- More than $600 million worth of crypto was stolen.
- What could be a record heist
- Hackers are draining many accounts.
- $600 million dollars
- The biggest ever theft of digital currency.
- I can't stress enough how important it is to
There's always going to be looting and ransacking
and DeFi is just the new Wild West.
Some stable coins like Tether have administrators
that can help track down lost coins.
But the vast majority of decentralized currencies
do not have these features.
If your Ethereum, Litecoin or Cardano
ever get lost to malicious hackers,
unless the hackers just somehow are convinced to
give your money back, which has happened more than once.
But don't worry,
- Oh my goodness! What's the procedure?
- But first, let's briefly talk about a few incidents
that have happened in the past to help highlight
the importance of safety here.
This is very, very important.
One of the first major events happened in 2014
in a controversial story surrounding
the biggest Bitcoin exchange at the time, Mt. Gox.
This happened at a time when enthusiasm for
decentralized money saw many companies like Mt. Gox
throw caution to the wind, focusing on the
novelty of their projects instead of building a secure system.
The tragedy of the story
is the fact that in 2013, Bitcoin prices were soaring
over $1200 all the way up from
$20 at the beginning of that year.
And because of this, Bitcoin had a big
red target on its back
and Mt. Gox was the biggest honeypot of them all,
The exchange was exploited,
an amount that would be worth around
And you might be hopeful thinking that
exploits like these are a thing of the past
you know, because of new security protocols and regulations.
and you know, Satoshi works hard.
But unfortunately, scammers work harder.
In August of 2021,
another massive breach hit
Poly network, a a protocol that allows users to
move their assets between blockchains.
The hacker made off with more than $600 million worth of
crypto from the Binance Smart Chain,
Ethereum and Polygon's Networks.
Holders of the lost funds were
at the mercy of the hacker
who surprisingly later returned all of the funds.
And then, of course, we still have rugpull scams
and pig butchery scams
being run by the Chinese mafia.
We're practically surrounded by bad actors at this point.
So this is very important to understand safety.
And today I want to help you go the extra mile
with how to treat your crypto investments
in a very safe manner.
And luckily for us, we have options,
options that will allow us to
keep our coins in storage,
tucked away and quietly appreciating in value.
[Laughs] But they're not all the same.
I want to help you choose a
But before I get into my top picks,
let's take a minute to define some terms that you
absolutely need to know.
The first thing that we need to discuss is crypto wallets.
These devices, sometimes hardware, sometimes software
keep your keys safe,
especially your private key,
which only you, as the holder of your assets, should know.
You shouldn't tell anyone- Don't tell your friend,
Don't tell your cat 😿
No one.
No one crypto wallets don't physically contain
your digital currencies, like a normal wallet would hold
dollars or coins
*or condom*
or dollars.
They basically work like an
ultra secure enclave that stores
sensitive information, giving you access to use,
move, invest or transact the crypto that you own.
This works through the complex world of cryptography,
but for the sake of this video, there are
three things that we should first define.
The first on that list is your wallet address.
Think of this like the account number of your bank account.
Your address doesn't necessarily have to be kept secret,
but it could be a personal preference
to keep that address secret.
Now, some people tend to confuse your
Bitcoin address with your public key,
but these two are not exactly the same,
though they are related.
Your wallet address is a
hashed 160-bit version of your 256-bit
public key, so your address is a
kind of shorthand for your public key.
Some wallets like Coinbase, even
hide these numbers completely,
and instead let you trade with usernames.
Now, your private key or secret key
is what you want to keep protected
at all costs.
It's technically possible for you or
AI to derive a public key from a
private key, but the reverse of the process is
virtually impossible.
It would take the most powerful supercomputer on Earth
650 million years to derive a single private key.
So it's pretty safe,
but human error is not safe.
Also, if you ever suspect that the
private key to your wallet is compromised,
the best thing you can do is to simply
get a new wallet.
But we can prevent this from happening
in the first place, if we take a couple of precautions.
So let's look at the options for
safe crypto storage.
What all of these services provide
is a way for you to have at least
both a public and private key.
This way, you have full control over
what happens with your assets.
A public and private key can together
work just like any other crypto wallet
The most safe option is to generate a
paper wallet, which is a form of cold storage.
This is safe, but it does have some drawbacks
that we need to discuss.
Getting a paper wallet is as straightforward as
getting a public and private key
randomly generated from an online generator.
Once you have both keys,
you can send as much crypto to that
public address as you wish,
effectively putting that money
in your private wallet.
You can then print or write down your set of
keys on any old scrap paper that you like,
or you can pretend like you're in a movie and
etch them into a gold coin and give that to your wife.
