Crypto wallets: the five best-known, side by side

What a wallet actually stores

Your coins never sit inside a wallet. They are entries on a blockchain, and the wallet keeps the private keys that let you move them. When you set one up, it shows you a recovery phrase, usually 12 or 24 words, from which those keys can be rebuilt on a new device.

All five wallets on this page are self-custody wallets: only you hold the keys. Nobody at Ledger, MetaMask or any of the others can block your coins, and nobody there can rescue them for you either.

Platform custody or your own wallet?

While your crypto stays on a MiCA-licensed platform, the platform holds the keys and EU rules protect you in specific ways. Article 75 of MiCA requires it to keep clients' crypto separate from its own, out of reach of its creditors, and makes it liable up to market value if coins are lost through an incident it is responsible for.

Withdraw to your own wallet and that safety net no longer applies. MiCA's recital 83 places providers of non-custodial hardware and software wallets outside the regulation. In exchange, no company can freeze your account or fail with your coins inside it; the responsibility for the recovery phrase, the address and the devices is entirely yours.

Devices and apps: the trade-off

A hardware wallet keeps the keys on a dedicated device. You pair it with an app on your phone or computer, but a transfer only leaves once you confirm it on the device's own screen, out of reach of malware on the computer. Ledger and Trezor make the best-known models; you pay for the device once.

A software wallet is a free app or browser extension that stores the keys, encrypted, on your phone or computer. It suits people who use their crypto often, for example with apps on Ethereum or Solana. The weak point is everything else on that device: phishing pages, fake apps and malicious browser add-ons.

How we chose these five

We took the best-known self-custody wallets by the user or sales figures their makers publish, picking two devices and three apps that are available across the EU and hold at least bitcoin and ether. They are listed alphabetically within each type rather than ranked, because the makers count different things, from devices sold to downloads, and none of those figures has been independently audited.

Check the coin columns before you choose. MetaMask and Phantom cannot hold XRP, Cardano or dogecoin; the other three can.

Withdrawing from an EU platform

The EU's transfer-of-funds regulation sets the main rule. Before a platform sends more than €1,000 to a self-hosted address, it must check that the address belongs to you. The EBA's guidelines list the accepted methods: signing a message from the wallet, sending a small predefined amount, showing the address on screen, or another reliable technical check. Platforms choose among them, and Bitvavo, for one, may ask at any amount.

Verify the address before a large withdrawal so the transfer is not held up. Pick a network your wallet supports for that coin, because sending over the wrong one can mean losing it. A memo or destination tag is usually only needed when you send to another exchange, not to your own wallet. Transfers on a blockchain cannot be reversed, so try a small amount first with any new address.

Protecting the recovery phrase

The recovery phrase is the one thing a thief needs. Genuine companies never ask for it, by email, phone, chat or pop-up. Write it on paper or metal and store it somewhere safe; a photo or a cloud note puts it on devices that can be hacked.

The EU's financial supervisors warn about three tricks in particular: fake wallet apps, messages urging you to "update" through a link, and address poisoning. In the last one, a scammer sends you a tiny amount from an address that only differs from yours in the middle characters, hoping you will later copy it from your history. Check the full address every time you send.

Tax and reporting

From 2026, DAC8 obliges licensed platforms across the EU to report each customer's transactions to the tax authority of their country of residence. Transfers to wallets outside a platform are reported as a total value and number of units per coin; the wallet address itself is not part of the report. Keeping crypto in your own wallet therefore does not hide it, and the tax rules for it are set nationally.