Ep 4: What are crypto wallets? Ledgers, Domain and Ethereum Name Service, Apple is a finance company, Roku and Netflix acquisition dance.

On today’s episode

We explore crypto wallets and their two main types. We’ll talk about hardware wallets such as Ledger and software wallets such as MetaMask. We also chat about how websites resolve addresses, the secret sauce known as Domain Name Service (DNS) and it’s crypto equivalent, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS).

Apple is now becoming a bank. Well, not really but close enough and Roku might be acquired by Netflix who is exploring some avenues to save its decreasing subscribe base.

Concept Explanation

A wallet, is a software, hardware, paper, or Crypto Exchange "store" where cryptocurrency is held. Wallets can have multiple crypto accounts associated with them. Wallets can be "hot" (meaning they’re connected to internet) or "cold" like hardware wallets. Cold wallets are not connected to any internet networks and thereby generally non-susceptible to hacks and scams. I say generally because there’s still basic security principles one must follow when using hardware crypto wallets.

MetaMask is one example of a software wallet which can run on a web browser as a plugin, or on mobile phones as an app.

Coinbase Wallet is yet another such wallet with a couple of additional features such as a human readable account name that’s most likely also associated with your Coinbase account underneath the hood.

Please note, this Coinbase Wallet human readable account name is something like @farezv, not farezv.ethwhich is an Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain. More on ENS domains shortly.

Crypto account addresses have gibberish looking alphanumeric value associated with them. For instance, this is one of my wallet addresses for Ethereum, it reads 0x1bF51ED6cD81dE4449D4Ca3c33822ECC5f3F66a4

Simple to remember right?

If you heard the previous episode, you’ll realize that a wallet address looks like the result of a hash function. In the world of blockchains, wallet addresses and transaction ids all look similar since they are results of hash functions. Different wallet tech has different features such as showing currencies and NFTs on the front end, but on the back end, underneath the hood, a wallet address is just a row on the blockchain database that holds a certain amount of crypto.

A crypto account address is a unique public address on the blockchain for that specific cryptocurrency. My Ethereum address is 0x1bF51ED6cD81dE4449D4Ca3c33822ECC5f3F66a4

Similarly, my Nano cryptocurrency account has a different address and it's nano_3pr9488qndzpaiibk4e9jwcmib5qqpc9wnh4pjjcsfopkahwrjgjeiwmd89p

Wallets have a 1:many relationship with crypto accounts. Meaning if you want to hold 2 crypto currencies, you need to have two different account addresses on that wallet. Crypto exchange accounts "abstract this away" by providing you a single account to see all your crypto from that you sign in using your email but underneath the hood manage all the different accounts for you.

By the way, as someone who works in the authentication space (aka, I work on login software at Discovery+), I can tell you that Web 3 companies using email to login is VERY Web2.

The future of authentication is wallets connected to decentralized apps, aka dApps.

Full transcript https://farezv.substack.com/p/ep4-crypto-hardware-wallets-ledger-dns-ens-apple