Cryptocurrency is a modern equivalent of cash, which becomes accepted by more and more marketers each day as a way to pay for goods or services. An average user is rarely interested in how cryptocurrency is generated or how transactions occur.

However, it is important to know ways of storage of cryptocurrency, because a user’s cryptocurrency safety depends on the right choice of its storage.

Cash can be put in a wallet, non-cash money – in a bank account, and then be able to easily pay for goods and services by bank card with these funds.

The characteristic feature of cryptocurrency storage is that a user does not, technically, store it anywhere, he or she has secure digital keys that are used to get access to cryptocurrency. Hence, in order not to complicate things, it is still usually referred to as storage of cryptocurrency rather than digital keys.

There are actually many methods of storage of digital currency. For example, cryptocurrency can be stored on a personal computer, removable media storage (i.e. flash drive or disk), bourse or web-service, on a card or even paper. Let’s look at each of these methods.

Storage of cryptocurrency on a personal computer involves one of digital wallets which provides quality protection of the wallet with password and encryption.

Additionally, it is possible to install an antivirus or other security software on the user’s computer. It may seem that this is the most secure method of storage of digital currency, however, it is not true.
In such case it is acceptable to compare this method to keeping your money under a bed, in a cupboard or a home safe. In any moment a thief can trace the combination of numbers used to open the safe, or find the place where you keep your money and get access to them. Besides that, a bed or cupboard will not protect your money in case of fire or any other unexpected incident.

The same is the situation with keeping cryptocurrency on a personal computer: good antivirus may not protect from keylogger, and a hard drive may get damaged by voltage fluctuations.

Usage of a computer without the Internet connection or creation of backup copies of the file containing the digital keys and keeping it on a removable disk or flash drive may be the solution in such situation.

If the user has a small amount of cryptocurrency, then it may be convenient for him to use a web-service or a bourse.

Some of advantages of this method are simplicity and efficiency of access to the funds, since in order to use the wallet a user needs only a mobile device.

The main disadvantage is lack of full anonymity, since some bourses require the user to send scanned copies of his or her personal documents in order to store Bitcoin or ETH.

Additionally, a bourse or any other web-service are often affected by hacker attacks, sometimes the owners of these sites simply disappear with clients’ money. In such case it could be hard to return the money, since position regarding the legal status of the cryptocurrency remains unclear.

Paper carrier is regarded as safe and secure method of cryptocurrency storage. The wallet is printed on a piece of paper as a QR-code, scanning of which allows to import digital keys and addresses in the wallet on the personal computer and get access to cryptocurrency.

Hence, the solution in this situation is storage of cryptocurrency on a removable carrier (flash drive, CD, DVD, USB etc.) which is kept in a place safer than a cupboard in a user’s house, for example, secure safe storage JSC “Rīgas seifi”. The paper carriers are put in the protected safe deposit box, guaranteeing maximal confidentiality of the information.

A client can rent one of more then 3000 safe deposit boxes of the company without any redundant procedures common to banks. Besides from that, it is important that the safe can be rented anonymously.

Thanks to this the process of restoration of the contents of the wallet and the specified settings becomes much easier and faster. A computer’s failure is not a problem in this case, too.

Thereby, the choice of the method of cryptocurrency storage depends directly on the specific needs of the user.

Every method has its advantages and disadvantages, however, already now it is clear that it is better not to keep digital currency on a personal computer.

In this case it is better to pay attention to the so-called hardware wallets (removable data carriers, intended exclusively for the storage of cryptocurrency).

These wallets can be completely autonomous or be connected to the user’s computer. Among the popular devices are Trezor, BWALLET, which is developed on the open-source Trezor code, BTChip, HW-1, Pi Wallet, BitStash, Ledger Wallet. They differ from each other in various parameters: from storage devices to the material from which the case is made.

In this case, the only disadvantage of hardware wallets can be considered the possibility of losing it and subsequent opportunities with the restoration of access to the digital currency.

And, of course, we advise putting such hardware wallets into one of the safes in “Rīgas seifi”. Guarantees of safety are modern security systems, 24-hour security, anonymous storage, experienced personnel and insurance for each safe.