Are you serious about storing your precious cryptocurrency in the right places – safe from all sorts of greedy eyes staring from the shadows? Then you’ve come to the right article where we’ll break down one of the more popular Hardware wallets in the cryptocurrency market today.
From Trezor’s advantages and disadvantages to the price and if it’s a good investment for you.
Trezor Wallet Review: What is the Trezor Wallet?
Trezor is a Hardware wallet first released in 2014 by the company Satoshi Labs. This device will allow you to store all your cryptocurrencies safely by moving your funds offline.
The Trezor wallet shields sensitive information such as your private keys away from any exposure to the wild west of the internet. And in doing so, this makes it extremely difficult for hackers to gain access to your wallet.
Trezor Supported Coins
As more and more coins are popping up everyday, it’s important for Trezor to support as many coins as possible. Fortunately, Trezor supports more than 1000+ coins and can store all ERC-20 Tokens – essentially all tokens made from the Ethereum Blockchain can be transferred to your Trezor wallet immediately.
This is because all ERC-20 Tokens are made the same way so Trezor doesn’t need to modify anything to support it.
However, anything out of ERC-20 Tokens will need to be manually supported by Trezor. If it’s not supported officially and you send those coins to your Trezor wallet, your funds might become unrecoverable – so please check their official website for an updated list of coins supported.
Trezor Wallet Advantages
The advantages of Trezor wallet are numerous, but the reason why Hardware wallets in general are the goto place to store your crypto is because of the removal from online to offline. As you can already guess, if something is offline – like a piece of paper, how can hackers even begin to hack it?
And this is how Hardware wallets like Trezor are able to send transactions without ever exposing your private keys to the internet. When you initiate a transaction request, you will need your private key to ‘sign’ the transaction. Trezor will ‘sign’ the transaction in an isolated environment and then sends back the signed transaction to approve your spending.
This way, the private key itself will never get exposed, yet you’re able to sign and approve the transaction.
Trezor Wallet Disadvantages
The downside to Trezor and hardware wallets in general is the less convenient way to send transactions. Everytime you want to send coins, you need to first request the transaction, plug in your Trezor to your computer, log into it, sign the transaction and then approve it.
You probably don’t want to do this every time if you have some funds where you regularly trade with.
Another disadvantage is the price of the wallet – If you don’t have too much in crypto, then it’s probably not needed to invest in a Trezor as it does cost around $100 for the base model.
Security Overview
To fully understand Trezor wallet, let’s go over some other security aspects of the wallet and also their history.
Limited USB Connection
Trezor also safeguards against keyloggers in a unique way. A keylogger will track the exact keys you have pressed. So if you press the key 1, hackers can see you pressed 1.
However, when you enter the pin to your Trezor, it randomizes it. How this works is, imagine your pin is 1234. But Trezor will display a grid of 9 numbers and you have to enter 1234.
As you see, to enter 1234, you need to physically press 5,3,2,8 on your numberpad. And this will be randomized everytime.
Firmware Updates
To be up to date with the latest security patches and updates to your Trezor device, you will need to do that manually as Trezor does not automatically update.
However, no need to panic as when you interact with your Trezor on your computer, if there’s an update available, there will be a popup to notify you that an update can be done.
Follow here for the full list of instructions.
Has Trezor Wallet Been Hacked?
Unfortunately there was one reported incident with Trezor. But this security vulnerability was found at Defcon (A Hacking Event) so no actual incidents have been reported, and Trezor has fixed the issue since.
What the problem was that it was extremely simple to extract your seed phrase and pin from the Trezor itself. Using a few tricks, one can fool the hardware in giving away the private keys and seed phase. This can only be done if someone has your physical Trezor. If you want to know more about the hack, here is an article on it.
How to Setup The Trezor Wallet?
Alright now that you have your new Trezor wallet, let’s set it up so you can start storing your crypto safely. This is a somewhat lengthy process so don’t do this in a rush. You want to make sure you have enough time to do everything properly.
When you open your new Trezor box, you should have the Trezor, USB connector and also a piece of paper with 24 lines on in.
Plug your Trezor into your computer and it should redirect you to https://wallet.trezor.io/. Once you’re there, process do download the app – this will allow you to interact with your Trezor on your computer.
If there are any firmware updates, make sure to click install and update those too.
After that, you will be required to confirm if the ‘fingerprints’ on your computer matches the one shown on your Trezor screen. If it does, click continue on your Trezor.
Replug your Trezor into your computer and you can now name your Trezor device – don’t worry as this name can be changed anytime.
Then you now need to set up a PIN. We recommended it to be above 4 numbers. After you’ve set that up, Trezor will show you your seed phrase.
Do not lose this seed phrase as Trezor will only show this to you once and only once. Write the 24 words down onto the piece of paper that came with Trezor. We recommended you to write it again in another notebook or places you can keep safe. DO NOT store it on your computer or your mobile.
Triple check the words and spelling are correct and then you have successfully set up your new Trezor!
How to Backup and Restore Trezor
Backup:
There are two ways to backup your Trezor. The first is the 24 word seed phrase.
The second way is called the Recovery Shares. This is essentially like multi signature for your Trezor. You generate a set of words, like the seed phase. Then you can denominate how many sets of words you need to unlock your Trezor.
For example, you might set it to 3 ‘sets’ of words. You generate 5 ‘sets’ of words so you don’t lose all. But to unlock your Trezor, you only need to enter 3 sets of words. This is good because you can hand some to people you trust, or store it in more locations.
Restore:
If you want to restore, first you need to wipe your Trezor. Here is a more detailed guide on how to do so.
Once you’ve done that, you can proceed to restore your ledger by plugging it into your computer, then selecting the Recover Your Wallet option.
Follow here for more information.
How to Transfer Cryptocurrency to your Trezor Wallet?
- To transfer crypto into your Trezor, first connect your Trezor to your computer. Then enter the pin and interact with your Trezor via the official Trezor interface or the Chrome extension.
- On the top left hand side of the app, you can select what crypto you want to transfer into your wallet.
- Once you’re selected the coin, click on ‘receive’ and the interface will show you your unique address for that coin.
- Copy that address and paste it into where-ever you’re sending crypto from.
- Double check you’ve got the right address and you have now deposited it into Trezor.
How to Send Funds from your Trezor Wallet
- On the top left hand side of the app, select the cryptocurrency you wish to send.
- Once selected click ‘send’ and you’ll be asked to enter the address you want to send to.
- Simply copy an address into the box and make sure it’s the right address.
- Once everything is right, hit send and then you’ll need to approve it on your Trezor wallet.
- Double check it’s the right address and then once approved, it’s sent!
Trezor Sounds Awesome, How Do I Get Started?
If you’re wondering where to get your very own Trezor, you can order your Trezor right from the official stores. We don’t recommend you get them from 3rd parties as you never know if they have tampered with the device or not.