Arculus™ is a digital asset, authentication and identity platform offering products and services to consumers and businesses. The Arculus Wallet is a cold storage wallet for securing your cryptocurrency.
What is a wallet?
Cryptocurrency wallets hold your private keys – the passwords that give you access to your cryptocurrencies – allowing you to process transactions in your cryptocurrencies. They come in different forms, from cold storage hardware wallets like the Arculus™ wallet, to hot storage wallets.
What is cold storage? How do cold and hot wallets differ?
Cold storage is a way of holding cryptocurrency private keys offline in a physical device. It differs from hot storage in that the cold storage device is not connected to the internet at any time, and is also unpowered except when necessary. You are the sole owner of your private keys at all times with a cold storage wallet, and nobody can remotely access them on the cold storage device.
Hot storage refers to crypto assets that are stored online in a digital wallet, typically with a third-party acting as custodian, such as on an exchange. Because the hot storage is online, hackers may have an easier time hacking into hot wallets as opposed to cold wallets. Furthermore, you do not control your private keys in an exchange wallet, since the exchange acts as the custodian. This means that if the exchange gets hacked or goes down, you may lose access to your crypto.
Hot storage also includes wallet apps you can download on your phone or computer which do not require any external hardware devices to operate. They use your phone's or computer's hardware to store your private keys, and these devices can be hacked as they are exposed to the internet. This is not as secure as storing your private keys offline in a cold wallet such as the Arculus Cold Storage Wallet™.
Is Arculus a Cryptocurrency exchange?
No, Arculus™ is not an exchange. Arculus is a cold storage solution to store your cryptocurrency. If you need to purchase cryptocurrency from fiat or would like to swap cryptocurrency, we partner with our third party liquidity providers Onramper and Changelly to complete these transactions.
What types of transactions can I make in the Arculus Wallet App?
You can purchase cryptocurrency with fiat currency (USD, GBP, EUR, CAD, and AUD) or exchange one cryptocurrency for another in the Arculus Wallet™ App. You can also send cryptocurrencies to other wallets or receive cryptocurrencies from them. You can also use WalletConnect to connect your Arculus wallet to various third-party apps, such as decentralized exchanges.