Tangem Open Source Crypto Bitcoin Hardware Wallet REVIEW

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Hi, it's Bitcoin wallet review time again. Yes, because I'm into crypto.

[00:00:06]Yes, it's got nothing to do with this. I just happen to have this lying around.

[00:00:09]Uh, thank you very much, Tandem. Uh, we've got a new hardware wallet. Well, it's not new. It's been going for a long time. In fact, Tang, one of the leading players out there of hardware wallets.

[00:00:20]Uh, thank you for sending this into the mailbag. And we've got three crypto hardware wallets here. But unlike the USB ones with like the built-in screens that we've looked at in the past, this one is an NFC uh wallet, and you can use your shoe phone safely to access your hardware wallet using the NFC uh coil in your card. So, it comes with three cards here. Now, of course, um I've mentioned this in previous videos. If you're going to get into crypto, do not hold your crypto on an exchange. You're just begging to be hacked. must be on a hardware wallet like this. You only put your Bitcoin or your crypto on an exchange when you actually want to uh trade it. And the second major rule is do not buy hardware wallets from just like random eBay sellers because you can get a maninthe-middle attack or AliExpress or anywhere else online. Only buy hardware wallets from uh directly from the company or from their authorized agents which you can find on their website, but you can order these uh direct. So, we're looking at um I think it's about 70 uh Yankee bucks for the three NFC cards here. Now, the interesting thing about this one is that uh supposedly you can use it without a seed phrase because that's why you get three cards in here apparently, but uh I'm an old school uh seed phrase man myself. And you can get them in different colors. This looks like a like and with different patterns on them and things like that. So, it's got a secure element inside here and an NFC coil and everything else. Are they? Yes, they are differently serial numbered there. Um, and you just tap this on your back of your phone. Get started guide. Terms of use, optimal performance minus 25 to plus 50 in case you lose it or it's gets stolen. Control of the relevant blockchain assets may be lost without the possibility of recovery. So, um, yeah, do not lose your card. Just like you don't lose your seed phrase. The security in any crypto hardware wallet, doesn't matter how secure it is, is only as secure as your paper seed phrase. Um, so if somebody gets your uh seed phrase, then they've got your wallet instantly.

[00:02:27]They don't need your hardware wallet.

[00:02:28]They just need the bit of paper that you're backing up your seed phrase on.

[00:02:31]Well, so apparently this one, you don't need the seed phrase, although you can actually get it as a backup, I believe.

[00:02:37]Um, but that's why they give you three separate uh cards. So, you put one in your safe deposit box, you stick one under your mattress, and you have one in a third location or something like that.

[00:02:45]Anyway, we can download the app on the Fruity Store or the uh Android store, and tap the card to your phone. That's it. Um, wow, that's really simple. Yeah, no battery required. Water resistant, 25 years extended use, they claim. Is that all we get? I think it is, cuz you don't need anything else. Why does it need to be that thick? Yeah, that just increases the postage cost. Um, I don't know why they've done that. So, they claim to have produced over 6 million of these cards and uh just the Android uh store has 100,000 uh downloads. Um, there you go. So, let's install it. It is the genuine one directly from their um getting started guide, but as I said, you could get a man in the middle attack. So, only buy it from the genuine source. Designed in Switzerland, by the way, manufactured in Indonesia. So, hi to all my Swiss and Indonesian viewers.

[00:03:36]Uh, there we go. Uh, we're in. Would I like to do push notifications? Uh, no.

[00:03:41]I'm not going to use it that much. That that would matter. So, I'm going to do that later. Meet Tandem. Get started.

[00:03:47]And if you don't like the card form factor, they actually have a ring. I'll put up a photo of it here. Um, I much prefer the card. Uh, personally, but yeah, it's available in a ring. You can physically use it as a ring. Great to get through airport security. Just saying. And it looks like you can just run a regular mobile wallet, too. But of course, this is all about a hardware wallet. So, the secure element is going to be inside here. Nothing secure is kept on your phone. It's just an interface. So, let's scan the card, shall we? I should have my NFC on. There we go. And yep, generate keys privately.

[00:04:24]Your keys will be securely generated inside the chip. There is no seed phrase, which means nobody can export or steal it. Um, but I did read that you could actually get a seed phrase as a backup if you wanted to for advanced users. Is there other options? Yeah, use seed phrase. So yes, you can get your seed phrase as sort of like a leg legacy um interface, but uh they so I can generate that on here, but technically I could have spyware on this phone and it would actually it could like do screen captures and send it back to someone or something like that. So that's probably a less secure way to do it and that is why other hardware wallets specifically are decoupled from your phone from your computer so that uh and they have a built-in screen so that the seed phrase is generated and displayed only on the physical hardware device. So I would not trust a seed phrase set up on a shoe phone like this.

