Simple Guide to the Best Cardano Wallets in 2024
No matter what your goals are with cryptocurrencies, one of the basic things you will do is own coins. For that, you will need a wallet that will give you access to your funds and keep them safe. It is no different with Cardano and of course, you will not just use any wallet that is launched on the internet. You would like to have the best Cardano wallet that serves your needs. In this article, I will go over all of that and by the end, you will have a better idea of what you can pick and hopefully made your choice.
01.The Best Cardano Wallets
In the table below, I’ve listed what I consider to be the best wallets for Cardano, based on my research. In addition, I’ve taken under consideration not only their pros and cons, but also their multi-coin support capabilities. Make sure to check out the reviews for the wallets as well so that you have the necessary information to make a decision.
| Type | Name | Compatibility | Supported Coins | Features | Get Wallet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop Wallets | Full Daedalus Review |
ADA Only |
– HD Wallet – Open-source – Block Production |
Download | |
| Hardware Wallets | Full Ledger Nano S Review |
80 Coins 1100+ Tokens |
– HD Wallet – Custom fees – Open-source |
See Pricing | |
| Full Trezor One Review |
50+ Coins 1000 Tokens |
– HD Wallet – Offline Storage – Third Party wallets and Service Integration |
See Pricing | ||
| Mobile Wallets | Full Infinito Review |
40 Coins 100+ Tokens |
– Built-in Exchange – Contact Management |
Download | |
| Web Wallets | Full Yoroi Review |
ADA only |
– HD Wallet |
Visit Website | |
| Full AdaLite Review |
ADA only |
– HD Wallet – Third Party wallets and Service Integration |
Visit Website |
Complete List of Cardano Wallets
You’ve seen the best wallets where users store Cardano coins, but what if you still have not made your decision? Well, in that case, I will give you the full list of all the wallets supporting ADA coins. There are a lot of alternative wallets in there, that may provide features that you will like. They can range from a better user interface and ease of use to supporting multiple currencies or direct connection to an exchange. The more functions they have, the wider range of people it can be useful to. Some examples of them even have additional security protocols implemented, making them even more desirable. As I advised earlier, reading the full reviews of Cardano wallets will be quite helpful as I’ve covered only the key aspects in the table.
| Name | Type | Compatibility | Supported Coins | Security | Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daedalus | Desktop |
ADA only |
Passphrase |
– HD Wallet – Open-source – Block Production |
|
| Abra | Mobile |
20+ Coins 6 Tokens |
Pin |
– Built-in Exchange – Fiat Gateway |
|
| AdaLite | Web |
ADA only |
Passphrase |
– HD Wallet – Third Party wallets and Service Integration |
|
| Atomic | Desktop, Mobile |
30+ Coins 1000+ Tokens |
Passphrase |
– HD Wallet – Atomic Swap – Fiat Gateway |
|
| Infinito | Mobile |
12 Coins 100+ Tokens |
Passphrase |
– Built-in Exchange – Contact Management |
|
| Ethos | Mobile |
10 Coins 170+ Tokens |
Passphrase, Pin, Fingerprint |
– HD Wallet – Built-in Exchange – Fiat Gateway |
|
| Guarda | Desktop, Mobile, Web |
40+ Coins 1000+ Tokens |
Passphrase, Fingerprint |
– Built-in Exchange – Fiat Gateway – Built-in Asset Swap |
|
| Ledger Nano S | Hardware |
80+ Coins 1100+ Tokens |
Passphrase, Pin, 2FA |
– HD Wallet – SegWit Support – Open-source |
|
| Trezor | Hardware |
50+ Coins 1000+ Tokens |
Passphrase, Pin, 2FA |
– HD Wallet – U2F authentication – offline Storage |
|
| Yoroi | Mobile, Web |
ADA only |
Pin, Fingerprint |
– HD Wallet |
As you can see, there are not that many options for the Cardano coin, but they offer a lot of features that may appeal to you. For example, Trezor supports a great number of coins and it is considered one of the most secure hardware wallet devices out there, while on the other hand, Daedalus is the official wallet, which is supported and backed by the Cardano development team. It is all down to personal taste and needs.
02. Common Features of Cardano Wallets
Although there is a variety of ADA wallets with many different options and perks, there are two common features that are shared between most of them. One of them is that most wallets are Hierarchical Deterministic or also called HD wallets. This means that they have twelve-word master seed keys that are used to create countless public and private keys that are connected to the source. They are created in a tree-like structure that can be considered a hierarchy, hence their name. This way, you need to back up only the master seed key and when you restore the wallet, it will recover all of your funds that are spread out to different private keys.
The second shared feature among most of the wallets is that they are an open-source software. This means that the base code is open to the public. Anyone can download it and modify it themselves in any way they choose. This means that anyone from the community with the necessary skills can create a better version of that wallet.
Security and Privacy
As mentioned earlier, Cardano is a security and privacy-oriented coin. This means that naturally the wallets that support it will need to have those features implemented. Here are a few characteristics that all Cardano wallets share between themselves.
Hierarchical Deterministic (HD)
A Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallet has the unique feature of generating countless private and public keys from a twelve-word master seed. These keys can always be connected to the seed and when restoring a wallet from a seed backup, all of your funds from all addresses will be recovered.
Open Source
A software program that is considered open-source has its code and functions open to the public. This means that anyone can download and review it. You can find a solution to an issue or straight up make your own iteration of the program.
Secure Cardano Wallets To Consider
Transaction Fee Management
In general, transaction fees, just like block rewards, exist as a way to pay or incentivize the users supporting the network and validating transactions. These could be miners, stakers or masternode owners. The amount you set for the fee will affect your priority and how long it will take for your transfer to be validated. In the Cardano network, the transaction fees vary based upon the size of the transaction.
In order to calculate and manage your transaction fees, you will need to know what variables you have that make up the equation. I will put it this way, the formula is “a+b*size”. The first variable, which is a, represents a constant, which equals 0.155381 ADA coins. The second part of the equation is b*size, where b stands for another constant which is the price per Byte at 0.000043946 ADA coins and size is the size of your transaction in Bytes. I know it might sound a bit complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, you can take out your calculator at any time and calculate your fees.
| Fee Control | How Does It Work? | Supported By |
|---|---|---|
| Full Control | These types of wallets allow you to manually adjust your transaction fees | Daedalus, Ledger Nano S |
| Partial Control | These wallets allow you to adjust your transaction fees based on their “recommended” fees | Atomic Wallet |
| No Control | These wallets usually determine the transaction fees based on how busy the network is or straight up offer only a fixed fee | Yoroi |
03.FAQ
-
Can I stake Cardano at the moment?
Unfortunately, not yet. The staking process is still in beta.
04.About Cardano
Cardano was created with the intent of changing the way cryptocurrencies and blockchains are designed and developed. It is a security-oriented blockchain that aims to provide the best experience to its users, but also become a platform for decentralized applications that run on the blockchain (dApps) and smart contracts that can be processed with a technique called formal verification. This will not only allow a logical proof of correctness for the smart contracts but also separate the accounting side of transactions from other computational processes.
In the process of its ICO, Cardano was sold to investors in the form of a token in a crowd sale that was held between September 2015 and January 2017. The total amount raised was 62 million USD, which makes Cardano one of the largest blockchain projects in the world. That statement is further solidified by the fact that it is backed by three large organizations. One of them is the non-profit Swiss-based Cardano Foundation, which nurtures and grows Cardano users and commercial communities. The second is the IOHK organization, which is a leading crypto research and development company, that is contracted to develop the platform until 2020. And the third is Emurgo, which is a large investor into start-up programs and assists commercial ventures to develop on the blockchain.