But the most safe method
is to actually write it down a piece of paper,
laminate that paper and then keep that
in a safe deposit box at your bank.
It might be a bit overkill, but that's the safest way possible.
This is the best solution if you either have a
massive stash of crypto
or if you have a chunk that you just simply don't
plan on selling anytime soon.
A few services that will generate these keys
are walletgenerator.net
bitaddress and smartholdem.
Now, as I've implied, paper wallets are
actually a small part
of the broader category of cold storage options.
Cold here means that the hardware
in which you store your crypto keys
is not connected to the Internet.
However, keeping your crypto in a cold wallet
means that you can always access the coins
that you own if you're trying to spend them,
stake them, or lend them.
Another option here is hardware cold wallets,
and luckily for you, I've tested a few for this video.
So let's discuss the criteria
that you should look out for,
starting with Security certifications.
Many of the most popular wallets come with an
It's a grade that's assigned to the hardware
or systems as a measure of overall security.
Basically, the higher the EAL,
the more reliable the system is
to prevent breaches.
For more context, the certification
is also used by smartphone makers
and in the production of E-passports.
Ideally, you want the hardware wallet
with the best level of demonstrable security
and the OPOLO Hardware wallets are a good place to start.
They've been given an EAL rating of
6+ out of 7.
Most of their wallets get a rating of anywhere between
1 and 5.
The popular brand 'Ledger' notably has an
EAL of 5+ which isn't bad by any means,
and if you own one, you're probably benefiting
from some other features that they offer
that OPOLO might not have.
Arguably, the Ledger is also a
bit more user friendly as well.
Ledger also offers holders
access to the Ledger Live platform.
On Ledger Live, you're able to manage
assets stored in your Ledger Nano S or X,
which includes buying more crypto,
sending and receiving crypto to different wallet addresses,
or you can even do certain things like
earning interest staking Cardano
while keeping it safe in your Ledger.
If you do stake your Cardano, you should
definitely stake with me at
Ticker Symbol Max1
or visit stakewithmax.com for more info.
Now, some might argue that features like
Ledger Live defeat the purpose of using
cold storage for your coins,
since you want to be able to
Ledger Live services are convenient,
but it's ultimately your call.
OPOLO seems to be the best possible
security option with the downside of
potentially less usability,
where ledger offers great security
with more usability.
I'll have both linked in the description of this video.
Now the last broad category I'm going to talk about
is one that you're probably already using,
and these are hot wallets.
So you have cold wallets whose main benefit
is basically being air-gapped,
a place where you can store your private
and highly sensitive crypto information
and NFT Waifus ¬‿¬
But sometimes you want to be able to
hold onto some crypto in order to
seize on opportunities like buying a Bitcoin
next time it goes through some kind of crazy flash crash.
That's where hot wallets can give you an advantage.
Normally hosted by exchanges,
software based storage keeps your
crypto in always on secure cloud locations.
The potential downside
is that you have to trust the exchange.
Even the most well established exchanges like
Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and Kucoin
come with the risk of being exploited.
It's for this reason
that I personally use cold storage
in conjunction with hot wallet.
Sort of like how you might have both
a checking account and a savings account
at your bank.
So in summary here,
And in fact, most investors can
get away just fine doing that
if you're brand new or maybe you don't
have very much in crypto.
They're pretty convenient and
But once you build up a big stack of crypto,
or you venture into DeFi buying
smaller coins that aren't listed on big exchanges,
you start to expose yourself to risk
by keeping all your coins in one place.
And it doesn't matter how big
or how famous the exchange is.
The best way to manage your crypto assets
is to keep your savings in one or more cold wallets,
and then keep some fun money tucked away
for trading in your digital wallet
for transactions.
And as always, remember that
losing your crypto keys is like
losing your virginity.
Once it's gone, it's gone.
- What's all gone?
- The money in your account, poof!
[Laughs] Now, before I let you go,
I need to give you a quick, hot offer.
The first is BlockFi.
They're a sponsor of mine, and they let me promote
however I like, and they allow you to earn
interest on your crypto, whether that's stable coins,
Bitcoin, Ethereum, you name it.
And they also have a crypto credit card
that allows you get cash back in Bitcoin.
If you make an account with them, you get up to
$250 in completely free Bitcoin,
that's linked in the description below.
And also I have a Patreon community that you
absolutely need to check out.
There you'll find all my buy and sell alerts
for crypto and stocks,
much more content and an amazing investor community,
and so much more.
I literally spend tens of thousands of dollars
every month on my Patreon community
to provide the most value possible.
That will also be linked in the description.
So that's going to do it.
I'd like to thank you so much for watching
and I hope you have a profitable day.