[00:05:24]No way. Okay. So, I'm going to create my wallet without the seed phrase backup.

[00:05:29]And it knows the serial number of this particular card, but you can't hack me with just that serial number. Try it.

[00:05:35]So, it's generated the seed phrase internally in that NFC card. And now I can create backups. So, um, yep. Add a card. So, let's add another card. Add a car. And you can add rings as well.

[00:05:47]They're all compatible. It's just a different form factor. One backup device added. And you can buy if you want more than three. If you're a bit paranoid, order as many as you want. Add a card or ring. Oh, yep. Two backup devices added.

[00:06:01]There you go. Oh, no. I was wrong. You can't add more than two backup. Why? Why can't I have infinite backup devices?

[00:06:11]Well, I don't like that. What's the deal there? Uh, finalize backup. Set up a single access code to protect all your devices. An individual access code for each card or ring. Oh, okay. So, you can have a different access code for each card or ring. That's good. So, continue and choose any word, phrase, or number you want as an access code. They don't force you to do something weird. So, it looks like you can put in anything you like. And it asks you a second time, obviously. Now, it's asking me to do that again for the backup card with that particular serial number. That's done.

[00:06:45]That was easy. And then we So, that's the primary one up. primary there, secondary, first backup here, and second backup, and scan card. Now, this is interesting. It's now asking me for the backup card that ends in that, but it said that was the primary. Oh, no. I might have Oh, I don't know. I [laughter] think maybe I used something there. Um, but it's all good. And we are in like Flynn. There you go. That was a really easy setup. Wow. I'm impressed with that. And you're going to ask which coins does it uh support? Um the answer is yes. All of them. Although it doesn't support my beloved library credits. Yes, I'm still mining library credits even though um nobody uses library credits anymore. But I'm keeping the faith alive. And I think there isn't any major exchange left that supports library credits. Anyway, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, XRP, it's all there. Salana USDC, Tron, Doge for Doge fanboys, Bitcoin Cash. Um, yeah, it supports like thousands of coins. So, yeah, nuts. And because people ask me all the time, which coins do I personally hold? Uh, well, I not investment advice whatsoever, but I hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, uh, XRP. Uh, I've got some Soul, I've got Bitcoin Cash, I've got, uh, Cardano, Ara, um, and that's, um, pretty much it. They're pretty much the only major ones. Oh. Oh, PayPal. Yeah, that's right. The PayPal USDcoin now.

[00:08:17]Um, and I've got some uh Litecoin uh as well, but that's uh basically the only uh ones that I hold personally, not investment advice. Don't listen to an engineering YouTuber. All right, so we're in the main app and wallet, three devices. So, yeah, if I wanted you can get more cards or rings or whatever, but you would physically have a different wallet. So, it looks like each wallet can only have maximum three. It's going to ask for our code. Yep, it knows who we are. No worries. And uh would you like to use biometrics? Uh no. I don't like biometrics, please. No. I want a big no button there. Why can't I have a big no button? Anyway, looks like by default it's given us a Bitcoin wallet and an Ethereum wallet, but we can add more tokens down here. So, oh, search tokens. There we go. XRP because I want to transfer some XRP onto here. So, we'll add that to our portfolio. And yep, no worries.

[00:09:15]Oh, red to scan. Okay, it makes us scan the card every time. Oh, it's secure.

[00:09:21]Oh, and we got to access it again because we're creating a a wallet. So, access code and we're going to scan it again. Okay, so we got an XRP wallet I want to receive because I want to send it uh using XRP ledger network. Yes, we're resulting permanent loss. I've got it. It's given me my Ledger address. So, I'll go over to the main desktop and I'll transfer. I set myself one XRP just seconds ago. So, I'm not sure if that's going to how long that's going to take.

[00:09:47]Probably not very long. Oh, transaction history is currently not supported for XRP. Uh, they're working on it. Oh, that's a bit of a bummer. Come on. It's XRP. It's not a shitcoin. So, anyway, they have like market news and stuff.

[00:10:02]Dormant Bitcoin wallet moves 40 million after 12 years. Oh, there you go.

[00:10:06]Somebody remembered their password. um or found their seed phrase somewhere in the archives. Seven major Bitcoin mining pools embrace stratum version two upload Troncoin and you know so yeah that's useful. Okay, it keeps beeping at me.

[00:10:23]That is the NFC beep. So not sure what's doing there. I've sent myself one XRP but it hasn't been received yet. And I just sent myself I think 01 Ethereum is it? uh whole $2.33 Aussie cents worth.

