A wallet is the “purse” of the crypto world. Well-known wallets are MetaMask or the Trust Wallet. They are needed for tracking virtual assets, receiving and sending cryptocurrency and digital goods. Each wallet can store multiple wallet addresses. There are wallets that only interact with one blockchain and others that allow access to wallet addresses on different blockchains.
A wallet manages cryptocurrencies and digital goods like NFTs, but doesn't store them directly. However, it stores the wallet addresses and associated public and private keys, which guarantee access to its virtual values stored in the blockchain.
There are different types of wallets. The most common are soft wallets and hardware wallets. The wallets MetaMask and Trust Wallet mentioned above are soft wallets because they are permanently accessible via the World Wide Web. The hardware wallets or cold wallets are far more secure. The leading manufacturers are Ledger and Trezor. These are only connected to the computer to carry out transactions or to check the crypto stocks.
Another type of wallet are the hot wallets. These are the storage options on the major crypto trading platforms and exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, BitPanda, eToro & Co. Here, however, you have to make sure that the platform's own wallets have security on the provide the latest technology.
Soft and hard wallets are protected with a so-called seed phrase in addition to user names and passwords. This allows access to your digital values and goods to be restored even if the access data is lost or the hardware wallet is destroyed.
Important note: NEVER give out your login credentials and Seed Phrase to anyone else and keep them as safe as possible.
