Bitcoin came and took the chunk of everything. From having the highest market capitalization to now being the most widely known cryptocurrency. Bitcoin continues to reap the perks of being the first in the industry. It is obvious then that crypto accessories such as wallets would tend to be synonymous with Bitcoin.
There are hundreds of easily available bitcoin wallets, not so much for altcoins. It gets a little more difficult when it comes to relatively new entrant concepts such as Proof of Stake. Proof of Stake borrows from Bitcoin’s Proof of Work. Similar to PoW, PoS is a consensus algorithm that verifies cryptocurrency transactions for altcoins in the same way that miners verify Bitcoin transactions on its blockchain. It not only is a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative, it also enables coin owners to store and earn interest from their assets stored in a POS Wallet.
The POS Wallet
This kind of holding to validate transactions means coins cannot be held in ordinary wallets. Several altcoins that use PoS concepts create wallets specifically meant for their PoS cryptocurrencies. PoS as a route for validation on the blockchain may soon take over from PoW. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is currently developing a protocol known as ‘Casper’ to help it transition to PoS. Other smaller currencies such as Dash and Neo have already adopted it. Dash desktop Wallets for staking and Neo wallet, are designed for Dash coin and Neon cryptocurrency respectively.
Neo, both a cryptocurrency and a blockchain network, allows Neo owners to earn through their wallet without having to be online all the time. This is a departure from similar wallets that have to be open at all times. Private Instant Transactions (PIVX) also employs PoS through its PIVX desktop wallet. PIVX is a privacy oriented blockchain platform that forked off Dash in 2016. Other cryptocurrencies with a desktop wallet are Nav Coin and Stratis. Built on Bitcoin’s code, Nav sells itself as a dual blockchain. OkCash, a micro transactions cryptocurrency, has its specialized staking wallet. These coin-specific wallets are generally sanctioned by the coin creators and are only useful to holders of the said coins.
However, there are general PoS wallets that cater for the overall specifications of common virtual wallets that support the storage of several coins. Cobo Wallet is one such store. It combines the capabilities of regular coin wallets to create a more wholesome wallet that holds PoS and non PoS cryptocurrencies. The Cobo wallet offers cloud wallet storage as well as Hard Drive (HD) wallet. Users have the option of choosing either according to their preference.
The availability of HD options puts it above other wallets as it offers higher security and gives absolute control of assets to the user. As seen, most coin specific wallets available are only offered on desktop. Cobo wallet operates its application for both IOS and Android. Security is further intensified through Multi-Factor Authentication with login and payment passcodes. It also employs KYC compliance. KYC has been one of the biggest move in the crypto space, allowing cryptocurrencies and their derivative services meet legal and regulatory requirements.
Cobo also has a DApp store. Its DApps are available for both users and developers. This gives Cobo a more than ‘just a wallet’ outlook as it can be used for entertainment purposes as well as acting as a payment gateway besides coin storage. In a nutshell, Cobo is a progressive PoS wallet with a functional ecosystem. So far, it supports more than 20 chains including TRX, ETH and EOS. It further supports over 500 cryptocurrencies with more advances expected in the future.
In 2016, one of the then ‘most versatile’ PoS wallet, CoinWallet, had to shut down after a security breech. At the time, it supported 58 cryptocurrencies with 34 of them being PoS cryptos. This was quite a setback in an already needy sphere. Even so, the future of PoS indicates at an exponential growth and will see an increase in PoS wallets and improvements in the already existing ones.
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