What is a crypto wallet and what can I hold in it?

Crypto wallets are like a wallet you put your cash in in your pocket, but they store your cryptocurrency assets, or any virtual/digital currencies you might own (or earn) like Ethereum, Bitcoin or similar.  Unlike a normal wallet, which can hold actual cash, crypto wallets technically don’t “hold” your crypto monies. Your holdings live on the blockchain, which is basically an online storage system, but can only be accessed using a “private key.”  This is a seed phrase that is unique to only you. Your private key proves your ownership of your digital money and allow you to do transactions like sending money, receiving money and selling or buying NFTs.

You have to be careful with your private key…if you lose your private keys, you lose access to your money.  We recommend you use the steps here to make sure your private key always stays safe.

What can you hold in your wallet?  There are many different kinds of cryptocurrencies in the crypto world and each of them (or sometimes a group of them) correspond to a different blockchain.  As of 2022, there are over 1000 blockchains, but only a few of them are used in any real way.  (The top seven chains as of 2022 are ETH, BTC, Solana, Avalanche, Cardano, Polkadot and Hyperledger.)  Each chain has a currency attached to it—this is where your wallet comes in. 

Your wallet can hold cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tether, and lots more.   Your wallet can also hold NFTs—you can buy, trade, send, receive and hold NFTs inside it.  Finally, some wallets can allow you to “stake” your cryptocurrency.  Think of this basically as putting funds into a savings account vs. a checking account.  Staking means that you lend your crypto to the chain for a while and accrue some small interest in your account for doing so.  On our site, right now, you can raise funds in ETH or USDC, but we hope to add other options soon.

In summary, your crypto wallet is where you keep, store and trade your digital assets, and it can allow for instantaneous transfer (the minute a fan buys a ticket, you get your cut,) etc. so in some ways it’s as easy as using a credit card online.