A Guide to Custody of Your Assets
Self-custody allows you to have full control over your NFTs and your wallet’s private keys, which means you are solely responsible for the security of your assets. This can help protect you against potential hacks, scams, and other security threats.
Of course, this has a potential downside. Because you are solely responsible, there are no refunds or chargebacks if you make a mistake or get scammed. Whatever you lost is likely gone for good. In addition, Counterparty and Namecoin wallets and assets have their unique challenges, more on those below.
Emblem recommends that NFT owners secure their NFTs with a hardware wallet on their native blockchain whenever possible. This is easy enough for Ethereum-based NFTs but can get challenging for some Historical NFTs.
An example would be if you purchased a Rare Pepes Nakamoto card (RAREPEPE) in an Emblem Vault on Opensea. Should you unlock the Emblem Vault and hold the asset in a Counterparty wallet where you control the private keys? Or keep it in the Emblem Vault and store it in a hardware wallet?
The question can get a little complicated depending on each blockchain, so we will walk through each one to help you understand the uniqueness of each blockchain so you can make the best decision for yourself.
You should consider these points when deciding to hold your Counterparty (Rare Pepes, Spells of Genesis, etc.) and Dogeparty assets on their native blockchains or within an Emblem Vault.
*Update: We just learned that Rare Pepe wallets support Ledger hardware wallets. Here is the announcement.
NFTs on Namecoin, being some of the first in existence, have unique and often frustrating qualities that every collector should understand.
One of the main benefits of storing your NFTs in Emblem Vaults is you can securely place them in standard hardware wallets. However, Emblem Vault has a few security risks that you should be aware of when using it to store and trade your NFTs.
For the unlocking service and key generation process, the Emblem team is exploring options to decentralize the service further and provide enhanced security for collectors. That said, a fully decentralized system may never be fully possible due to the nature of the technology.
The risks of scammers selling fake assets to collectors should be greatly reduced with the release of Emblem’s curated collections. The first test contracts were released in December 2022, and the official launch of the contracts for Rare Pepes is expected in January 2023.
We hope this helps answer some questions you may have about the best way to store your NFTs. Of course, we just touched on the most popular historical NFT chains here, so expect future information touching on other chains in the future.
Hit us up on Twitter if you have any questions or ideas for future how-to’s that you would like us to make!