FREE CRYPTO WALLETS & STAKING OPTIONS FOR US CITIZENS
Need a safe and SECURE wallet to store your precious coin collection? How about some FREE crypto wallets that have staking options available so you can gain interest on your coins? Here are some good choices if you are on the hunt for a place to stash all of your cryptos!
This page has some pertinent information about the different types of free crytpo wallets available for storing your coins securely. You can find some details about cold storage (AKA offline) wallets, self-custodial decentralized wallets, and micro payment wallets that are used by a lot of the crypto faucets that give coins away for free.
Here are a Few Good Wallet Types that are Popular for Security
COLD STORAGE WALLETS
Cold storage wallets are wallets that store your crypto offline completely disconnected from the internet so nobody can hack into your wallet and steal your assets.
They are hardware wallets that cost money to buy and are the most secure way to keep your coins safe and secure.
The downside to cold storage wallets are that they can be physically damaged if you accidently drop or damage them and can stop working thus locking your coinage in a "no mans land" where it might be lost forever if you cannot fix/recover your assets.
Also if you lose/forget your seed phrase or other login information your wallet will be locked and you may never be able to get it open.
COINOMI
Coinomi is a free to use multi-chain crypto wallet that is known for being a super secure way to hodl your crypto coins and investments. It has been used by millions of people to store crypto since it first launched in 2014, without 1 single Coinomi account ever being hacked or compromised.
It is also fully functional with a good support team that will help you out if you do have any problems arise. In the world of defi wallets this is a breath of fresh air.
Defi wallets can be difficult to get actual help with due to them being decentralized which means the support teams cannot directly access your account in order to help you out with problems as they are mostly just connecting you to the different blockchains.
This can lead to some major frustrations when things happen like a coin not showing up in your wallet or your staked assets refusing to unstake properly.
Coinomi has both a desktop and a mobile version and a bunch of features that make it stand out as one of my top choices as the best way to store your cryptos.
They also have some cold staking options so you can stake your crypto and earn rewards even when you take your wallet offline, which is one of the security features that makes this free crypto wallet such a good option if you are worried about the security of your investments.
METAMASK
Metamask is a free self-custodial defi wallet that is a favorite among crypto enthusiasts for it's security and ease of use. Self-custodial wallets mean YOU are directly responsible for the security and safety of your assets by storing your private keys and/or seed phrases on your own.
When using these wallets you will get a "seed phrase" and it is highly recommended that you either write it down or print it out and store it offline in order to ensure that no hackers or scammers can get it and then your assets.
They have a desktop version that you can use by adding the extension to your browser on your PC, tablet, or laptop as well as a mobile app that is really easy to use once you figure it out a bit.
They also have a good support page on their website with lots of helpful information, a community forum where lots of nice people will give you helpful advice on fixing problems, and a direct contact method if you need to speak directly with their support team.
I use Metamask myself and really like this wallet hence it being one of my top choices as a self-custodial wallet.
TRUST WALLET
Trust Wallet is another really popular free web3 defi wallet that is very similar to Metamask and has lots of the same features... Seemingly minus the direct support contact offer as I cannot find anything except a chat bot option on their support page.
I like this wallet and use it myself, but currently have a problem with a coin not showing up in my wallet properly and cannot for the life of me track down an actual human to get some help.
I know my crypto is safe on the blockchain as it shows up fine in the blockchain scan for my Binance Smart Chain address, but it sucks when you have a problem and especially when a coin transfer doesn't show up in a timely fashion.
I'll make sure to update this page if/when I get my problem fixed.
UPDATE: This was sort of user error on my part, and sort of not. The Ai chatbot gave me a good hint thankfully, as I did not have the proper PEPE enabled in my wallet.
There were 2 PEPEs already in my wallet and I figured one of them was the right one, but I had to import the proper one into my wallet. You can do that very easily by finding the contract address using the blockchain scan that should have a link in your Trust Wallet when you click on the coin to get your send and receive addresses.
