Konubinix' opinionated web of thoughts

Misconceptions About Wallets, Tokens and Keys

Fleeting

A blockchain generally stores values, called token that are associated to some public key. Only the owner of the private key can claim the tokens associated with their public key. The amount of tokens that a person can claim with their private key is called the wallet.

Here are a few false assertions that made it hard for me to understand what we are talking about.

custody solutions store several tokens

By definition, the tokens are stored in the blockchain, not in some third party tool. The tool stores the keys that allow to claim the tokens in the blockchain. The stored keys technology might depend on the token definition.

A hardware wallet is a special type of bitcoin wallet which stores the user’s private keys in a secure hardware device.

https://docs.iota.org/docs/wallets/0.1/trinity/concepts/hardware-wallet

A wallet is where you store your money, not where you store your keys. The hardware wallet is actually a simple password manager and should not be called wallet at all.