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Glossary

Cold wallet

Also called cold storage

Keys kept offline, usually on a device that only signs when you look at it.

Cold storage means the secret that spends the coins is not sitting on a laptop that also browses the web. A hardware wallet is the common version: the laptop proposes a transaction, the device shows it, you confirm.

Cold is not magic. If you confirm a hostile address without reading the screen, the device will sign it. If you never test a restore, you have a brick and a hope, not a backup.

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