One of the most important decisions you will be making as a crypto investor is choosing which DeFi wallets to use for your yield farming and trading operations.
DeFi (decentralized finance) wallets allow you to not just store and manage your cryptos, but also interact with DApps (decentralized applications) on the various smart contract platforms.
In this post, I will be sharing with you some of the best DeFi wallets out there and their unique features.
But before that, let’s take a look at the most important factors to consider when choosing a DeFi wallet.
Factors to consider when choosing a DeFi Wallet
Below are some of the most important factors to consider when choosing a DeFi wallet.
These factors are also the criteria we used in picking this list of the top 5 best DeFi wallets out of the multitude of wallets out there.
Let’s briefly discuss each of them below.
Security
Your ideal DeFi wallet should be open-source and non-custodial.
Open-source means that the wallet’s software is publicly available for anyone to review for potential bugs and malicious codes.
Furthermore, you should have complete control of the private keys to your DeFi wallet. And it is accessible only from your device and with your private key.
In fact, the wallet developers or anyone for that, should not be able to access or even help you retrieve your DeFi wallet password.
Multi-chain support
The best DeFi wallets support multiple chains.
As crypto investors, we’re always hopping from one chain to another, chasing the latest and best yield farming opportunities.
You want a DeFi wallet that gives you access to as many chains as possible.
So that you don’t have to download a new wallet for every chain you choose to go business in.
Ease of use
Your ideal DeFi wallet should be as user-friendly as possible, especially for beginners.
It should be simple enough and not too complicated.
Preferably, even a total noob should be able to set up and start using it on their own just by following the basic instructions.
Furthermore, the features should be easily accessible with a simple and clear user interface.
Features and functionalities
One thing I love about my favourite DeFi wallets is that they have one or more interesting and unique features that make them special.
In a world where time is money, you want a wallet that enables you to move from one place.
The standard cryptocurrency wallets enable you to store and transact with your coins.
However, the DeFi wallets discussed here help you do much more than just storing and transferring your coins.
They also enable you to buy crypto with fiat, trade or swap your coins, invest (stake), interact with all DApps on supported chains, and much more.
Top 7 best DeFi wallets
This list of the best DeFi wallets is ordered based on my personal preferences only and not some scientific metrics.
I currently use all of them intermittently, and the list is ordered to reflect the ones I like and use the most coming first.
Other than that, they’re all great DeFi wallets you can use with confidence.
1. MetaMask
MetaMask is the most popular DeFi wallet that comes in both a browser extension for desktops and a mobile app.
You can configure both the browser extension and mobile app wallets to support all Ethereum-compatible chains such as Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Polygon, smartBCH, etc.
Furthermore, you can easily integrate your MetamMask wallet with your hardware wallet. Combining the flexibility of a hot wallet with the enhanced security of a hardware wallet.
Metamask also allows you to create multiple accounts within the same wallet which you can switch between seamlessly.
This will come in handy for those of us who like to use multiple wallet addresses for privacy reasons.
2. Brave Wallet
Brave Wallet is a DeFi wallet that’s built directly into the Brave Browser both on desktop and mobile.
It is a fork of MetaMask but without the extension and does not require you to install anything.
This has its perks.
First, it doesn’t require any extra steps to set up. Your browser is also your wallet (that’s cool).
Secondly, there’s a near-zero risk of getting the fake version, falling for a phishing scheme, and other vulnerabilities. Except you’re using a fake Brave Browser.
The Brave Wallet works exactly like Metamask. In fact, it is MetaMask embedded into the Brave Browser.
3. Binance Wallet
Binance Wallet is a multi-chain DeFi wallet that comes as a browser extension, and currently supports only Binance Chain, Binance Smart Chain, and Ethereum.
You can connect the wallet directly to your Binance Exchange account and enjoy seamless token transfer between your Binance account and Binance Wallet.
Let me let you in on a little secret about Binance Wallet.
Did you know that the network or gas fee you pay on BSC is far lower when you use Binance Wallet compared to any other wallet?
If the gas fee is like $2 on other wallets, you will be paying around $0.80 when you use Binance Wallet for the same transaction.
This is real, you can try it and see for yourself.
As such, whenever I want to make a transaction on BSC, I switch to Binance Wallet to take advantage of the low fees.
4. imToken
imToken is an easy to use all-in-one DeFi wallet that supports almost every blockchain network in existence.
