Here are my top recommendations and YouTube tutorials from a trusted resource (BTC Sessions) on how to use them. There are others, but after using most of them and copious research these are my picks.
Note: all my recommendations are BITCOIN ONLY + OPEN SOURCE**
Desktop Wallet (software hot wallet, manage hardware wallets, multi-sig & coinjoins via whirlpool)
Sparrow Wallet: https://sparrowwallet.com Guide: https://youtu.be/qJ_SpQX_YKw
Mobile Phone Wallet ( EASIEST On-Chain + Lightning Hot Wallet)
Muun Wallet: https://muun.com/ Guide: https://youtu.be/5SbpyInuIJk
Mobile Phone Wallet w/ Advanced feature set (using your own node, watch-only wallets etc.)
Blue Wallet: https://bluewallet.io/ Guide: https://youtu.be/imMX7i4qpmg
Hardware Wallet (On-Chain)
Coldcard: https://coldcard.com/ Guide: https://youtu.be/FAYmE5-40PQ
Obligatory: Not financial advice. Do your own research.
I'm against hardware wallets in favor of airgapped desktop or android wallets from a redundancy and time-stable perspective, but I agree with your picks. A+
Zeus is also a good choice for self-hosted mobile lightning (presently works with LND, C-lightning, Spark, Eclair and LNDHub), but not as versatile and general-purpose as BW (includes on-chain, multi-sig and allows a private electrum server).
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Can you elaborate on your first statement further? I've never heard that perspective and am interested to understand your point of view better.
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The hardware wallet has a single use-case. It is for storing your private keys airgapped from your hot wallet. You compile a transaction, upload it to your wallet, sign it, and download the signed transaction to your hot wallet to be broadcast to the mempool. This is all fine and dandy, but it suffers from a supply-chain choke point.
If your hardware wallet is using a nonstandard key derivation algorithm and you require the actual hardware to regenerate your keys, then if you don't have multiple identical hardware lying around, you're SOL. This is particularly bad if your hardware wallet is stored in a safe for two decades and the manufacturer doesn't exist any more.
Now this objection is a straw-man indeed because today they all use standard seed-phrase key derivation algorithms, so we should be plenty safe from this risk. But it calls into question the purpose of the hardware wallet in the first place. If you can use an airgapped computer (with sparrow) to sign your transactions by passing files between your offline and hot wallets with a thumb drive, then why do you need the hardware wallet in the first place?
The hardware wallet seems to me to be an additional layer of complexity disguised as a simplification. Perhaps you gain some warm feelings of security by knowing you have a hardware wallet and you don't need to keep a laptop lying around, or a bootable flashdrive with Qubes or Tails on it with an encrypted home directory for signing your cold wallet. But in my opinion, there is no benefit by adding complexity and specialized hardware.
I would accept a counterargument that its simpler for the less technical person to maintain a cold wallet with a dedicated piece of hardware.
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