Mobile wallet

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Written on Dec 28, 2023
Reading time 3 minutes

Quick definition

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A mobile wallet is an app on your phone that you can use to store, spend, and send your cryptocurrency.

Key details

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  • Mobile wallets allow you to manage your crypto from your mobile phone
  • Most mobile wallets can be downloaded from the Play Store or the App Store
  • While mobile wallets are typically secure, they are still connected to the internet, which can pose a security risk

What is a mobile wallet?

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A mobile wallet is a smartphone app that stores and moves your crypto. Mobile wallets can be downloaded through Google Play or the App Store and are completely free. It’s important to note that all your wallet details are stored locally using your phone’s memory rather than online, so having a secure password on both your phone and the wallet itself is essential.

Mobile wallets allow you to access your crypto anywhere with your phone, making them a very convenient wallet option. Mobile wallets are similar to banking apps in that you can use them to view your bitcoin balance and transaction history, and send/receive funds.

The difference is that a banking app merely gives you a way to access your bank account that is stored on the bank’s servers, whereas a crypto mobile wallet is stored on your phone.

How do mobile crypto wallets work?

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Once you install your crypto mobile wallet and set up your password/PIN, you can access your bitcoins and send/receive bitcoins through the app. Mobile wallets are designed to have easily usable interfaces to make this as simple as possible.

Other people can transfer you money by entering your public key (wallet address), and you can transfer bitcoins to other people by entering theirs. In addition to this, to make transactions easier, most mobile wallets integrate QR-Code technology, where you just scan the QR-Code of the receiver’s wallet address and send payments with no need to enter address manually.

Can I backup a mobile wallet?

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Yes, mobile wallets will offer various ways of backing up depending on the provider. The best of these is noting down your ‘recovery seed’. This is a string of words (which can be generated or set by you) that can be used to access a wallet in a later date if you happen to lose your device or forgotten the details of your wallet. Once initiating a recovery on the same or a new device, you will be asked to enter your recovery seed and your crypto will be restored in your mobile wallet address.


Sources & references

James Knight

James Knight

Editor of Education

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James is the Editor of Education for Invezz, where he covers topics from across the financial world, from the stock market, to cryptocurrency, to macroeconomic markets. His main focus is on improving financial literacy among casual investors. He has been with Invezz since the start of 2021 and has been...