This post is aimed at helping new users of Dogecoin to select a wallet.
As we know we are in the middle of (yet another) crypto boom. Off the back of the wall street bets hype, there has been a renewed focus on dogecoin at the end of January 2021 which is ongoing into February.
Having jumped back into Reddit to assist people in the /r/dogeducation subreddit over the last week or so, it brought back a few warm fuzzy memories of helping people back in 2014, and in 2017. It also highlighted that with new people swarming into the dogecoin cryptosphere, there is a lot of misinformation and a lot of people don't know some of the basics. I am hoping to address that here today. Token Much Wow.
Types of Cryptocurrency Wallet
Let's start at the beginning by defining what is meant by a cryptocurrency wallet. You may have heard of exchanges and wallets and they are different things. If we think of an exchange as being your bank where money can go in and out, then you can think of a wallet as a vault where you plan on leaving your money. Note that you technically kind of have a wallet associated with an exchange and this makes things a little confusing for the new user.
Broadly speaking, there are X number of types of cryptocurrency wallet, the first is a "paper wallet", the second "offline app wallet/Desktop Wallet" and finally a "browser based online wallet". I will give some examples of each of these below.
Paper Wallets
The clue as always, is in the name. The concept of a paper wallet is a place where you can hold your coins offline on a physical piece of paper. The steps to create this can be found here on one of the oldest paper wallet generators around: https://walletgenerator.net/?currency=Dogecoin
Follow the instructions on that link in order to generate a new wallet and print for safe keeping. Maybe a real life vault is required depending on how much of a big fish you are/intend to be.
In my opinion, the paper wallet is one of the safest ways to hold cryptocurrency over long periods of time, providing you keep all of the information safe and don't set fire to your paperwork.
Offline/Desktop Wallets
There are a couple of options available for offline or desktop wallets for Dogecoin. The first and most recommended version is the MultiDoge Desktop wallet which can be found here: https://dogecoin.com/getting-started/#windows-desktop-os (note that this is a windows link but you can switch between operating systems at the top of the page).
MultiDoge
MultiDoge (sort of) replaced the Dogecoin Core Desktop Wallet, as it is a more lightweight version of the Core Wallet. This wallet is quicker at performing the necessary sync of the blockchain in order to show your coins in the wallet (and transfer any coins out of the wallet should you want/need to do so).
Dogecoin Core Wallet
As mentioned above, the alternative is the original Dogecoin Core wallet. Initial synchronisation with this wallet is very slow and will take up a lot of space on your computer. As above there are versions for Windows, OS X, and Linux. The Dogecoin Core wallet can be found here: https://www.cryptocompare.com/wallets/dogecoin-core/
Online Wallets.
Alternatively, you can use a browser based online wallet to store your Dogecoins. Examples of this include DogeChain (https://my.dogechain.info/#/overview) and Block.Io (https://block.io/). Both of these wallets allow a user to quickly set up a wallet that sits on the internet (behind the same sort of authentication that you would expect of any good company). The user can set up the wallet in a few simple steps by following the instructions on screen. Users are assigned a login, in the case of DogeChain it's a unique Wallet ID (which should be kept safe someone - preferably offline). In the case of Block.Io it's an email address.
DogeChain
The only thing required to generate a wallet in DogeChain is a valid email address and the ability to think of a valid password. The only difference is that this will generate a unique wallet ID which MUST be retained in order to access your wallet in the future. If you lose this identifier, your coin is long gone.
Block.Io
On signing up/logging in you will see that Block.Io actually supports multiple currencies, at the time of writing this is still just Dogecoin, Bitcoin and Litecoin. Furthermore when trying to send coins from your wallet you will need both your secret "mnemonic" and secret "pin" to authorise the transaction, both of these values will have been generated when you first create the wallet.
Summary
What sort of Dogecoin user are you? That probably dictates the kind of wallet you want to have to hold your coins in. I hope that this gives someone a good overview of the types available to them and let's them make an informed decision about what to use. You will notice that I didn't list Robinhood as a dogecoin wallet. It's not a wallet, it doesn't even let you send dogecoin, so please avoid signing up to buy your dogecoin from them.
To the Moon, such wow. Or something.
