Since entering the cryptocurrency realm, the mobile apps concerning the mining, trading, market, news, message, deposit, etc. have more than doubled. Then, what is “deposit”? It is another saying of digital currency wallet, let’s take a look at the meaning and how to use it?
The wallet is the Keeper of Secret Key
Nowadays, digital assets have become the standard choice for many investors, among them, for long-term holders, wallets have become an indispensable tool for storing assets. In daily life, a wallet is a pocket-size case for holding paper money and various bank cards, while in the digital currency field, the function of the wallet is more complicated and many investors know little about it.
What’s a Crypto Wallet?
A cryptocurrency wallet is a piece of software that keeps track of the secret keys used to digitally sign cryptocurrency transactions for distributed ledgers. Because those keys are the only way to prove ownership of digital assets — and to execute transactions that transfer them or change them in some way — they are a critical piece of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or service which stores the public and/or private keys and can be used to track ownership, receive or spend cryptocurrencies. It is comparable to a bank account, contains a pair of public and private cryptographic keys. A public key allows for other wallets to make payments to the wallet’s address, whereas a private key enables the spending of cryptocurrency from that address.
What are the Public Key, Private Key, and Wallet Address?
Key: Generated by a cryptographic algorithm and presented in pairs, consisting of a private key and a public key.
Private Key: A private key is a sophisticated form of cryptography that allows a user to access his or her cryptocurrency. A private key is an integral aspect of bitcoin and altcoins, and its security make up helps to protect a user from theft and unauthorized access to funds.
Public Key: A public key is a cryptographic code that allows a user to receive cryptocurrencies into his or her account. The public key is created from the private key through a complicated mathematical algorithm. However, it is near impossible to reverse the process by generating a private key from a public key.
Wallet Address: A wallet address is similar to a bank account number. It’s a unique 26–35 digit combination of letters and numbers. Each wallet automatically generates a bitcoin address. You can share this bitcoin address with others to let them know how to send coins to your wallet.
Digital Signature: A digital signature is something you can use to show that you know the private key connected to a public key, without having to reveal the actual private key. It allows non-repudiation as it means the person who sent the message had to be in possession of the private key and so, therefore, owns the Bitcoins — anyone on the network can verify the transaction as a result.
It is not difficult to find through the above diagram that there are many types of blockchain wallets. The most important criterion is whether to master the private key of digital assets. Remember that only the owner of the private key can assess the digital assets.
The private key is recommended to be kept on paper and must not lose! Don’t tell others! Because it represents the ownership of the wallet and the right to operate it. Unlike the password of the bank card, if you forgot it, you can first freeze it and then reset it with your ID card, however, in the world of blockchain, if the private key is lost, it cannot be recovered and the funds secured by it are forever lost, too.
The choice of wallet also needs to be serious. There are various wallet choices, including imToken, APPMyEtherWallet, Bitecoin-QT, BlockChain, Litecoin-QT, Ethereum Wallet, Bitpie, etc. From the perspective of security and scalability, Bitpie and imToken are the two most widely used wallets.
Where can I Download the Wallet?
- Ethereum Wallet: imToken (Open source wallets are the safest)
Official Website: https://token.im
Tutorial: https://token.im/support
2. Bitcoin Wallet: Bitpie (The most powerful wallet in China)
Instructions: http://docs.bitpie.com/zh_CN/latest/
3. EOS Wallet:
Download: https://www.mytokenpocket.vip/
Single-Signature Address + Multi-Signature Address Improve the Asset Security
In daily digital currency transactions, except for obtaining digital assets via OTC transactions, users can transfer digital currency in their wallet to the exchange wallet. The private key is held by the exchange, while only the public key is available to the user, the transfer of the assets is equivalent to deposit the digital assets to the third-party platform.
We can simply simulate the use of digital currency wallets.
When transfer, the recipient only needs to send the address of the wallet to the counterparty, who may transfer the digital assets to the provided address.
When trading on an exchange, users only need to transfer the digital assets to the address set by the exchange, which is the wallet, to complete the transaction. Accordingly, the exchange will transfer the digital assets to the user’s wallet address (or the wallet of other exchanges provided by the user) when the user chooses to withdraw.
From a simple point of view, the transfer and transaction of digital currency rely on the wallet, thus, the security of the wallet determines the safety of the digital currency.
From a global perspective, the exchange’s major money-losing incidents have occurred frequently, the most famous of which is the Mt.Gox incident, leading to the bankruptcy of the world’s largest exchange operator — Mt.Gox. This shows the importance of choosing the trading platform.
Eric, Technical Manager of 58COIN, once pointed out that investors may often see single-signature addresses starting with “1” (such as 1l, 1p, 1n), and multi-signature addresses starting with “3”. A multi-signature address consists of three single-signature addresses and requires two or more authorizations. For example, A, B, and C three people, if anyone of them wants to buy a thing, two or more signatures are required before the purchase. This is a way to improve security.
58COIN exchange adopts the above two methods to improve the security of the assets. If the project party wants to launch a cryptocurrency, they need to provide a complete solution, and 58COIN will only accept the investor’s assets after ensuring the safety of the project. If an exchange is still using a single-signature address, then you need to go to the exchange to see if it is safe.
In short, the choice of the wallet depends on the user’s situation. If the transaction amount is large, it is recommended to use the wallet with the private key. If the total amount of small transactions is large, you can deposit in the exchange so as to make the operations easier.
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