How to Secure your NFT's with a Hardware Wallet
2021 was a popular year for people to create, buy, and sell non fungible tokens (NFT's). 2022 and beyond should be an important year to learn how to secure your NFT's and cryptocurrency assets. The hot wallet is the gateway to connect to web3 websites like Opensea to create or sell NFT's. Metamask by itself is a highly unsecure hot wallet. Celebrity asian pop star Jay Chou had his Bored Ape Yacht NFT stolen valued at around half a million. I've also been a recent victim of having my Metmask Hot Wallet Hacked.
Secure your Seed Recovery Phrase (Layer 1)
You may heard it's essential not to share your seed recovery phrase with anyone including the metamask team. The seed recovery phrase is a series of 12 words. What does this actually mean to secure your seed recovery phrase. I suggest writing it down on paper and storing it in safe place. You are at risk if you store your seed recovery phrase digitally and connected to the internet such as on a cloud drive. Even if you store it on your computer it can be compromised.
Get a Hardware Wallet
You may have heard this advice before, but you're not sure where to start. I encourage you to do your own research, but Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets are known to be secure and have a good reputation. Hardware wallets allow you to store your cryptocurrency where you own the private keys securely using state of the art technology and not connected to the internet. Personally I started off with the ledger nano s hardware wallet. It has limited stored, but it is a good start to store some cryptocurrency assets. If you want to store NFT's on your hardware wallet then you will need to get the Ledger Nano S Plus or the Ledger Nano X Flagship Device.
I personally own the Ledger Nano X hardware wallet and have used it store cryptocurrency assets, some altcoins, and NFT's. The Ledger Nano X has 200MB capacity about 50MB more than the Nano S Plus to store more crypto assets. The X also has a battery and bluetooth capability.
As of April 2022 only Ethereum based NFT's can be seen on the Ledger Live application used to monitor you hardware wallet. You can still send other blockchain based NFT's to your hardware wallet. You will just need to go to their platforms to view them with your hardware wallet.
Connecting your Hardware Wallet to your Hot Wallet
Once you have your hardware wallet, the next step is to connect it to your hot wallet (Metamask or Solana). This step can be a bit tricky, which is why I've made several video tutorials to cover the step by step process. On your hardware wallet you will need to set up ledger live and install different apps for each token. For example you can install the ethereum app and you will need to enable blind signing on the actual device.
You will then need to open up your metamask hot wallet on the same blockchain (ethereum) and go through the steps to connect your hardware wallet to either metamask or phantom wallet (solana). I cover the step by step tutorial on how to do this in my NFT security online course.
Once you have connected your hot wallet to your hardware wallet you will get another account displayed in your hot wallet with a different wallet address. Every transaction from this specific account in the hot wallet will require physical on the device.
Transfer your Crypto Assets or NFT's to the Hardware Wallet
The last step is to actually transfer your cryptocurrency from your hot wallet address to your hardware connected hot wallet address. Be sure to get your wallet address of your hot wallet account first. Go to the hot wallet account with the NFT or crypto asset and transfer it to your protected account. It will require your permission for the transaction. If you transfer cryptocurrency to the hardware connected hot wallet account you will see the value reflected on your ledger live app. If you have an ethereum based NFT you can also this displayed.
