Hardware Wallet Safety

One of the things that I think is the best thing to have done is experienced Hive at a pretty important time in my cryptocurrency journey. I was pretty new to the space but coming from a typical background of someone who trusts companies and governments for the most part, I didn't really think that having my cryptocurrency funds in a wallet that I owned unequivocally was really something that was too important. Then things shifted at some point, I remember the time of year, it was sometime late 2020 when I decided that I was going to use the hardware wallet that I purchased.

Hardware wallets are an important, but sometimes a little scary, aspect of cryptocurrency and the future of money itself. When we have full control to use, as well as lose, the funds at our disposal then it's definitely a cultural paradigm shift and one that I hope to not find myself on the negative end of the consequence of it.

Every so often I withdraw all of my crypto that I have on the major exchanges to my wallet every so that I can take advantage of the cryptocurrency that I own and have the keys for. If there's one thing I've learned it's that "not your keys, not your crypto" is quite the powerful way to drive a point home. If someone gets ahold of your pass phrase or something related to your traditional coin accounts on the major exchanges they can completely clean you out. That's not exactly the point of the post but something to just be aware of!

With being my own advocate as far as the crypto side is concerned, what it also means for me is that I am trying to employ as much safety as I possibly can. I'm in the habit of always doing test transactions. I'm not moving tens of thousands of dollars worth of things, although that would be pretty cool to have those kinds of assets lol but having the assets that I have and appreciate the bit that I'm able to accumulate, I for sure know that I am going to always, no matter what, do a test transaction unless it's something like Hive where I can easily type the destination accounts name. Hell even the Hive transactions I'm double and triple checking my transactions and accounts before doing most of the transactions.

I think this is an important step to take, regardless of how often you are doing the transactions. Yes it absolutely does take some extra time but what's worth the time, an extra 30 minutes to wait but guarantee that your funds get there successfully or not waiting the 30 minutes and you potentially losing untold hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of hard-earned crypto? It's a no-brainer for me, I will be spending the extra 30 minutes even if it's waiting around on a frigid cold day outside a house! Lol I'm not transacting in those kind of ways, being secret squirrel or anything but I think/hope you would get the point I'm trying to make...

_{Waaaaaait! Pump the brakes before you try and do a transfer without a test transaction!!!}

I'm grateful that I've been able to accumulate the funds that I have, even if they aren't something to write home about yet, it's the principle of getting into as good of habits as we can in the early stages that will vastly benefit us in the later stages of life. The best lessons to learn are the hard ones for sure and those often end up with the most permanent lessons but some lessons are learned in a way that isn't painful and thankfully for me, the lesson to always do a test transaction regardless of the situation is one that I've seen others make the mistake of not testing it first and seeing their funds disappear into the ether, and that's something I hope to never make the unfortunate mistake of doing, no matter the rush that I'm in.

I think the moral of the story is: slow and steady wins the race!