After the debacle of my Ethereum node wallet, I decided that I needed to try out some new wallets:
- To spread out my coins across different locations, so that if one failed for whatever reason (node not syncing, getting hacked, forgetting password and seeds), then at least it wouldn’t be as bad as if I’d had all my coins in that basket.
- To see which wallets have a better user experience (speed of syncing, ease of receiving and sending, user interface etc)
I’d heard from a video by CoinFOMO on YouTube that the Exodus wallet from exodus.io was worth checking out.
Its main USP is its good-looking design and its ability to hold different coins in the same interface.
Up until now, I’ve had Electrum wallet for my Bitcoin, Ethereum node wallet for my Ethereum (ETH) and MyMonero wallet for my Monero.
I’ve bought a Trezor hardware but I’m yet to unbox it and set it up.
Today, I downloaded the Exodus wallet and it was very easy to set up.
The interface is very intuitive. The screenshot below is after I sent a test amount of 0.001 BTC to the Exodus wallet from my Electrum wallet. It took about 20 minutes for the BTC to show. The view below is of the wallets available: Bitcoin, Electrum and Litecoin. You could see more coins like Dash and Augur and Golem, but I’ve chosen to hide them from view.
In the next screenshot below, I’ve switched to the Portfolio view, which is like a pie chart (although in this case, it’s all in BTC and so all in one colour.)
As soon as you’ve added some assets into the Exodus wallet, you’ll be prompted to back up your wallet. This means adding a password to open the wallet next time, and also for you to write down your 12 word seed recovery.
The screen below is after I’ve sent more Bitcoin (0.05 BTC) and also some test Ether (0.1 ETH). You can see that it’s more like a pie chart now.
All in all, it’s really easy and the rich, graphical interface is a joy to look at, particularly after using very functional wallets so far.
The next very valuable and interesting feature of Exodus, which I’m yet to try is the inbuilt integration with Shapeshift.io. This allows you to exchange coins for other coins (as long as the Exodus wallet supports those coins).
All in all, I’m very impressed with the Exodus wallet. It looks great and it’s really easy to use.
I haven’t read anything negative about the safety element of it, but for now, no news is good news. And for added peace of mind, I won’t be putting in large amounts of cryptocurrency. Yet.
I’m definitely going to be spreading my coins around and I recommend that you do too.
Let me know your experiences of Exodus in the comments below!
Which one do you feel is better for beginners – Electrum or Exodus?
Which one is more secure?
Hey Wise, I use both Electrum and Exodus. I think that Exodus is more user-friendly and this is the one I would recommend as a beginner’s first wallet (even though Electrum was the first Bitcoin wallet I used). In terms of security, neither has had news-worthy security breaches that I can find online but that doesn’t mean they are 100% secure. It might just mean they haven’t been breached yet. I would recommend splitting your Bitcoin between different wallets like Electrum, Exodus and a hardware wallet like Trezor. Hope that helps? Let me know which way you go!
Thanks for your reply.
Just found this website and the reviews of different wallets and yes, Exodus is also there:
https://www.cryptocompare.com/wallets/exodus/#/reviews
Several users point out that the fees are high, for example:
“Roughly £2.50 taken from a Bitcoin wallet containing £10 just to import the content.”
Another point that someone mentioned:
“Every time I log into Exodus I have to download a little 1.5mb file … does everyone get that too?” – is it your experience as well?
Useful feature of Exodus is that it can be used for ETH and LTC as well while Electrum is ONLY for BTC…
No worries at all Wise. More than happy to help if I can. I’ve read about the fees needed to send through Exodus is generally higher than from other wallets. They explain here why their fees are higher: http://support.exodus.io/article/69-how-does-exodus-calculate-fees. With Electrum, you can set your fee to send BTC (the fee you set will impact how fast your transaction gets verified). With Exodus, I don’t send BTC to other addresses so that I avoid unnecessary fees. This works for me as I’m mostly just buying cryptos and holding them.
Re the download of a little file – I don’t think I’ve had to download one. I just enter my password into the opening screen and I’m logged in.
The most useful feature of Exodus for me is the ability to hold multi-currencies. I currently have Augur, OmiseGo, BTC, ETH, LTC in my Exodus wallet. There’s no other wallet I can find that allows that variety of currencies in one wallet.
I totally understand your caution and for me security is very important. I also balance this against usability and convenience. The way that I think I mitigate risk is not to have more funds in there that I would feel pain at losing. Assume with every wallet that it could be compromised and that you could lose everything in that wallet and that’s a good start I think. Not ideal, but for now I think that’s the best way of looking at it. For more on Exodus, they have a very responsive Slack channel. Hope that helps?
You write: “Assume with every wallet that it could be compromised and that you could
lose everything in that wallet and that’s a good start I think”
But with a paper wallet there is hardly any chance that it can it can happen?
I’m not sure about paper wallets as I’ve never used used them. I would apply the same principles to them as any form of wallet.
Firstly, have you practiced recovery of your wallet? For example, with my Trezor wallet, I made sure that my recovery seed words successfully restored a wallet before I transferred any funds to it. The ability to restore is important as you might misplace your paper wallet or it could be damaged by water or something like that. Not that likely, but it could happen.
Secondly, if you lost access to your wallet for whatever reason, would the amount that you lost be painful for you? If so, then spread your funds across more than one wallet.
My understanding of paper wallets is that they are fundamentally more secure than any wallet that is connected to the internet or that lives on your computer.
Hope that helps?
When you send just part of your wallet balance, is the remaining amount staying in the same address?
Or do you have to send the remaining balance to some new address?
Is it the same in Electra?
Hope you don’t mind my questions. Thanks!