6:00 AM
Paul B
Many people who have been in the cryptocurrency game for a long time, and have a lot more money invested than I do, often recommend getting your bitcoins and altcoins off of the exchanges and into a desktop wallet of some sort. The main reason for this is security.
Take for instance what happened in 2014 to Mt. Gox, which at the time was the biggest bitcoin exchange around.
Via Wired:
From a distance, the world's largest bitcoin exchange looked like a towering example of renegade entrepreneurism. But on the inside, according to some who were there, Mt. Gox was a messy combination of poor management, neglect, and raw inexperience.
Its collapse into bankruptcy last week – and the disappearance of $460 million, apparently stolen by hackers, and another $27.4 million missing from its bank accounts – came as little surprise to people who had knowledge of the Tokyo-based company's inner workings. The company, these insiders say, was largely a reflection of its CEO and majority stake holder, Mark Karpeles, a man who was more of a computer coder than a chief executive and yet was sometimes distracted even from his technical duties when they were most needed. "Mark liked the idea of being CEO, but the day-to-day reality bored him," says one Mt. Gox insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Last week, after a leaked corporate document said that hackers had raided the Mt. Gox exchange, Karpeles confirmed that a huge portion of the money controlled by the company was gone. "We had weaknesses in our system, and our bitcoins vanished. We've caused trouble and inconvenience to many people, and I feel deeply sorry for what has happened," Karpeles said, speaking at a Tokyo press conference called to announce the company's bankruptcy. This would be the second time the exchange was hacked. In June 2011, attackers lifted the equivalent of $8.75 million.
That's right, they got hacked and a lot of people lost their bitcoins. Since this day, many people keep pounding their fists on the desk telling people to get their money off exchanges like Coinbase, and into a desktop wallet!
Some wallets require the user to have a PHd to figure out, but I found one that is super easy to use and supports many different altcoins along with bitcoin. It's called Exodus!
From their page:
Exodus wraps solid engineering inside beautiful design. We poured our hearts into every detail, from pixel-perfect icons to subtle sounds, making a blockchain asset experience that "just works for normal people". Our goal: Remove the geek requirement to use cryptocurrency and make design a priority - we think it shows.Check out this demo video:
Here are some screen shots:
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| Built-in Exchange |
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| Portfolio View |
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| Intuitively send and receive cryptocoins |
At the time of this writing they support the following altcoins:
- Aragon
- Augur
- BAT
- Bitcoin Cash
- Civic
- Dash
- Decred
- District0x
- EOS
- ETH Classic
- Ethereum
- FunFair
- Gnosis
- Golem
- Litecoin
- OmiseGo
- SALT
Many people are wondering if Exodus will support Ripple, NEM, IOTA, NEO, Monero, Zcash or other assets. To answer that question, they point to their wallet road map.
So far I really like Exodus, and think it's very easy to use! Don't take my word for it though. Give it a try, and let me know what you think in the comments! Likewise, if there is a better wallet in your opinion, tell us about that as well!
