Mycelium Wallet – Best Bitcoin Hardware Storage For Security?

Mycelium is a bitcoin wallet used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Read our review of the Mycelium Wallet today.

What Is Mycelium?

Mycelium is a bitcoin wallet available for free for Androids and iOS devices. The wallet is popular and well-rated. It currently has a rating of around 4.2 stars out of 5 from the Google Play Store, with a total of 3,500+ reviews.

The Mycelium wallet, like most other wallets, lets you send and receive bitcoins using your mobile phone. It also has features like cold storage, so you can store your funds in a secure place until you’re ready to spend them. The wallet works for your paper wallets, private keys, and master seeds.

One of the advantages of Mycelium is that users are in complete control of their private keys. Private keys are stored on your own device.

Mycelium Wallet Features

Some of the key features of the Mycelium wallet include:

• 100% control over your private keys. Your keys never leave your device unless you export them.
• There’s no need to download a blockchain. You can install and run the wallet in seconds.
• HD (Hierarchical Deterministic) enabled, so you can manage multiple accounts and never re-use addresses (BIP32, BIP44). HD wallets use a “master seed” to derive all future bitcoin addresses sequentially. That also means you only need to back up once.
• Ultra-fast connections to the bitcoin network through the Mycelium super nodes.
• Watch-only addresses and private key import for secure cold-storage integration. Watch-only addresses are stored in your wallet without the corresponding private key, which means the wallet can watch for outputs – but not spend them.
• Single address accounts, or “old school’ type of accounts, where you can securely store large amounts by deleting the private key from the device, then importing it back when needed.
• Secure your wallet with a PIN.
• Compatible with other bitcoin services through bitcoin (URI handling).
• Support for BIP38 keys.
• Find other people to trade bitcoins with in-person using Mycelium’s Local Trader feature. Local Trader is a decentralized in-person exchange built directly into the Mycelium wallet. It uses your bitcoin private key for registration and authentication with Mycelium servers. Buyers and sellers have ratings via the in-app reputation system, which is based on the number of successful or aborted trades. Although you have a profile, the only information stored on Mycelium servers is your bitcoin address, nickname, trade history, and sell orders with the entered location.
• Master seed-based, which allows you to make one backup and be safe forever (BIP39).
• For enhanced privacy and availability, you can connect to Mycelium super nodes via tor services (they have a .onion address).
• Dynamic fee handling to ensure timely execution of transactions based on blockchain load.
• Show fees/bytes in transaction details to determine execution time.
• Private key (single or xPriv) import.
• Directly spend from paper wallets (single key, xPriv, or master seed).
• Works with hardware wallets, and you can spend directly from your favorite hardware wallets. Mycelium specially supports popular hardware wallets like Trezor, Ledger (Nano, Nano-S, Unplugged, HW.1, and Trustlet), and KeepKey.
• Send and receive by specifying an amount in fiat currency, then switch between fiat and BTC when entering the amount.
• Address book for commonly-used addresses.
• Transaction history with full transaction details.
• BIP70 payment request compatible.
• Proof of Payment (BIP 120/121).
• Integrates with Cashila, so you can pay bills in the SEPA zone (EU). Also integrates with Glidera, so you can buy and sell bitcoins using a bank account in the US and Canada.
• Hedge against the USD and other fiat currencies Mycelium’s full Coinapult support.

Obviously, Mycelium is one of the most full-featured mobile wallets available today. It offers a diverse range of features to suit everyone from newbies to power-users.

Using The Mycelium Wallet

Download Mycelium for free today from the Google Play Store or from the iTunes App Store. When the app is finished downloading, go to your home screen and open the app. Your wallet is ready to be used immediately, but you’ll want to add additional security features to the wallet before you add funds.

During installation, Mycelium will request a few permissions. It will request your location, for example, which is required to update Local Trader location (only when users manually update it). The app will also request camera/microphone access, which is used to scan QR codes.

Add security features to Mycelium – like a PIN code at the very least. To add security features, tap the three vertical lines in the upper right corner of the app. Click “Set PIN code”.

While you’re at it, create a 12 word recovery phrase. Write that phrase down on a piece of paper. It’s a backup if you ever lose access to your account, or if your device is stolen.

From here, you’re ready to start sending and receiving bitcoin. You can display your QR code, request a specific amount of bitcoin, and perform other core wallet features.

About Mycelium

Mycelium started as a team of hardware engineers in 2008 who collaborated on a mesh networking project. As bitcoin emerged, the company started developing bitcoin-related technologies.

So far, Mycelium has created three successful bitcoin products, including their Mycelium Wallet, Entropy, and Gear.

Mycelium Wallet Conclusion

Ultimately, Mycelium has been one of the bitcoin community’s most popular wallets for years – and for good reason. Many people enjoy the wallet’s enhanced security. You can spend and receive bitcoins with private keys that never leave your control.

You can also buy and sell bitcoins from inside the app, access a local trader marketplace, or link Mycelium to a hardware wallet for enhanced security. There’s even a secure chat app. You can download Mycelium today for Android or iOS devices.