Skip to main content
← All terms

Concepts

Cold Wallet

Offline-stored crypto wallet, slow to move but max-secure

Category: Concepts Also known as: 4 Related terms: 3

What is Cold Wallet?

A wallet whose private keys are kept offline (hardware device, air-gapped machine, paper). Used by exchanges and institutions to secure majority of holdings — moves are rare and pre-signed, making outflows from cold a strong custody signal.

Context anchor

Cold wallets move ~weekly; hot wallets move ~hourly

Example

Coinbase Custody moved 5,200 BTC from a cold wallet to a hot wallet for redemption

Also known as

cold walletcold storagecold vaultcold-storage

Related terms

  • Hot WalletOnline-connected wallet for fast operations, smaller balances
  • CustodianThird party holding crypto for institutions — Coinbase, Fireblocks, BitGo
  • MultisigAn address requiring multiple signatures to spend (e.g. 2-of-3 keys)