Formerly known as Antshares, Neo is among one of the most popular cryptocurrencies.
Neo is popularly known as the Ethereum of China. It is the first decentralized and open-sourced cryptocurrency based on a blockchain platform based in China. While the primary cryptocurrency here is Neo, there’s another currency token that comes along with it - known as GAS.
Neo offers the users with digital assets, digital identities, smart contracts as well as DApps. This is what makes Neo equivalent to Ethereum. Up until July of 2017, Neo was known as Antshares. However, the company decided to rebrand it as ‘Neo’. It is a strong currency keeping the future of the cryptocurrency markets and practical use cases in mind. Let us now take a closer look at some of the best wallets for Neo.
Also Read: How to Buy Neo
Wallets are a critical part of all cryptocurrencies - regardless of what these currencies are propositioned upon and how they function as - the one common factor is that all currencies need a wallet address to be stored in and to be transacted from.
There are different kinds of wallets - web based wallets, software wallets, hardware wallets, paper wallets - and the list goes on. It is a little confusing if you are a first timer. However, to clear things up - there are different kinds of wallets based on
The interface they are based on
The way they store your keys
Based on the interface, there are some wallets which are web-only, there are others which can be downloaded on your PC or your mobile, and then there are others which exist as hardware devices. There are no hardware wallets for Neo as of this writing. However rumors indicate that Ledger Nano S might soon begin to support the Neo currency.
Wallets provide users with a public key and a private key. The public key is the key which users give to other people which is used to receive currencies. This is the public address of your wallet and it can be compared to an account number given by the bank. The private key however, is more important and it must not be given to anyone. It is the password - the key to your bank vault.
Some wallets tend to store this private key on their servers or on third party servers, while there are others which give the user the control. This is another major factor when it comes to choosing wallets. Let us now take a look at the best Neo Wallets.
Here’s a look at the best wallets which can store Neo:
One of the best wallets when it comes to storing Neo, the NEON wallet supports Neo, as well as the other cryptocurrency token, GAS. This is a desktop based wallet which you can download and install on your computer.
Since this is a desktop wallet, your private key is safe with you. Your key is stored on your PC and you do not need to hand it over to a third party. The key is not stored on NEON’s servers. However, this means that you need to ensure that your PC does not fall victim to attacks from a hacker and stays clear of malware.
While it wasn’t developed by the team who developed the NEO cryptocurrency, they have studied the wallet and have deemed it safe to use. Moreover, the NEON wallet is available to download and install for users of Windows, Mac as well as Linux platforms.
The NEO Wallet is a web-based wallet, which is quite light and fast to use. It has been developed by the community of Neo users. What makes this wallet really special is that despite being a web wallet, nothing that you enter on this wallet goes to the servers - this means all your currencies and your key is safe.
The NEO wallet also allows users to create a backup of their wallet so that it remains safe. Moreover, similar to the NEON wallet, the NEO wallet also allows you to store and exchange NEO as well as GAS cryptocurrency. As of now, the NEO wallet is only available for the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers and supports only English and Chinese languages. Support for more browsers and languages is expected to be added soon.
CLI Wallets are pretty much only meant for users who have some experience in handling command lines. This is an official wallet which is developed and updated by the team that maintains the Neo cryptocurrency.
This is a lightweight wallet that allows users to send, store and receive NEO as well as GAS tokens. If you hold your NEO tokens here, you can claim your GAS tokens using the command line. As of now this wallet is only available for the Windows and Linux users.
Also Read: Best Altcoin Exchanges & Platforms
While the aforementioned NEO CLI wallet is a little complex to handle for novice users, the NEO GUI is the perfect solution for all your needs if you’re not comfortable with Command Line Interface. This wallet too, is designed and developed by the team of developers who work on Neo and this is the official Neo Wallet - and this comes with an appealing user interface too.
However, this wallet tends to sync with the entire blockchain - which is a process that is a little time consuming. The wallet allows users to transact and store NEO as well as GAS tokens. As of now the NEO GUI wallet only runs on Windows 7 (Service Pack 1) and above.
An open-source, web-based wallet written in Javascript, the NEO Tracker allows the users to easily store and transact NEO and GAS cryptocurrency tokens. Basically it is an offline wallet which makes use of the PC’s browser to get the necessary data - it does not store any information on it’s servers, giving you a better control over your private key.
As of now this wallet is available only for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge users.
Last but not the least, Ansy is a paper wallet which is used to store the NEO cryptocurrency token. Basically it is a piece of paper with the public and private address printed on it. The public key can be scanned by users to send NEO currencies to the wallet. It also contains a private address which can be manually entered or scanned to verify user identity during sale. It is one of the safest NEO wallets because of its offline nature. The currency is safe as long as the paper is safe!