Hardware Wallets Comparison (Trezor, BitBox02, Ledger, Coldcard)

Practicing self-custody comes with the burden of picking the right hardware wallet.

That evaluation is highly personal journey, as the circumstances and needs vary from person to person. In this post, I show you my thought process and requirements.

Below, you can find a comparison between a few of the industry-standard hardware wallets and my conclusions.

Requirements

First of all, my requirements:

1. Only BIP39 compatible wallets
2. 24 words seed phrases, not 12
3. No devices that can be stolen and used immediately
4. I don’t care about diversity of coin support
5. The less fancy the device is, the better
6. Must support passphrases (25th word)
7. Security before convenience/extra functionalities
8. Must be usable with third-party software wallets
9. Software and firmware must be open source

Many existing HW users might be doing a similar evaluation because the 9th requirement isn’t true for some hardware wallets.

After comparing tens of options, the final trilemma was between:

• Trezor One
• BitBox02
• Coldcard

Note: these hardware wallets have a lot in common in terms of functionality and security. So I’ll focus only on the aspects that differ between them.

Let’s see the pros and cons of each.

Trezor One

Trezor One is offered by Trezor, a company based in the Czech Republic.

Pros:

• Cheaper (around $70) – although the price is irrelevant for a one-time purchase
• Fully open source
• Smooth user-experience, easy onboarding
• Many integrations

Cons:

• Passphrases have to be entered on the connected device (PC), not on the Trezor itself
• Non-encrypted communication between the device and the PC
• Can be hacked with physical access to the device (but accounts behind passphrases are safe)

BitBox02

BitBox02 is offered by Shift Crypto, a company based in Switzerland.

Pros:

• Secure against attacks with physical access to the device
• Fully open source
• Encrypted communication between devices
• The passphrase is input on the device itself

Cons:

• More expensive (around $150) – but it’s fine for a one-time purchase
• Touch screen

Ledger Nano

The Ledger Nano devices are offered by Ledger, a company based in France.

Pros:

• Cheaper (around $70) – the discontinued Nano S version was even cheaper
• Easy onboarding and good UX
• Many integrations
• The passphrase is input on the device

Cons:

• It may not be a cold wallet
• Closed source firmware
• Company’s track record (leaked user data, released exploited web3 connector, introduced Ledger Recover, etc.)

Coldcard

Coldcard is offered by Coinkite, a company based in Canada.

Pros:

• No native app (security before user-friendliness)
• Safe against attacks with physical access to the device
• The passphrase is input on the device

Cons:

• Overhead with VAT and import duties for Europeans (one-time inconvenience, but is it worth it?)
• More expensive (around $150) – but it’s fine for a one-time purchase

Conclusion

There are also other alternatives (Jade, Passport, Ellipal, Keystone Pro, KeepKey, etc.), but due to various reasons, Trezor and BitBox02 entered the final draw. At the end, the lack of secure element and writing of passphrases on PC were the decisive factors to discard Trezor One.

So I chose BitBox02 as my main hardware wallet.

Note that this is just a part of my thought process of choosing a hardware wallet. Yours and other people’s might differ. I’m neither endorsing nor recommending anything, so DYOR to evaluate what fits your needs best.

There are others (which I won’t name) that were easy to discard due to them being extremely fancy or trap users in their ecosystem (which although secure, low portability and dependency on a company’s longevity are massive risks).

Also, it’s always a good idea to have 2-3 spare devices readily available, so this is an opportunity to diversify. Not only for security purposes, but due to the fact that hardware components can break in the worst possible time. So having a plan B in the form of a spare hardware wallet is great for emergency recovery situations.

If you have any questions or comments about picking/setting up your hardware wallet, feel free to reach out.

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