The wallet comes in both iOS and Android mobile apps, and a hardware wallet called, imKey.
imToken is my favourite mobile DeFi wallet because of its simple user interface, unique features, and many functionalities.
Some of the things I like the most about the wallet include:
- Adding a new smart chain network is as easy as ABC as I demonstrated in a previous article, The ultimate beginner’s guide to DeFi on smartBCH.
- It supports almost every existing cryptocurrency including BTC, EOS, ATOM, TRX, LTC, BCH, etc.
- It gives you easy access to your private keys and secret recovery phrase, unlike some other popular wallets such as Trust Wallet and Coinbase Wallet which makes the process of accessing your private keys difficult for the average user.
- Switching between chains or wallets on the app is so simple and straightforward. It has one of the best, user-friendly interfaces among all mobile DeFi wallets. Perfect for beginners.
Aside from all these, it works flawlessly every time and can be easily connected to the imKey hardware wallet.
5. Coinbase Wallet
Coinbase Wallet is a multi-chain mobile DeFi wallet developed by Coinbase which comes with a dApp browser and good NFT support.
The wallet comes as both a browser extension and a mobile app for Android and iOS.
One thing you will find very impressive with Coinbase Wallet is that you can convert any token you have to one of the thousands of other tokens using the in-built trade feature.
However, their trade feature can only be used to convert tokens on Ethereum and Polygon.
One small limitation with Coinbase Wallet is that it only supports a maximum of 10 different wallets on the app.
For an average user, this may be enough. But for privacy and anonymity ninjas who love to change wallet addresses frequently, 10 just wouldn’t serve.
Furthermore, from my experience, the gas fee you pay when using Coinbase Wallet is fairly higher than what you pay when you use other wallets like Trust Wallet or imToken for the same transaction.
And that’s why I rarely use it. Though I have only ever used it to transact on Ethereum.
6. Eidoo Wallet
If there is a multifunctional non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet that provides the perfect gateway to the world of numerous DeFi Platforms, it’s Eidoo.
Apart from ETH, ERC-20, and ERC-721 tokens, Eidoo also lets users store Bitcoin and Litecoin. It is a multicurrency wallet that supports over 1000 different tokens.
Moreover, one of the ideal characteristics of a DeFi crypto wallet is its ability to let users multiply their ROI by implementing yield farming and liquidity strategies.
Eidoo lets crypto traders/investors do exactly that, and that’s not all.
- Has access to a decentralized exchange — This is where Eidoo stands out from the competition. The wallet lets users utilize an in-built decentralized exchange (DEX) for swapping tokens effortlessly.
- Lets users spend crypto through the eidooCARD — eidooCARD is a VISA-backed debit card that lets users spend their cryptocurrency holdings in stores worldwide or online. One can even withdraw fiat currency with the eidooCARD and make up to 10% cashback for qualifying purchases.
- Allows cross-chain DeFi access through pNetwork — The Eidoo DeFi crypto wallet is integrated with pNetwork, with PNT at the heart of this integration. It enables users to store, stake, and vote in the pNetwork DAO and it is necessary for running a pNetwork node and earning rewards in liquidity mining initiatives.
- Hosts an in-built NFT Manager — Perhaps the most striking feature of the Eidoo DeFi wallet is its in-app NFT manager. It lets users buy, hold, and trade non-fungible tokens. Apart from this, it is really easy to view & manage all crypto-collectables and digital artwork.
7. Trust Wallet
Trust Wallet is one of the most popular multi-chain mobile DeFi wallets that enable you to buy, store, collect NFTs, exchange & earn crypto.
The wallet currently supports over 40 different smart chains but does not allow you to add new ones manually like you can with all the other wallets discussed above.
Trust Wallet is owned by Binance and supports an extensive list of DApps. It also comes with cool features such as WalletConnect and custom price alerts.
Conclusion
This list of the best DeFi wallets is by no means exhaustive.
There’re certainly hundreds of DeFi wallets out there, and some of them may even be as good as some of the ones discussed here.
However, it’s not within the scope of this article to discuss all of them.
The primary objective of a DeFi wallet is to enable you to seamlessly access the DeFi ecosystem on multiple chains, and these 7 wallets do a perfect job at that.
Which is currently your favourite DeFi wallet? Share with us in the comments section below.
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