Education

How to Protect Your Crypto in 2023

On October 2, 2023 by admin

Disclaimer: This is not legal advice.

Cryptocurrency is more popular than ever. But that hasn’t come without its consequences…

With new users flooding into the space – unaware investors have become a prime target for hackers and scammers…

Maybe you’ve seen some of their strategies, their victims or have been one yourself!

The good news is protecting your crypto comes down to understanding a handful of things like:

• What a private key is and how to protect it…
• The most common tools hackers use…
• And how to lock your coins away offline.

This article will show you how to do everything, and help you understand all the common ways hackers try to scam you…

My promise is from this day forward, you’ll be able to invest with confidence!

First off, what are ‘private keys’ and why are they important?

Most hacks happen because hackers get access to the users’ ‘private keys’.

When you set up a wallet, you get a public and private key. 

You’re probably familiar with your public keys… that’s the long address that allows others to send you crypto.

Your private keys are much more important.

Think of your private keys like the keys to your mailbox… anyone with that key can access all the contents inside.

That’s why it’s important to protect your private keys like you would your physical keys!

Here’s what a private key looks like (never share yours):

In crypto, many hacks happen because the hacker gets a hold of the users’ private keys.

Either through ‘social engineering’ tactics like private messages with fake accounts (we’ll cover this shortly)…
Or malware that drains your wallet.

Knowing this is the foundation of protecting your crypto.

Keep your coins off of exchanges because anything can happen if you don’t own your private keys

Crypto exchanges like FTX, Coinbase and Binance own the private keys to your wallet.

This means if anything were to happen to an exchange, you could lose access to your crypto.

In crypto, whoever controls the private keys controls the crypto.

This is why users were locked out of their crypto when the FTX exchange collapsed…

That’s why it’s more important than ever to keep your coins in a cold storage wallet. 

We’ll show you how to do this at the end of this article.

Protect your ‘Secret Recovery Phrase’

Your secret recovery phrase is a 12-word phrase used to restore your wallet, and all accounts created in that wallet…

You got one when you set up your new crypto wallet. 

Protect this phrase like you would your private keys, and always remember…

No ‘support staff’ or ‘founder’ should ever need your private keys or secret recovery phrase to do anything. 

Let’s move on.

<H2> Revoke permissions from suspicious websites 

Revoke.cash is a great tool that can help you revoke permissions from sites that are not trustworthy on your Metamask.

Examine links before you click them

If anyone slides into your Discord, Twitter, or Instagram DMs with something like this:

If you examine the link closely, it says ‘www-rnagiceden’ instead of  ‘www.magicedin’

So always examine links before you click them… especially random DM links.

Don’t brag on social media about how much crypto you have

That’s literally like saying…

Use A Cold Storage Wallet

What’s a cold storage wallet, and why is it the best way to protect your crypto?

Cold storage wallets are a way to safely store your crypto offline.

This protects you further from malware, hacks and failing exchanges (like Voyager or FTX) in these early days of crypto.

In other words… no matter what happens to Coinbase, or whatever crypto exchange you use, your coins are safe in a cold storage wallet.

The two most popular cold storage wallets are the Ledger Wallet…




And the Trezor Wallet.

How to connect your cold storage wallet to Metamask

Step 1: Click the top right circle on your dashboard and select ‘Connect Hardware Wallet’

Step 2: Select your wallet

Step 3: Connect your cold storage wallet to your computer via USB

Step 4: Follow the remaining instructions on Metamask 

That’s it! You’ll have a new tab in your Metamask wallet to access your cold storage wallet.

Conclusion

These are the simple steps you can take today to protect your crypto.

I recommend you start by picking up either a Trezor or Ledger wallet to safely store your coins.

Stay safe out there, and thanks for reading. Your crypto thanks you too!

PS. If you ever need help deciding if something is a scam, you can always ask in our Discord Server.