I guess that's one of the impact of massive exposure the crypto-space has been bathe with.
Businesses will always think of ideas to monitize that popularity and that includes making fancy hardware wallets with touchscreens, 55 inch OLED displays, adding feature nobody wanted ^{(cough* Ledger Recover)}, and a support for a gazillion of altcoins. I wouldn't be surprised that one day, one hardware wallet will be plated with gold and diamonds and will be sold as "the most luxurious hardware wallet a crypto billionaire can buy".

The only advantages I see in hardware wallets over an air-gapped laptop is portability and the use of secure elements. Apart from that, the popular HW wallets have increasingly turned into shiny bling. As for secure elements, it seems to me they can be more of a liability than an enhancement in some cases. So now we have the hardware wallet businesses dropping devices with 2 or even three different SE's. Will we see 4, 5 SE's in the next generation of wallets? Soon the wallets will be bigger than laptops, with all those (in)secure elements.

It makes sense for people who're willing to setup airgapped device and don't mind the some inconvenience (usually about sending unsigned TX to and signed TX securely). Hardware wallet remain better option for average people.


Cryptocurrency is more popular these days, so all that matters for criminal is recognizing your hardware wallet appearance.

I understand your frustration
Here in my country (Brazil), hardware wallets are very expensive because, in addition to the price in dollars or euros (our currency is worth 5x less than the dollar, for example), we also have to pay very high taxes or buy from local suppliers, who also pay high taxes

However, if you are patient, you can find good deals, such as Trezor, which sometimes offers good deals on one or two models a few times a year
The other day, the Trezor One was available for $24.50 and the Model T for $64.50, and you could buy them from Trezor itself or from Amazon

Depending on your portfolio, $64.50 may be a lot if you have, say, $1,000 or less invested
But for larger amounts, I believe it is a fair price to pay for the security and ease of use that hard wallets offer
Hardly anyone “needs” a more advanced model than the ones companies are selling for over $200

I agree, it's become like a smartphone market, where Ledger releases a new model every week that does practically the same thing as the previous model. Before, there was a 3-5 year gap between new model releases.

It's become a luxury symbol. I confess that the idea of ​​having the latest model from your favorite brand is nice, but unfortunately it's unfeasible for most people.

I still think that using an air-gapped PC and another online device to transmit transactions, or a DIY device like Krux, is safer than Ledger or Trezor wallets, but few people have the technical knowledge for that and end up buying a device that comes with everything ready-made.

The good thing is that this market is evolving. Trezor, with its open-source SE (TROPIC01), is a great example, these devices are secure for most people. However, an open source air-gapped device is always safer.

Personally I prefer my own airgapped set up and not actually using hardware wallets which I have to change just if a ledger happens to them or I have one like Trezor which actually just designs new ones almost every time. With your own personal device as airgapped you don’t get to actually experience all this, it is like someone who built his own pc instead of buying one.

But regardless of all this which makes me rate airgapped device higher than hardware wallet, I don’t actually think that it is a good idea that the one should advice a newbie to actually use this set up, for me it is not such a set that everyone can jump upon, a newbie can simply make a mistake which renders the wallet more of hot wallet which is tricky and major reason why my advice will be for newbies to actually go for all this custom hardware wallets

If you want a really very secure and good hardware wallet, then you have to pay $150-$300 for it and I think that it's not expensive to pay for the security. If you want still good but not so secure hardware wallet, then you can use cheaper options like Trezor Safe 3. Also, Hardware wallets aren't for everyone. If you want to save few bucks in your Bitcoin wallet, then it doesn't worth to pay for hardware wallets but if you want to save lots of money, then they bring you a lot for the value that you pay in these hardware wallets and worth every penny.

Computer definitely comes with problems like becoming too old. Don't get surprised if your computer suddenly stops working if it's very old but there is also a good chance that it will work fine for decades. You should have backups. Also, if anyone chooses between SSD and HDD, AFAIK, HDD is better for cold storage.

There was a 'one size fits all' solution.  It was Hardware Wallets that did not need to look futuristic with screens bending over the edges and all that B S.  Minimal hardware with a single purpose to serve were the best option AND affordable.  And they came from multiple companies.

Now about older computers running Linux.  I have 20 year old computers that can still handle some of the latest Linux distributions and latest version of Electrum.  Old hardware is definitely not an excuse to who ever wants to set up a safer Wallet.

It would not be a bad thing if these companies continued to support their older devices while releasing newer models.  Although I do not under stand why many of these features would be necessary at all.  The more features the Wallets have, it looks like the less Privacy we have and the more points of failure.  I get why convenience is very tempting but teaching the Hardware Wallet users to accept the temptation of full convenience is in my opinion not the way to teach.

To be honest I never expected even the Hardware Wallet business to tune the consumerism style business conduct to the maximum and basically enforce behavior similar to the Smart phones market.  As in purchase one device and in a few years it already becomes either obsolete or lacks Security.  And then you have a pool of 20 different Hardware Wallets, some with more faulty parts and defects than others, I presume at least one of them will one day have vulnerabilities, some Software Wallets will not detect all models et cetera.

It is a bad practice particularly considering Bitcoin does not need more RAM or specifications to sign a Transaction, it can run even using my 20 year old computers.  If you look at Ledger they had a few Hardware Wallets that became eWaste in only a few years.  And as far as I can remember they were the most luxurious ones.  Yes I can still buy a Trezor One but considering the way this Market seems to work now, no body can guarantee it will still be supported next year.

This is where the DIY wallets really shine. Particularly the ones that let you build your wallet entirely from off-the-shelf components not directly related to bitcoin, like Krux and SeedSigner. This way you're buying hardware from companies like Raspberry pie. And the firmware is free and open source, so there's no company involved with a motive to ramp up prices with glitzy marketing crap.

I think you're referring to Passport Prime, right? I agree, Foundation Devices has tried too hard in this case, which definitely resulted in the higher final product price.

Among all else, there are even more absurd approaches to hardware wallet design, such as the one found in the CORAZON® Titanium line. For instance, the listed price for the CORAZON® Gold Titanium wallet is as much as $1,999.00 ^{and it's sold out}.