[00:10:41]Um and it got there in seconds. Yes, it did cost me.16 uh if you want to send uh Ethereum, you know, like low values of Ethereum. It's not the best uh coin for that, but uh yep, it's appeared. So, there it is. No worries. Works a treat.

[00:10:57]That's interesting. You get a free uh Tandem Visa virtual card as well if you want to pay for uh in in USD um C. So, I wonder if it can auto convert for you.

[00:11:09]Anyway, we can can get our card. Should I get one? Uh, KYC know your customer in progress. KYC just uh yeah, instills the uh rolling eyes and uh oh god, what am I in for this time? Oh, snap. That crisp clean sound of that rubber glove coming on. But hey, you're in the traditional banking network now with uh Visa. So, yeah, just stick to the crypto. No worries. And I just sent two XRP to XRP received. Uh, and we can do explore transaction history. You got to do it manually, but that's only with XRP. So, they might fix that in a previous version. So, I've transferred Bitcoin Cash, uh, XRP, Ripple, um, and Ethereum.

[00:11:53]They all worked a treat. And I just sent myself a couple of fiat bucks worth of Bitcoin, but that was moments ago.

[00:11:59]Hasn't been received yet because, well, it's a bit slower for the Bitcoin. You can speed it up. you pay more fees. Uh to send, for those who want to know, to send $2, which will appear in here shortly. There's the uh transaction down there. It only cost me 16. So, yeah, it's not expensive at all. So, there you have it. I now have Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Bitcoin Cash all transferred.

[00:12:22]No worries whatsoever. Works a treat.

[00:12:25]I'm very impressed with it. Uh the setup is uh super simple, and you get three of the cards. You don't have to worry about a paper wallet. you can just have your cards. Although, if you're old school, you can actually do the paper wallet backup, but I don't personally wouldn't like to do that on the phone. But anyway, super secure chip inside this thing. It's got a bank grade Samsung EAL 6 Plus um certified chip in it. Meets all the other certifications and everything. Super rugged, supposed to be like waterproof um you know, crush proof and X-ray uh proof for taking through things. And you can get it in a ring format, but I don't like wearing rings.

[00:13:00]So, um, yeah, but hey, if you're going through the airport, um, I'd probably take the Ring option, quite frankly.

[00:13:08]Now, there's probably a couple of questions you might have with this. A, what happens if, uh, they discontinue the app is because you don't have your seed phrase, then well, you're reliant upon the app. Well, it's completely open source. So, I'll link in the GitHub down below. Oh, you could like recompile uh the source, do whatever the community can keep it alive, whatever. If Tandem go under, that's not a showstopper at all. And B, what happens if well even those open- source things fail or whatever? Well, then that's kind of like the trade-off you have by not doing by only relying upon having the seed phrase secretly encrypted inside this physical hardware card. So, if that's the case, if that concerns you, then uh you use the advanced option and you print out the seed phrase. So, you've physically got that seed phrase printed out. You can keep it in your safe deposit box or whatever. And then you can restore it to any other compat uh BIP compatible crypto uh wallet you want. So, there's no danger there at all. But as I mentioned, if you are going to print out the uh seed phrase, I recommend you do it on a completely clean phone just in case the remote possibility that uh there's spyware on your phone actually recording that uh seed phrase. One of the good things about this is you can supposedly buy and sell and swap crypto directly within the app. So, let's try it. I don't know. I'm in Australia. How does it work? Okay, I'm going to buy myself some Bitcoin cash. Let's go. I've been identified as Australian, not Austria. Confirm. How much would I like in Aussie dollars? [snorts] And oh, look at all the different currencies. Okay, I want to buy 10 bucks worth of Bitcoin.

[00:14:54]Thank you very much. Amount must be at least $35. Oh [laughter] god. Okay, we got to buy at least 35 bucks. There you go. It looks like I can pay with Google Pay. Fantastic. Via Moonay.

[00:15:08]It's going into moonay.com. Yeah, looks like I need the Moon Pay app. Uh, nah, screw that. I won't do that now. But apparently, if you do that, you can actually buy sell uh cryptocurrency on here and uh swap as well. But it looks like it does all that through Moon Pay.

[00:15:24]So, even if we do Bitcoin, and it looks like that changes. I just uh tried to buy some Bitcoin here and it's Mercury.

[00:15:33]So yeah, that gets a more competitive uh rate, but uh the quickest one with through Google Pay, but you've got to go through the Moon Pay app and download that and whatever. I don't know. Not going to do that for this video. And sell is probably going to be exactly the same thing. Yep. Yep. That's going through Moon Pay as well. All right. And let's do some swapsy, shall we? Let's swap some Bitcoin for receive token for XRP. Let's go. Maximum amount here. And fetching current rates might not let me do that little of an amount. Jeez, taking us time. Yeah, there we go. Must be at least that amount of Bitcoin. And uh you can use Changely as well. Anyway, I won't try those, but I'm sure they work just fine if you're using those services. And if you're worried about the uh security of this uh Tandem system, it has actually been independently audited uh several times.

