EXODUS Wallet Review

If you are new to the world of cryptocurrencies , what comes next will enchant you. And in case you already have time traveling through this ecosystem, this becomes a mandatory stop. We talked about a tutorial to start using Exodus , a digital portfolio that, according to its creators, promises more and more.

Exodus is a digital portfolio launched by JP Richardson and Daniel Castagnoli in 2015, with an elegant and simple design, making it stand out at first sight. Exodus is able to support up to a total of 5 cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Dogecoin, Litecoin)  among which can be exchanged through the integrated Shapeshift platform in the portfolio. Although sometimes not everything is a rose garden. Exodus throughout its existence has received numerous criticisms for not being completely open source. This causes that it is received with certain distrust, due to previous frauds caused by this nature. Although to reduce criticism, they have gradually published part of their code in their GitHub repository, in order to guarantee the security of the users.

In the security field, Exodus guarantees that the passwords and keywords generated to support the accounts will not be stored on servers. Therefore, the recovery of these is impossible in case of loss, since the generation of words is only done on the client's side. So, of course, we emphasize what passwords, passwords, words, etc, security, always be stored in physical media, to avoid hacking.

TESTING THE EXODUS DIGITAL WALLET.

The first thing we must do is go to the Exodus portal  where, at the top right, we can immediately see the "Donwload" button, which will allow us to download our file. But first, we must select our operating system. Currently, Exodus only works as a desktop application on Mac and Linux operating systems, and in the case of Windows, it only works for the 64-bit operating system . Having selected this, we will download a file to which we must double click for later installation. It should be noted that Exodus is not an application that is installed in a typical way, ie "Next, Next, Finish". Just running the file will automatically be installed; without more click, or lost time.

Now we must look for our icon on the desktop and open it, which will take us to the next window.

As we can see, the interface of this wallet is very simple, it does not require many explanations to indicate where everything is and what each thing means, but that does not mean that we will not explain it in this tutorial.

If you are a rookie, you will ask: Where do I register? Where do I create a new portfolio? Well, when you start for the first time, Exodus will automatically generate a new portfolio where you can send and receive funds. If in your case you want to restore a portfolio that you already use, you just have to click on " restore from backup " and you will have your wallet restored. If your thing is to start from scratch, you need to do something else.

First, what are we seeing? As shown in the image above, we already have a portfolio created with zero assets. In the lower part we are shown the digital assets we own, with a reference as a percentage of how much it occupies over the total assets. On the left, we find the options menu, and in the center, we see the option to restore a portfolio, in case you already have one. It should be noted that this screen that we see refers to the "Portfolio" section of the menu.

As we said, you can now send and receive funds with your new wallet, but it takes a vital step,  the backup  of your wallet . Exodus will create a new portfolio automatically, but it is you who will be responsible for  generating 12 key words , which will allow you to restore your funds in the future. And we are again incisive with this, take good care of these words and save them in a physical medium (a paper, a notebook), and protect them from curious, because we talk about money and it is always a sensitive issue.

To create our backup, if we click on the left menu it will tell us the following.

This means that we must, first of all, receive funds in our portfolio to activate it and be able to create the backup later. For this, we will go to the section of the "Wallet" menu and choose the cryptocurrency we want to receive; in our case, bitcoin. This will show us the following window.

After this, we will click on "receive" and the following will be shown to us.

Here we will see the address of our portfolio, as well as its QR code pair. It is already our part, to send bitcoins to the given address in order to continue.

Having received the bitcoins, the following window will be shown in the "Backup" section.

As you can see, we must set a password. It can be any of our liking. But we must be careful because it can not be recovered later in any way. It is also advisable to use uppercase, lowercase, numbers and special characters that make the password stronger. Then we must confirm our password to make sure it is correct.

The next step is the generation of the 12 words of recovery, and again, these words should be stored in a safe, preferably physical, to avoid hacking.

Last, but not least, we will be asked to enter an email address for future support. It is advisable, if users like it, to use a cryptographic email, in this case the use of Protonmail is recommended,  which uses a special encryption for each of the emails that you receive or send.

Having finished with all this, we will have our portfolio ready.

SENDING YOUR ASSETS

With our active and supported portfolio, and  having safeguarded our 12 security words , we can begin to receive and send funds. The first thing is to locate ourselves in the "wallet" section of the left menu and select the cryptocurrency to send, in our case bitcoin, and it will show us the following screen.

Here we will click on "Send" that will show us the following.

On this screen we can denote the following:

• In the upper box, "Bitcoin Adress", we will have to place the destination address. If we click on the icon in the box on the left side, we can scan a QR code using the computer's webcam.
• In the lower one we will enter the amount of bitcoin we want to send. Here we can click on the left icon, which will add to the box the total amount of funds available for the transfer, deducting the commission to be paid. On the other hand, we can click on the icon on the right side to choose the unit we want to place: USD = Dollars or BTC = Bitcoin (in our case).
• In the lower left corner, we can see the amount of funds available from that cryptocurrency to be sent

Having already placed everything, we will click on "SEND" that will open the following.

Here the only thing we will do is verify if everything is correct, and click on "Send". The transaction will be signed and will be sent, you just need to wait for the confirmation and that's it, we'll have sent funds from Exodus. It should be noted that Exodus has established a quota for miners of approximately $ 0.30.

EXCHANGE OF ASSETS IN EXODUS THROUGH SHAPESHIFT

Having already received and sent assets, it is time to make an exchange. In this case we will do it between bitcoin and ethereum . To begin we must place on the option "Exchange" in the lateral menu. This will show us the following window.

We see here:

• In the upper part we can choose between which currencies we want to send and which one to receive.
• Under the name of the cryptocurrency we are shown some options of "All, Half, Min" this refers to whether we want to send all our funds, only half, or the minimum accepted.
• In the part that shows us the amounts, we can write the desired amount to exchange, either in bitcoins or dollars.
• In the lower part, we are shown what will be the total of the transaction to send, both for the shipment and for the received.

When finished, we will proceed to click on "Exchange". Here the exchange will take place, and once finished, we will be deposited in our portfolio. The process may take a little longer for the confirmations of the transaction. Having confirmed everything, we will have already made an asset exchange.

EXODUS ADDITIONAL FEATURES

One of the main features that stands out in Exodus, is the ability to change the theme or "Skin" of the application, to have a much more personalized portfolio to our liking. To access this, we must click on the "Setting" menu that will open the following.

Here, we must only click on the subject of our preference and it will immediately be applied.

OPINIONS ABOUT THE EXODUS MULTI-CURRENCY PORTFOLIO

As we could see, Exodus is a purse that can amaze us due to its simplicity and elegance. But the issue of the "not-so-open" code makes us hesitate a bit to use it as our main portfolio. Obviously it is a portfolio that is growing, and monthly receives updates on your system that, by the way, tends to be a disadvantage for the portfolio, to avoid any interaction between servers and customer that was not for sending funds, the application it is not updated automatically. In order to have an improved version, we must download a new version from its portal and install it.

Something a little disadvantageous for this portfolio is the amount of resources it uses from the computer. Therefore, it is not advisable to use computers with low resources; At least 2GB of RAM at least. Here are the processes that are mounted in memory when Exodus is executed. In this case it is a computer with 8 GB of RAM.

As we said at the beginning, Exodus aspires to much more, and we hope it continues to surprise the community and can provide the trust that is expected through the release of its code.