Paper: A method of “cold storage”, they are kept offline and are a private–

public key pair, a mnemonic printed on a card and stored in a safe location

without ever accessing it online.

Another classification of wallets is hot and cold, where a hot wallet can be

accessed from any location in which your keys are stored online, but the

option has its limitation as it can be hacked and the coins stolen.

The cold wallet stores your keys offline as the private keys are within the

hardware and can connect online only when you want it and, as such, has

very less chance of getting hacked and is more secure.

The options you have to install the Ethereum Wallet are MetaMask, Argent,

and Coinbase for iOS and Android, MyCrypto is a Web-based wallet,

TrustWallet is the mobile wallet for iOS and Android, MyEtherWallet is a

client-side wallet optimized for DeFi transactions, Gnosis Safe is the

security-oriented multi-signature wallet.

Accounts and wallets—a comparison

The following table provides a comparison between accounts and wallets:

Accounts

Wallets

An Ethereum account is an entity that can send

transactions and has a balance.

A wallet is a product that lets you manage your

Ethereum account. It allows you to view your

account balance, send transactions, and more.

An Ethereum account has an Ethereum address.

You can use this to send funds to an account.

Most wallet products will let you generate an

Ethereum account. So, you do not need one

before you download a wallet.

Accounts are public/ private key pairs that you

use to sign transactions.

A wallet is a key pair associated with a user-

owned account that allows a user to make

transactions from or manage the account.

Accounts can be user-controlled or deployed as

smart contracts.

Wallets are smart contracts that allow for

transaction

logging,

multi-sig,

withdrawal

limits, and more. In order to create a wallet, you

need to deploy the contract to the blockchain,

which requires Ether. You need to make sure

you keep track not only of the keys required to

access the wallet but also the wallet address.

Table 5 .1: Accounts vs Wallets