If you are looking to securely save your bitcoins, then you have arrived at the correct place. This blog lists down the best bitcoin wallets in each of Online, Mobile, Desktop and paper wallet space.
Bitcoin investments are surging and they are surging like never before. However, once you invest in bitcoins, you need a place to securely keep those bitcoins. Bitcoin wallets save the bitcoin with them and give you an address where you can receive or send the bitcoins from. They are just like a digital locker where you can save your virtual currency.
There are various kind of bitcoin wallets available in the market including Online, Desktop, Hardware and Paper Wallets. Each of them have their own pros/cons varying from ease of to security of wallets. Online Wallets are also called as hot wallets and all the information is kept on the the exchange/trading sites is kept on the servers online only. Online Bitcoin wallets can be susceptible to hacking attacks as well just like Mt Gox hacking incident. However, it can’t be denied that online wallets have the best user experience and are easiest to use. The comparison of various wallet kinds is out of the scope of this blog though. Here is the list of wallets in nutshell:
| Wallet | Control of Currency | Security | Privacy | Validation | Fees | Buy/Sell from Fiat Currency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Localbitcoins | Owner control | Very Secure, 2FA | No Anonymity | Centralised | Network Fees | Yes |
| Spectrocoin | Owner Control | Secure | No Anonymity | Centralised | Network Fees | Yes |
| GreenAddress | Owner control | Very Secure, Open Source, 2FA | Pseudo Anonymous | SPV | High Fee | No |
| Blockchain.info | Owner control | Very Secure, Open Source, 2FA | Pseudo Anonymous | Centralised | Network Fees | No |
Lets now quickly hop on to the popular wallets in the various wallet categories:
Online Bitcoin Wallets
Localbitcoins
Localbitcoins is one of the most popular local bitcoin exchange across the world. Buyers and sellers list their requirement and carry out the trade. Bitcoins to be sold are moved into the localbitcoin wallet before they can be solved. Once the transaction is completed offline, the seller transfers the bitcoins to buyer wallet. Here is the look at its bitcoin wallet features:
Control of Currency: Owner has the complete control.
Security: Not open source, supports 2FA.
Privacy: You can’t be anonymous with localbitcoins.
Validation: Centralised
Fees: Transaction fees is 1%. The fees to use the wallet is just the network transfer fees.
Buy/Sell coins From Fiat Currencies: Supported.
[button link=”http://localbitcoins.com” type=”big” newwindow=”yes”] Go to Localbitcoins[/button]
Spectrocoin
Spectrocoin is a web app that offers a host of services including but not limited to buying/selling bitcoin from fiat currencies, a debit card for bitcoin, a bitcoin wallet, API for developers much more. With its innovative ideas, spectrocoin has been gaining foot in the market for quite some time now. Here is the look at its bitcoin wallet features:
Control of Currency: Owner has the complete control
Security: Not open source and doesn’t support 2FA for now. The transaction processing looks secure though.
Privacy: You can’t be anonymous with Spectrocoin.
Validation: Centralised
Fees: Fees vary on the kind of transaction to be performed.
Buy/Sell coins From Fiat Currencies: Supported.
GreenAddress
GreenAddress is a another great online wallet promising much better security, privacy and instant payments:
Control of Money: Owner is in complete control.
Security: Good, hacker will be required to hack both the service and the user account simultaneously to steal bitcoin. Open source and supports 2 factor authentication.
Privacy: You can be psuedo-anonymous with GreenAddress.
Validation: SPV
Fees: Fees on GreenAddress are on Higher Side.
Buy/Sell From Fiat Currencies: Not Supported
Blockchain Wallet
Blockchain wallet is one of the most popular online bitcoin wallets. Its an online wallet and provides access to your bitcoin through web, desktop, android and iOS apps. Here are the salient features of the wallet service by blockchain:
Control of Money: Owner is in complete control
Security: Good, a strong brute force is required to hack the encrypted wallet keys if exchange is compromised. Open source and supports 2 factor authentication. Every transaction is assigned a new address.
Privacy: You can’t be completely anonymous with blockchain.info. Your IP Address and email is always tracked.
Validation: Centralised
Supported Currencies: BTC
Fees: As per network requirements.
Buy/Sell From Fiat Currencies: Not Supported
We hope you found our bitcoin wallet list useful. Do let us know in comments, which wallet are you using ?
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Thanks for pointing this out. They indeed seem to be a good site. Good content as well.
Happy that you found it useful !!
If one was trying to set up a wallet and purchase bitcoins using a debit card for the past few months and found it virtually impossible to do. Is there anything you would suggest to have the ability to make this happen with a debit card that is Visa? In other words how can one actually purchase these things? Any idea.