 years when used, and we don’t really know how long they last in storage, but the oils will dry up and the motor bearings will eventually fail. Archival grade gold DVDR’s are supposed to last 100 years, but will you still have access to a DVD reader in 2030? In short, we have no idea which digital storage mediums are safe for the long term, so all your Bitcoin wallet backups might get corrupted.

Paper wallets and brain wallets were good for their time, but I know many people who misplaced their paper wallet or forgot the exact phrase they used for their brainwallet. Some people who used a paper wallet found out that it could only be decrypted using the exact browser used to make it. Paper wallets and brain wallets also compromise your privacy by forcing you to keep all your Bitcoin in a single address.

You can generate the seed completely offline and without using a computer – just plug in your hardware wallet directly to a power source. Instead of paper, use a Billfodl or CryptoSteel to keep your recovery words protected against fire and flood.

Because they are universal, a BIP-39 recovery seed is also the best way to secure your legacy for your family, so consider adding instructions to locate your recovery seed in your will.

(Podcast Audio)

Andrew Cordle talks about NFTs as an investment, why you should include crypto in your IRA, and the importance of investing for young people.

Andrew Cordle is a noted American entrepreneur, in-demand speaker, and highly regarded wealth strategist. He serves as founder and CEO of Money Is, his company dedicated to sharing the secrets of the wealthy 1% with the masses.