How to Set Up a Cryptocurrency Wallet in New Zealand

With the rapid development of cryptocurrencies across the world, it’s become easier than ever to buy, sell, and exchange cryptocurrencies. Virtually anyone with an internet-capable device can set up a crypto wallet in minutes and start building their crypto portfolio.

With that said, owning or holding cryptocurrencies is a bit different compared to owning government-issued currency, or fiat.

To own cryptocurrency, you must first have a place to store it. And for that, you’ll need a cryptocurrency wallet or crypto wallet.

What is a crypto wallet?

Before we dive into setting up a crypto wallet, let’s first briefly define what a crypto wallet is.

What you need to know about crypto wallets is that they’re essentially a place where you can securely hold your digital crypto assets. These wallets enable you to also interact with the various decentralized financial (DeFi) services on the different blockchain networks.

When you hear someone mentioning sending or receiving Bitcoins or crypto, what they’re referring to are these crypto wallets. Think of crypto wallets as your cryptocurrency bank account – except you have full control, and it is not governed by a central authority.

It’s also worth mentioning that crypto wallets can generally be classified into two categories, hot wallets and cold wallets.

• A hot wallet is a crypto wallet that is connected to the internet and usually takes the form of an app or software on your computer or smartphone. Examples of a crypto hot wallet is the Exodus crypto wallet, Trust Wallet, and Coinomi.
• A cold wallet stores your crypto assets in a physical device, and is disconnected from the internet – making them more safer for long-term storage.

Both have their pros and cons, with hot wallets being the most popular due to their accessibility and ease of use – not to mention that they are free to create for anyone.

Cold wallets, on the other hand, are not as accessible and will require a bit of a learning curve to use, but are arguably safer to store your assets in the long run. They’re also not free but are worth the price if you’re planning to own large amounts of cryptocurrency.

Setting up a crypto wallet in New Zealand

Easy Crypto Wallet

Social self-custody wallets are the next generation of crypto storage solution. Our team at Easy Crypto are striving to streamline and simplify the crypto experience for all users.

And with that we’re introducing the Easy Crypto Wallet, an MPC self-custody wallet that is locally-designed with social recovery features and cloud backups.

Highlighting features:

• The EC Wallet is a non-custodial wallet with recovery features built-in, via Social Recovery and encrypted cloud-based backups.
• Featuring the latest MPC (Multi-Party Computation) signing for authenticating transactions.
• Manage multiple wallets and addresses in one simple app. Create accounts and individual addresses to enhance your on-chain privacy and suit your needs.

As an MPC crypto wallet, the Easy Crypto wallet generates 2 key shares: one is stored on the user’s device, and the other is stored securely by Easy Crypto. Both shares are needed to confirm a transaction. 

The user can backup their keyshare. Either through encrypted cloud backup (iCloud or Google Drive), rest assured this is highly secure. Even if the cloud account and encryption were hypothetically breached, the attacker would only hold one of 2 required keyshares. 

Additionally, another layer of recovery is the social recovery. Where we break the user’s keyshare into a number of shards.

E.g. 3 guardians would only require 2 shards to recover the wallet. The sharding ensures that none of our guardians holds the full keyshare at anytime.

Combining the best of both worlds – the Easy Crypto Wallet gives you the autonomy and full control of your assets as a self-custody wallet, while incorporating the protection, security, and privacy of cold wallets.

Available on both iOS and Android devices.

Get Started: Download the Easy Crypto Wallet today!

Trezor One

The Trezor One is a crypto cold wallet that allows you to store your digital assets in a secure offline environment, greatly reducing the risk of hacks and malicious threats from the internet.

If you don’t have one already, you can shop the Trezor collection of crypto wallets by visiting our official online store here.

Please note: Easy Crypto does not own the Trezor One brand. Please consider all the risks associated with using a particular hardware.

Once you have your Trezor One, continue with our quick setup guide.

Download the official Trezor Suite software and update your Trezor device

It’s imperative that you always keep your Trezor device updated so it can maximise the protection of your crypto assets. Only download Trezor’s official software from their website.

You can download the Trezor Suite by visiting the official Trezor website here.

Set up seed phrase and back up the Trezor device

This is a crucial step to ensure your data is safe, and enables you to also recover your assets if you ever loose your Trezor device.

Somethings to keep in mind:

• Never take a photo, upload to the internet, or store your seed phrase where it can potentially be accessed by hackers.
• The safest place to store it is by writing it in a notebook and keep it offline.
• Trezor doesn’t keep your seedphrase either, so the responsibility is on you to keep it safe.

Set up a PIN and name for your Trezor device

The last step is to set up a secure PIN for your Trezor device. You can choose a PIN of up to 9 digits for maximum protection for your crypto assets.

Once you’ve confirmed your PIN, you can proceed to name the device where it will display this name whenever you connect it to your computer. A neat little feature by the Trezor developers.

And that’s it, you’ve set up your Trezor One, and are ready to start safely accumulating cryptocurrencies!

For a more detailed in-depth guide for setting up the Trezor One read our guide here.

We hope this brief setup guide has been insightful for you Kiwis to set up your crypto wallets and jump in the crypto space.

Further reading: Explore our library of crypto-related topics on our Hub Site.