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Over the past few days, users from the Russian Federation began to face problems on some cryptocurrency exchanges. In particular, restrictions were introduced by Coinbase, EXMO, BTC-Alpha and others. Their representatives report that the blocking will not affect all users, but only those who are on the sanctions lists. However, there are risks for everyone else. Those who have already been banned cannot use their accounts in cryptocurrencies. Even the well-known Metamask wallet has notified that it is introducing restrictions for certain regions. The question arises, where is the best place to store Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies now, on exchanges or other services?
Where can’t you store it now?
While major cryptocurrency exchanges have announced that they will not block all Russian users, it is not known what restrictions they may then impose. Therefore, storing Bitcoin and other assets on exchanges becomes unsafe.
In addition, the platforms own the private keys of clients, and they are often attacked by cybercriminals. In addition, exchanges may begin technical work indefinitely, and there will be no access to the account.
Where to store Bitcoins and other assets
There are special wallets for storing cryptocurrency. They are divided into cold and hot. The main difference between them is that the “hot” wallet is constantly connected to the network, while the “cold” wallet stores cryptocurrencies offline, that is, it is not constantly connected to the network. There are software and hardware cold wallets.
Hardware – these are special devices that resemble flash drives. They are designed to store the private key and seed phrase. Hardware wallets such as Ledger and Trezor are considered the most famous. There are others. Hardware wallets are used to store Bitcoin and other assets.
There are also software cold wallets. They can be mobile and desktop.
Desktop. They are installed on a PC, and then used. When such a wallet is created, “wallet.dat” is created in the PC. It stores data about the key, they provide access to the address.
There are mobile wallets. They are created for smartphones, this is a mobile analogue of a desktop wallet. You can sell and buy cryptocurrencies using a QR code.
Thus, the most secure now are cold wallets, hardware or software. Each user can choose a suitable cold wallet for himself in order to store cryptocurrency on it.
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