[00:16:29]So, uh you can go research uh that if you're really that keen, but it seems like a very cool uh probably one of the most convenient ways to uh have a hardware wallet for your crypto and then to spend it and swap it and buy and sell it and everything else. And you get the advantages of a cold wallet without uh having just a purely software wallet on your shoe phone, which I do not recommend you do. Um so, it's very cool for that, but it's not all roses.

[00:16:57]There's going to be some downsides with this system. Uh because there's no screen on this thing. You are, as I said, reliant upon, if you want a seed phrase backup, then you are reliant upon uh your shoe phone to actually give you that sephrase. And you'd want to be doing that on a clean phone. So, it's just not as convenient or as secure as other um hardware wallet solutions with a built-in screen. But, that's a trade-off. Another potential downside is that you cannot upgrade the firmware in the card here. Yes. Um it's open- source firmware for the app. That's great, but it's closed source firmware that cannot be updated in the card. So you're even going to think of that as oh that's actually more secure. Nobody can touch the code inside this thing. Yeah, but it's also closed source. It's not open source. So you can't like independently verify like the community can't independently uh verify that. So whether or not that's a pro or a con depends on how you look at it. Another downside is that you can't do what's called a passphrase wallet, which means when you set it up, you get the seed phrase plus you can put in your own password on top of that and that just increases the whole entropy of the uh your secure key uh basically. And you can't do that on this. You've just got the regular seed phrase. I mean, of course, it's still practically impossible to crack it, but uh for those serious about their Bitcoin, then a lot of people want a passphrase wallet, it's called. This one doesn't support that. But for your everyday user, probably not a problem, but something to be aware of. And another potential downside if you're a serious user, uh it doesn't support what's called a multi- signature or multi-IG wallet where you can actually have multiple different uh hardware wallets where you have to get permission from all of them to access the account.

[00:18:47]And serious holders of Bitcoin and crypto will often use a multi-IG wallet.

[00:18:53]This one doesn't do it once again. So for Joe average, not a problem, but eh, this isn't the best solution if you want that sort of thing. Another downside of this is that it only allows you to have a single uh Bitcoin address only. So, this can be a kind of big deal if you're after privacy. Let's say you send somebody uh Bitcoin, it actually um use it doesn't generate like a new address to actually do that. And this is what's called the UTXO standard. It's been in Bitcoin since uh day dot really. and it's called the unspent uh transaction output um feature where it's basically in this particular case cuz it doesn't have support for that. Then if you send somebody Bitcoin, they can actually go and check on the chain and then they can see what the your entire Bitcoin balance is at that address. So it's not the best if you're holding a lot of Bitcoin. You don't want, oh yeah, I got 42 bitcoins.

[00:19:52]Nobody's ever going to find out. Um, yeah, they can if you send them some Bitcoin with uh one of these, unfortunately. So, not the best thing.

[00:20:01]Most good hardware wallets, they will actually support that and give you like a new address each time you do the uh transaction there. Unfortunately, this one doesn't. So, you're basically trading off this incredibly uh convenient interface and support for, you know, practically every coin out there. And it's going to be great and convenient for everyday transaction and all that sort of stuff. um buying and swapping and holding all sorts of coins and you know um doing daily transactions and stuff, but as far as uh like long-term hardware wallet solution, it's definitely not the best one out there.

[00:20:36]There's quite a few downsides, so just be aware of that. But yeah, this is probably one of the coolest things out there if you want to use Bitcoin all the time. You want to have it on you, you want to have this in your wallet, or you want to have the ring on your finger, for example. Like a very cool stuff. So, it's a great solution for that. But if you're after just a hardware wallet to store all of your long-term Bitcoin and you want the most number of features and the maximum security and everything else, this isn't it. But it's still a huge step up over just a regular software wallet on your phone. So, I do recommend it for like a Joe Average if you want to do a lot of um you know crypto uh transactions and stuff like that. It's going to be safer than just a software wallet, but not quite on par.

[00:21:19]Lacking quite a few features of really good hardware wallets. Anyway, my only complaint about this thing is that just to get into it, I've got to like swipe this thing three times. Um, so yeah, it's just I guess it's too secure for its own good. You swipe it once to load up the app, then you swipe, then it tells you to take it away. Swipe it again to get in there and swipe it again. Ah, it's you got to swipe it all the bloody time. But, uh, yeah, I guess you can't be too sure. Anyway, thank you very much, Tandem. That's a very cool hardware wallet. I'll link it in down below.