Can’t Justify a Cold Wallet? Take Self-Custody Anyway!

With Celcius and Voyager halting withdrawals the realization that leaving crypto on an exchange or custodial protocol comes with risks.

Remember one of the first use cases? "Be your own bank"

Understandably the cost of a Ledger or Trezor may outweigh the portfolio – or you may live in an area where the postal system simply isn't going to get one to you.

Have an old USB drive? Then it's time to install the wallets for the crypto you have directly on the drive.

I would recommend

Electrum for Bitcoin Monero GPU for Monero Install Chrome on the USB and have MetaMask for Ethereum/BSC/Polygon and any other EVM chain

Do some research and get the official wallet for whichever token or coin you want to withdraw.

Make sure you have the seed words for each wallet written down!

It's not quite as secure as a hardware wallet, but while that USB is unplugged your private keys are not touching the computer or internet. Save your wallet addresses on your computer so you can withdraw without connecting the USB. The only time you would have to connect would be to broadcast a transaction which takes only a few seconds.

This can be done for a couple of $ or even free if you can find a USB drive laying around. Don't think because it's "only" $10 you should leave it – $10 means different things to different people!