Trezor Model T Review: Cryptocurrency Wallet for Bitcoin, Dogecoin and More

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If you’ve recently jumped into the world of cryptocurrency, there are a couple of ways to store your digital currency, either with a third-party exchange, or using your own software or hardware wallets.

Cold storage cryptocurrency wallets are completely offline, meaning they do not connect to the internet. Rather, when you get is the ability to hold the ‘keys’ to your cryptocurrency yourself, instead of relying on a third party company.

In reality, you’re just getting the ‘keys’ to your cryptocurrency. If you lose or damage your hardware wallet, your cryptocurrency remains safe as long as you still have your ‘keys’.

Today, we’re going to take a look at the Trezor Model T and Trezor One hardware wallets from SatoshiLabs.

Trezor, based in the Czech Republic, sent us their popular cold storage wallets to check out, specifically the Trezor One and the newest Model T with touchscreen controls on its colour LCD screen with 240×240 pixels.

Trezor can safely store over 1,000 cryptocurrency coins offline and has been used by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Unboxing the Trezor Model T and Trezor One

When purchasing a cold storage cryptocurrency wallet, it’s important buy from authorized sellers, to ensure your package has not been tampered with.

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The Trezor Model T has a safety seal on the size of the package to let buyers know if it has been tampered with or not:

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Opening both boxes, we have the Trezor Model T on the left, and the Trezor One on the right. The original Trezor One has two physical buttons, a lanyard and also a microUSB cable included as well:

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The Model T supports USB-C but includes a USB-A cable and comes with instructions, two recovery seed cards and some stickers:

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There’s also a magnetic plastic piece you can stick to a surface, which then attaches to your Trezor Model T for easy access:

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Setting Up a Trezor Model T for the First Time

To set up your Trezor Model T, you just plug it into your computer directly, then visit Trezor.io/start and follow the instructions. The setup is not hard, but will take some time so you don’t want to be rushed while doing this, especially the part with writing down your recovery seed.

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You’ll then be asked to install device firmware to verify the device’s authenticity from parent SatoshiLabs:

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Once that’s done, you can either create a new wallet or recover an existing wallet with your existing Single Backup keys. We created a new wallet and the Model T will ask you to confirm the step:

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Just click ‘create with single backup’ as your next step:

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As you start to create a backup, you’ll be provided with your 12 recovery seed words (Model T), which you need to write down in order, on the provided pieces of paper. The Trezor One provides 24 recovery seed words to write down. These ‘keys’ can be used to restore your crypto not just on the Trezor wallet.

You are not supposed to take a picture of your recovery seed, store it on your computer, cloud storage or anything to do with the internet. This way, your ‘keys’ are safe from the web and never online:

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After writing down your recovery seed, you then need to set a PIN code on your Trezor Model T, which you’ll then punch in every time to unlock the device. You will also pick a name for your device as well:

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Next, with the Trezor Suite software, you’ll be able to purchase, sell, send and receive cryptocurrency to your Trezor wallet. All you need to do is know how to copy and paste the appropriate wallet addresses and you’ll be off to the races.

When you’re confirming an address to send or receive, or performing a transaction, you’ll be required to enter your PIN on your Trezor Model T, or take action on the device. It’s another layer of security to verify it’s you trying to move cryptocurrency around.

On the Model One, when you set up a PIN, you’ll enter it by clicking the appropriate squares on your computer inside the Trezor Suite software, after 9 numbers are displayed on the wallet itself.

While an offline cold storage wallet for cryptocurrency is a good idea if you’re holding a significant amount of digital currency, for the average folks just dipping their toes into the water, it may be more work and expensive upfront to manage your funds.

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For those looking to store Shiba Inu (SHIB) on your Trezor, you can do so by selecting ERC20 when you withdraw from your online exchange (Binance, for example), and sending it to the ETH address inside your Trezor.

Is a Cryptocurrency Wallet for You?

For starters, in order to perform transactions you’ll need to physically have your Trezor wallet and computer to get started, unlike using a third-party exchange’s website or mobile app. There’s also the fact you need to sleep with your recovery seed in your underwear at night, or have it buried in the backyard somewhere inside a coffee tin. But again, if you’re holding 100 Bitcoins, you’ll definitely want to have full control of your ‘keys’.

That’s not to say holding your own crypto keys isn’t important. It definitely is after hearing horror stories like the exchange Mt. Gox going under, or an exchange getting hacked. If you’re ready to hold your own crypto ‘keys’

If you’re ready to take full control of your Dogecoin or other cryptocurrencies, hardware wallets from Trezor (and the next biggest competitor Ledger) may be the next step for you. Right now, COVID-19 demand for cryptocurrency wallets is through the roof and many are out of stock on Amazon.ca.

But you can still buy directly from Trezor and know your hardware wallets are coming directly from the manufacturer. The prices are in Euros and not exactly ‘cheap’ for the newest Model T, but if you’ve got a huge cryptocurrency balance online somewhere, the safety of your funds should be your number one concern, so you can sleep safely at night knowing your digital currency is safe.

Buying links below:

Click here to sign up for Shakepay and get $10 free with your first $100 cryptocurrency purchase.

Disclosure: Trezor is an affiliate partner of iPhone in Canada and the links above help readers support the site. Also, cryptocurrency investing is risky—do so at your own risk.

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