Cold Wallet

A cold wallet keeps the private key on a device or medium that never connects to the internet. The most common forms are hardware wallets (USB-like devices) and paper wallets (private key printed or written on paper). Because the key never travels over a network, remote hacking is essentially impossible.

Scammers target cold-wallet users through supply-chain attacks (selling counterfeit or pre-loaded hardware wallets), fake manufacturer websites that ship tampered devices, and social engineering designed to get the victim to connect the device to a malicious computer or reveal the seed phrase verbally.

Buying a hardware wallet directly from the official manufacturer, verifying the tamper-evident packaging, and initialising it yourself (never accepting a pre-configured device) are the key safeguards.