Guides

Get your bitcoin off the exchange and into a wallet only you can spend from.

If you have a paper wallet in a drawer, move all of its bitcoin into a hardware wallet in one sweep.

Both apps carry the Coinbase name, and they give opposite answers to who holds your keys.

Most Bitcoin scams end the same way: you send the money yourself.

A good Bitcoin gift depends on where the person already is: a newcomer needs a first wallet, a long-time holder needs a better backup, and a tinkerer wants something to build.

Exchanges are for buying; these apps move each purchase to your hardware wallet on their own, and they differ most in where the coins land.

A seed phrase is 12 or 24 ordinary words, and for all practical purposes it is your bitcoin.

Pick a word count and a passphrase to see how long a thief would need.

If your hardware wallet dies, a new one restores everything from your seed phrase backup, which makes that backup the one part you cannot replace.

A passphrase is one optional extra secret: it protects you if someone finds your seed phrase, and it locks you out for good if you lose it.

A seed phrase is only as safe as the randomness that made it, and a website is the worst place to get randomness.

A DIY seed backup is steel you mark yourself with a punch or letter stamps, so nobody else ever sees your words and, if you build from hardware-store parts, no seed-backup company has your address.

Plan on ten minutes of careful copying and one test send.

A broken or missing device can be replaced, because your seed phrase rebuilds the whole wallet.

A 2-of-3 multisig keeps three keys in three places and lets any two of them spend, so no single mistake can cost you everything.

Sparrow is the desktop app I point people to once they own a hardware wallet and want to see exactly what their bitcoin is doing.

Android is the easy phone for Bitcoin: it takes QR, USB, NFC, and Bluetooth hardware wallets, and you can install wallets straight from the developer if you would rather skip Google Play.

A phone wallet is for spending and for watching your savings, so the best iPhone app is one that stays Bitcoin-only and signs with a hardware wallet when the amount gets serious.

Collaborative custody is a multisig where you hold most of the keys and a company holds one more, so you get help with recovery without handing over control.

A desktop wallet should build and display your transactions while a hardware wallet holds the keys, so I rank these apps by how well they work with one.

A DIY signing device is open-source Bitcoin firmware running on parts you buy from an electronics store, so no wallet company ships you a device or keeps your name on a customer list.

Most USB hardware wallets cannot sign a transaction from an iPhone, so the right pick depends on how the device talks to the phone.

For a stack you cannot afford to lose, the safest setup I know is three hardware wallets from three companies, any two of which can spend.

Sparrow works with almost every Bitcoin-only hardware wallet I rate, so the real question is how each one talks to it: USB cable, QR code, or file.

A multisig only protects you if one bug, one supply chain, or one bad batch of firmware cannot reach more than one of your keys.

A multisig coordinator is the app that builds your wallet from keys on separate hardware wallets and passes transactions between them for signing.

A secure element makes a stolen hardware wallet harder to crack open, and it does nothing about a stolen seed phrase or a phishing approval.

A touchscreen makes it easier to type a long passphrase and read a full address before you sign, and only a handful of Bitcoin-only wallets have one.

The BitBox02 is one of the simplest hardware wallets to set up, and the few checks in this guide make sure the simple path is also the safe one.

A duress PIN only helps if you know exactly what happens when you type it with someone standing over you.

I use a Jade, and this is the setup I follow, including the two checks I never skip: verifying the firmware and testing the seed phrase backup.

Krux turns an off-the-shelf camera board into an air-gapped signing device, and most of the setup is getting the firmware onto it safely.

Passport Prime needs a phone and a Bluetooth connection for setup, and the one choice that matters most comes halfway through, on the backup screen.

I have built and used a SeedSigner, and it is my top-rated signing device, but it only earns that rating if you verify the software and test the backup yourself.

On the blockchain, your wallet balance is a pile of separate coins, and the size of the pile decides what you pay to spend it.

Picking the wallet is the easy part. Your name gets attached to your coins everywhere else.

Most Bitcoin privacy comes from a few habits that any wallet user can learn.

A privacy wallet keeps your coins, your addresses, and your IP address from being stitched together by whoever runs the server you connect to or reads the blockchain.

A peer-to-peer exchange matches you with another person who sells you bitcoin directly, and the platforms below collect no ID to do it.

A Bitcoin node lets your wallet check the rules itself instead of asking someone else's server.

Both turn a small computer into a Bitcoin node and home server. They differ on license, hardware, and how much they hide from you.

A Bitaxe is a small, quiet, open-source miner that turns home mining into a lottery ticket you can hold in one hand.

An Electrum server is the piece that lets Sparrow and other wallet apps use your own Bitcoin node instead of a stranger's server.

Mempool is the block explorer behind mempool.space, and you can run the same software against your own node.

A home Lightning node gives you full control and a lot of chores, so most people are better off with a self-custodial wallet.

A free payment processor you host yourself, with every payment landing in a wallet only you control.

A self-hosted solo pool lets a Bitaxe build on blocks your own node checked, with no pool operator in the middle.

A home miner is a small, quiet SHA-256 machine that buys you a real but tiny chance at a whole block reward, paid to whatever address you type in.

Self-custody means nobody can take your bitcoin, and nobody can hand it to your family unless you set that up.

A timelock inheritance plan only works if every key in it sits on a device that can sign a miniscript wallet, and several popular ones still cannot.

Your phone number is a password reset button that your carrier can hand to a stranger.

GrapheneOS is a hardened, open-source phone operating system you install yourself, as long as you buy the right Pixel.

A cheap prepaid phone keeps your real number off forms. Keeping it unlinked from you takes more discipline than most people expect.

A Faraday bag cuts a phone or key fob off from every radio signal, as long as it is built and sealed properly.

A privacy screen protector is a thin filter that darkens your screen for anyone looking from the side. It does not stop someone behind you, and it dims the screen for you too.

Work through these fixes in order: the first ones stop the most common attacks for the least effort.

A YubiKey is a small USB key that stops phishing and SIM swaps from reaching the accounts that matter most.

You cannot erase yourself from the internet, but you can make your home address much harder to find.

A credit freeze takes three free requests and stops strangers from opening new credit in your name.

Move one service at a time, in an order that keeps your accounts working.

Signal's encryption holds up. People get hurt through weak settings, scams, and their own phones.

Gmail and Outlook both offer something that sounds like encryption. Only some of it keeps the email company out of your message.

It is safe to use, and it keeps you anonymous only until you log in or tell a website who you are.

One small computer at home can hold your photos, files, passwords, and a Bitcoin node, with no company in the middle.

An always-on computer at home can replace a stack of cloud subscriptions and verify your bitcoin at the same time.

A Raspberry Pi is a cheap, quiet computer you can leave on all the time. Give it one or two light jobs and it will do them for years.

Four ways to use your own Bitcoin node on the road without putting it on the public internet.

A home server holds the only copy of your photos, files, and wallet configs until you make a second one somewhere else.

Keep the official Bitwarden apps, and run the server they sync with in your own house.

Phone backup, face search, maps, and shared albums, running on a computer you own.

Files, calendar, contacts, and office documents on your own server, for the price of doing your own maintenance.

A chatbot that runs on your own hardware never sends your questions to anyone.

Both block ads for every device in your house from one small box. They differ in how they handle the DNS lookups that leave it.

Both stream your own movies and shows to every screen in the house. Plex ties the server to a company account, and Jellyfin does not.

Your lights and locks should keep working when a company shuts down its servers.

A free recorder that watches your cameras on a computer you own, so no company holds a video feed of your home.

Scan it, let OCR read it, and search every document you own from a server in your house.

A search box on your own server that asks other engines for you and keeps no history.