Reviews — 13 wallets
Every wallet we've graded
Eight hardware devices and five self-custody apps, each scored on the same four axes and each carrying the date we last verified it. No sponsored placements, no invented benchmarks.
- 13 Wallets reviewed and graded
- 40% Weight given to security architecture
- 25% Weight given to interface quality
- 0 Paid placements, ever
The full ranking
Sorted by our weighted grade. Bear in mind that the top of this list is not automatically the right purchase for you — the Coldcard scores highest largely because security architecture carries the heaviest weight, and it is also the least approachable device here. If you are buying your first wallet, the sweet spot is usually two or three rows down.
| Wallet | Our grade | Maker RRP | NZ landed | Key storage | Interface score | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ledger Nano S Plus Ledger · official site | A 8.8/10 | US$59 | NZ$99 at GROOV | ST33K1M5, CC EAL6+ | Cheapest credible cold storage available in NZ today | |
| Trezor Safe 5 Trezor (SatoshiLabs) · official site | A 8.5/10 | US$169 | ≈NZ$330 landed | EAL6+ certified | Auditable firmware with a modern touchscreen | |
| Keystone 3 Pro Keystone · official site | A 8.3/10 | US$129 | ≈NZ$255 landed | Three secure element chips | True air-gap without giving up a phone-sized screen | |
| BitBox02 Shift Crypto (Switzerland) · official site | A 8.2/10 | CHF 149 (Multi) | ≈NZ$330 landed | Dual chip + secure element | People who want Swiss engineering and microSD backup | |
| Blockstream Jade Plus Blockstream · official site | A 8.2/10 | US$149 | ≈NZ$290 landed | No SE — blind oracle design | Bitcoiners who want open hardware, stocked locally | |
| Trust Wallet Trust Wallet · official site | BBB 8.0/10 | Free | Free (0.85–1% swap fee) | Device keystore | Broadest chain coverage in one mobile app | |
| Coldcard Q Coinkite (Canada) · official site | AA 7.9/10 | US$239 | ≈NZ$465 landed | Dual secure elements | Serious Bitcoin-only holders and multisig builders | |
| BlueWallet BlueWallet · official site | A 7.9/10 | Free | Free (network fees only) | Device keystore | Bitcoin spending, Lightning and watch-only vaults | |
| Exodus Exodus Movement · official site | BBB 7.8/10 | Free | Free (spread on swaps) | Device keystore / Secure Enclave | The best-looking desktop wallet, for everyday balances | |
| Tangem Wallet Tangem AG · official site | BBB 7.6/10 | US$55 (2-card) | ≈NZ$115 landed | EAL6+ certified | Absolute beginners who will never manage a seed phrase | |
| Phantom Phantom Technologies · official site | BBB 7.6/10 | Free | Free (0.85% swap fee) | Device keystore | Solana-first users and NFT collectors | |
| MetaMask Consensys · official site | BBB 7.2/10 | Free | Free (0.875% swap fee) | Device keystore | DeFi, dApps and anything EVM | |
| KeepKey KeepKey / ShapeShift · official site | BB 4.6/10 | US$49 (when stocked) | Not reliably stocked | None | Nobody buying new in 2026 |
Hardware — 8 devices
Hardware wallet reviews
Dedicated signing devices, where the private key is generated inside a secure chip and never touches an internet-connected machine.
The most widely stocked hardware wallet in New Zealand, with the slickest desktop and mobile app in the category.
Read the review →The best balance of open-source auditability and a screen that non-technical people can actually read.
Read the review →The most convincing air-gapped multi-chain signer: no cable ever touches your computer.
Read the review →Quietly one of the best-built devices on the market, with the cleanest desktop app of the open-source group.
Read the review →A genuinely different security model — and the one Bitcoin-only device with a real New Zealand supply chain.
Read the review →The most paranoid device you can buy, and the least forgiving interface — that trade is the whole point.
Read the review →The friendliest onboarding in cold storage, undercut by an unpatchable laser fault-injection finding published in July 2026.
Read the review →A historically important device with no secure element and no meaningful roadmap — we do not recommend it for new buyers.
Read the review →Software — 5 apps
Self-custody app reviews
Non-custodial mobile, desktop and browser wallets. Keys are generated and stored on your own device, never on a company's servers — but the device is online, which is the whole trade.
If you hold assets on chains nobody else supports, this is usually the app that has them.
Read the review →The cleanest way to run a hot Bitcoin wallet for spending while your savings sit on a signing device.
Read the review →Still the most polished desktop crypto interface in existence, with swap pricing you should always sanity-check.
Read the review →The best-designed mobile crypto app on the market, with a genuinely useful scam-simulation layer.
Read the review →The default key to the Ethereum ecosystem — and the single most impersonated brand in crypto phishing.
Read the review →How we work
What goes into a grade
The same four axes apply to every product, and the weightings do not change to suit a conclusion.
Security architecture
Key isolation first — can the signing key ever be read by a networked device. Then chip protection and its Common Criteria assurance level, firmware auditability, the breadth of the attack surface, whether firmware can be patched at all, and how the maker handles vulnerability disclosure. A vendor that has never published an advisory is not safer, only quieter.
Interface and companion apps
Address verification, network selection, fee clarity, transaction previews, recovery flow, and how the software behaves when something goes wrong. We weight this heavily because the losses we read about are overwhelmingly verification failures rather than cryptographic ones.
Value for money
What you get relative to the price, judged against the alternatives at that price point rather than in the abstract. A NZ$99 device with an EAL6+ secure element scores extremely well here; a NZ$780 device whose advantage is a larger screen does not.
New Zealand availability
Landed cost including GST, whether anyone stocks it domestically, realistic delivery time to a Kiwi address, the warranty route, and whether the Consumer Guarantees Act applies. This is why some globally celebrated devices grade lower here than they do overseas.
Independence
Nobody pays for a position
No wallet maker sponsors a review, buys a slot in a table, or has any input into a grade. Some pages link to a third-party exchange as one way to fund a self-custody wallet; those links are marked nofollow and have no bearing on any rating here. Full detail on the methodology page.
About our reviews
How these reviews work
How do you rate wallets on this site?
Four weighted axes. Security architecture at 40% — key isolation, chip certification, code auditability, attack surface and whether firmware can be patched. Interface and companion apps at 25%, because verification failures cause more losses than broken cryptography. Value for money at 20%. New Zealand availability at 15%, covering landed cost, delivery, warranty route and whether the Consumer Guarantees Act applies. The methodology page sets out the scoring in full.
Do wallet manufacturers pay for these reviews?
No. No manufacturer pays for placement, position or a grade on this site, and no rating has ever been changed at a vendor's request. We buy or use the products, read the firmware release notes and security disclosures, and check local pricing and availability ourselves. Where we cannot verify something, we say so on the page rather than repeating a marketing claim.
How often are these reviews updated?
Prices and availability get checked roughly monthly, and every comparison table carries the date of its last verification. Reviews are revised whenever something material changes — a new model, a firmware release that alters the security picture, or a published vulnerability. The July 2026 Tangem laser fault-injection disclosure and the January 2026 Ledger Global-e breach both triggered rewrites of those reviews.
Which wallet review should I read first?
If you are buying your first hardware wallet, read the Trezor and Ledger reviews and pick between them — they are the two we would put in most people's hands and the decision comes down to open firmware versus local availability and app quality. If you hold only Bitcoin, read Blockstream Jade and Coldcard. If you want a phone app, start with Phantom or Trust Wallet.