A mobile wallet is a wallet in the form of an app for your smartphone. Just like any other app, you simply download a mobile wallet from the appstore or playstore. With a mobile wallet, you receive, send and manage your crypto coins in a snap.
The power of cryptocurrency is that you can manage it yourself. You don’t need a third party like a bank or an exchange to store your coins and manage them. This applies to all the cryptocurrencies we offer on our platform: you are in charge.
To store your coins you will need a wallet. Wallets come in all different shapes and sizes: there are wallets for PC or Mac, mobile wallets, and physical hardware wallets. In this article we cover mobile wallets. With this type of wallet you can manage your coins from the device you nearly always carry with you, namely your smartphone.
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What is a mobile wallet?
A mobile wallet is an app on your smartphone that you can use to manage your coins. Just like every other app, you can download a mobile wallet from the App Store or Google Play Store. It might seem like your coins are being stored on your phone, but that’s not the case. Your coins will always be stored on the blockchain. You should see your wallet as a sort of keychain that stores the keys that give you access to your coins.
It works like this: once you create a new wallet you will be provided with a key called the private key, which proves you own certain coins on the blockchain.This is a long series of letters and digits, not very convenient if you want to set up a wallet quickly. That’s why the private key is converted into 12 or 24 (depends on the wallet provider) randomly generated words. In crypto lingo, these words are referred to as the seed phrase, or the the recovery seed. The word sequence functions as a backup for your wallet.
Essentially, a wallet makes it possible to manage and view your coins on the blockchain.
If you search for wallets in the App Store or Play Store, you will find loads of different providers. We always recommend our users to conduct their own research. When you see a wallet that you like, make sure to check them out on Google and read a couple of reviews.
For those of you that don’t have the time to conduct their own research, we recommend the wallet below. Whether you want to manage bitcoin, XRP, ether, litecoin or bitcoin cash, we are happy to advise you.
Exodus wallet: to store different crypto currencies
A very popular mobile wallet is the Exodus wallet. The wallet is free to download for Android and iPhone. You can use the wallet to receive, manage and send coins.
Exodus doesn’t run on the servers of a company, but on your smartphone only. The app connects directly with the network of several coins, which makes Exodus a completely decentralized wallet.
The private keys and PIN codes are only visible for the user of the wallet; the company itself is unable to access this data. This also means the company is unable to view your balance and transaction history.
Exodus supports, among others, bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether, and most popular ERC-20 tokens. Do you want to get a certain coin from an exchange to save for yourself? There is a good chance that Exodus supports this coin.
How do you install the wallet?
- Go to the app store or play store and download the app.
- Choose the option to create a wallet.
- Then click on the leftmost icon in the menu bar (at the bottom of your screen).
- Click on receive and select the coin you want to receive, for example, bitcoin. Your bitcoin receiving address will appear, and you are now ready to receive bitcoin.
- But we recommend first securing your wallet.
- Click on the rightmost icon in the menu bar.
- Click on the security tab.
- Select the Backup option, and now you can write down the "recovery phrase". These are 12 words that you can use to restore your wallet at any time.
- NOTE: These words provide direct access to your wallet, so do not share them with anyone! Write them down on a piece of paper and keep them in a safe place!
- Then go back to the previous menu and choose to secure with a passcode (optionally also secure with touch ID).
Now that the security is in place, you can start your first crypto transaction.
Do you have a Ledger hardware wallet? Use Ledger Live for your smartphone
Ledger's app has recently been available for free download in the appstore for both iOS and Android. You can use it if you also have a Ledger hardware wallet, and use Ledger Live for your computer. Download the app on your phone and then you can pair it with the PC (or mac) variant.
Like the Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X, the app offers support for virtually all coins such as bitcoin, litecoin, XRP, ether and bitcoin cash.
This is perhaps the safest way to manage your coins with your smartphone. After all, you also need a hardware wallet. Interested in a hardware wallet?
Blue Wallet: ready for the Lightning Network
Blue Wallet is designed to facilitate transactions on the Lightning Network. You don’t need much technical knowledge to use this wallet, so it’s suitable for anyone who wants to get acquainted with the Lightning Network.
With the Blue Wallet you are able to manage bitcoin. The smallest unit of a bitcoin is a satoshi, which is used as payment unit on the Lightning Network. Note that you do not own your private keys with this wallet. You can compare this to the way coins are managed on a cryptocurrency exchange like Binance for example.
The wallet is available for both iOS and Android. If you’ve got any questions about managing your cryptocurrencies, our support team is here to help!
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