To get the right contract address to import coins on the Binance Smart Chain scan your address and then click the coin that is not showing up properly and it should be easy to find from there.
Here are a Few of the Most Widely Used Exchange Wallets
Exchange wallets are wallets that are hosted in your exchange account and usually the exchange controls your private key.
These wallets are one of the most UNSECURE types of crytpo wallets as they can be hacked the easiest, usually by thieves stealing your login information and then all of your assets.
COINBASE
Coinbase is an extremely popular place to buy crypo currencies as their exchange is super simple to use once you sign up for an account.
They are a publicly traded company which means they are most likely not gonna disappear overnight and take all your coinage with them.
There are some staking options on Coinbase so you can earn interest on your investments.
They also have a "learn and earn" section where you can learn about some coins and score some free crypto in the process.
Click HERE to Sign Up for a New Coinbase Account and get $10 of free bitcoin just for joining their site.
CRYPTO.COM
I've had a free account with Crypto.com since it was first Crypto.org and am curently getting the run-around trying to get logged into the app as I forgot the e-mail address I signed up with. I have my password and my keyphrase but that does no good for some reason as they are using e-mail.
If you are not a lame brain like me and write down ALL of your pertinent login info it is a pretty slick exchange.
If you are a US citizen "staking is not available in US" for us currently
Very easy to use with lots of staking options if you are OUTSIDE of the US..
I just read that Crypto.com is not available if you live in the state of New York either currently.
I hold some of thier native token CRONOS in their desktop defi wallet, it has been a serious laggard compared to the BNB coin from Binance and the stock price for Coinbase but I am hoping in the end they become one of the more popular places to by crypto as they definitely have the most brandable name in the cryptocurrency industry.
BINANCE / BINANCE US
Binance is a really popular exchange where you can buy and trade crypto pretty easily. Due to the rules and regulation they have a completely separate setup for people located in the US.
You may know this exchange as the one who's billionaire CEO was forced out due to the shady stuff he was up to not too far back.
The days of crypto running on the wild wild west rules are pretty much over, thanks to the billionaire bros crew who got just a bit too greedy and set the industry on fire.
Here is a screenshot of all the coins you can stake with a Binance US account:
Here are the 3 Most Popular Micro Wallets AKA Micropayment Wallets
These micro-wallets are used by a lot of the free crypto faucets so that you can easily withdraw all of the crypto that you have claimed for free.
It is NOT recommended to store large amounts of crypto in these wallets, they are made for collecting small amounts of coinage from faucets and are not the most secure place to store your assets for the long term.
Cwallet
Cwallet is a micro-wallet that also has lots of features such as buying, selling, and swapping your cryptocurrencies.
It can also serve as a custodial wallet (which means they store your private keys for you) or as a non-custodial wallet where you store them yourself; You can choose and switch between your wallets depending on the option that you would prefer to use according to that article.
If you are in the US Cwallet is the best option for withdrawing from lots of the faucets as the next option, Faucetpay, is not avaiable to use if you are located in the United States.
I currently use it for a lot of my faucet claiming and it is really easy to use. As far as micro-wallets go it is pretty secure but I still wouldn't recommend using it as your main wallet for long term storage.
You can find a list of faucets that use Cwallet as the withdrawal option on my page that is all about getting the most free crypto from the best faucet sites.
Faucetpay
Faucetpay is NOT available to US citizens, but if you are outside the US it is a micro-wallet that is setup to work with thousands of different free crypto faucets.
Faucetpay makes it easy to claim coins from lots of different places and store it all in one place until you transfer it to a more secure wallet where your hodling will be much more secure.
You can find a list of faucets that use Faucetpay is the withdrawal option on my page that has all the information I have in regards to using faucets to score lots of free crypto.
Final Autoclaim
Final Autoclaim is an auto faucet site that has a bunch of different ways to earn free crypto and a micro-wallet built into it for all of the different coins they have available to claim.
This is one of the very best faucets you can find and also my favorite place to score free coinage.
If you are not yet using Final Autoclaim click here to get lots of information and signup so you can start to get the most coins from of this site.