As a rule of thumb, every cryptocurrency needs to have
As a rule of thumb, every cryptocurrency needs to have a supporting wallet. This has been the case since the birth of the industry, and it is still the case now.
However, despite this fact, developers rarely spend much time improving them. Most crypto wallets are still basic, barebones tools which only have a handful of features; many times they are also too complex for beginners to instantly grasp. Take Electrum for example. It is one of the most popular and trusted Bitcoin wallets on the market, but its design is extremely lacking, and its features are sparse. It looks and functions similarly to how it did five years ago.
It is fair to say that wallets like these are relics within the industry, making the use of cryptocurrency harder than it needs to be. The good news, however, is that in the last couple of years, developers have finally started paying attention to their wallets, and are now giving users much more impressive programs. Wallets have started to rapidly improve in a number of different areas.
User Experience
Since the unprecedented bull run of late 2017, developers have started to create programs that can be easily understood by novices. Many of the newer wallets on the market have a clear focus on UX, bridging the gap between tools designed for beginners and tools for regular users. An example of this is the Natrium Nano wallet which is designed to make crypto transactions seem as natural as using a fiat cash app such as Apple Pay. Argent Wallet is another example, whereby the developers took UX to the next step by giving their users easy to read Ethereum wallet addresses, rather than long (seemingly randomized) strings of text and numbers.
Security
Security features have come a long way since Bitcoin’s infancy in 2009. There are new algorithms and protocols which offer significantly more safety than tools from many years ago. A clear example of this is the Velas web wallet, which uses RSA-256-CBC encryption, making wallet hacking virtually impossible. The Coinbase wallet also offers newer security features, focusing specifically on its robust KYC protocols. It is fair to say that with the way the industry has moved, maliciously taking another person’s funds is harder than ever.
Expansiveness
No longer do you need one wallet per cryptocurrency, there are now programs that can hold a huge variety of coins and tokens all in one place. It comes as no surprise that applications such as MyEtherWallet and MetaMask can hold an exponential amount of Ethereum based tokens, but there are even tools that can hold coins on entirely different blockchains. Exodus Wallet can be used to store coins and tokens from numerous networks, as can Coinomi. This makes altcoin trading significantly easier than it used to be; in the past doing so was a cumbersome activity where users would much rather leave their funds on an exchange than download a bunch of individual wallet programs.
As can be seen, wallets are finally getting better. It may have taken a while for developers to dedicate enough time and resources to them, but now there is a great deal of impressive and powerful programs on the market to help make storing and sending crypto much easier than before. Hopefully, as the industry continues to innovate, so do the available wallets.