Monero wallets explained: self-custody, wallet types and backups

A Monero wallet is an app that creates and stores your private keys; your coins stay on the Monero blockchain.^[1] With a self-custody wallet, you hold the keys and the seed phrase that backs them up. With a custodial one, such as an exchange account, a company holds them for you.

New to Monero itself? Start with What is Monero?

What is self-custody?

Self-custody means you alone hold the keys that can spend your money. No company can freeze or move your funds, but nobody can recover them for you either: if you lose both your device and your seed, the money is gone. And because the seed is a master copy of your keys, sharing it gives someone complete access to your funds.^[2]

How does a self-custody wallet work?

A self-custody wallet does three jobs:

1. It creates your keys. A new wallet generates them on your device and shows you a seed phrase that encodes them.^[2]
2. It finds payments to you. It scans new blocks with your private view key. Most of the wallets listed on getmonero.org do this on your device, using blocks fetched from a node, without sharing any key with it.^[3]
3. It spends. It signs transactions with your private spend key, the one key needed to spend your funds, and hands them to a node to broadcast.^[4]

The node your wallet uses matters for privacy. Our guide to local and remote nodes explains what a node can see.

What does a Monero wallet actually hold?

Every Monero wallet is built on two keys, a spend key and a view key, each with a private and a public half.^[4]

• Private spend key. The only key that can spend your funds. A 25-word seed is another way of writing it down.^[4][2]
• Private view key. Lets whoever holds it see every payment you receive, but not reliably what you spend.^[5] It is derived from the spend key, so your seed restores it too.^[2]
• Your address. It contains the public halves of both keys, and it’s what you give people so they can pay you.^[4]
• Subaddresses. Extra receiving addresses, all derived from the same seed. Monero’s documentation recommends using a subaddress by default, with a new one for each payment you expect.^[6]

What types of Monero wallet are there?

Wallets differ mainly in where your keys live and who scans the blockchain for your payments.^[3]

The official wallets

The Monero project offers two free, open-source wallets on getmonero.org. The desktop GUI has a simple mode that connects to a remote node automatically, and an advanced mode that gives you full control of your wallet and your own node. The command-line wallet is aimed at developers and advanced users.^[3]

Mobile and light wallets

The same Downloads page lists non-custodial mobile and light wallets that aren’t managed by the Monero core team, sorted by how they sync. Local-sync wallets scan the blockchain on your device without sharing any key with the node, which is more private but slower. Remote-sync wallets share your private view key with a server that keeps scanning for your transactions.^[3]

Hardware wallets

A hardware wallet is a small device that keeps your private spend key and signs transactions itself.^[7][1] As of November 2026, getmonero.org lists Ledger (Nano S, Nano S Plus and Nano X) and Trezor (Model T, Safe 3 and Safe 5) devices as compatible.^[3] You use them through a Monero wallet app: Trezor says its own Trezor Suite app doesn’t support Monero, and Ledger’s Monero page says to connect the device to a compatible third-party wallet, naming the Monero GUI.^[7][1] Trezor’s guide also lists its newer Safe 7, with some mobile wallets.^[7]

View-only wallets

A view-only wallet holds the view key but not the spend key. It can only see incoming transactions and can’t spend, and its balance may be wrong once the wallet has spent funds, unless you import extra data called key images. People use them to watch over a cold wallet or donations to a fundraiser.^[8]

What is a Monero seed phrase?

A seed phrase, or mnemonic seed, is a list of words that encodes your wallet’s keys, and it holds everything needed to restore the wallet.^[9] The two main formats have 25 and 16 words.^[2]

• 25 words. The original format. The words encode your private spend key, and the last one is a checksum that catches mistakes when you type the seed back in.^[2]
• 16 words (Polyseed). A newer format that is 36% shorter. It stores the wallet’s “birthday”, roughly when it was created, so a restore knows where to start scanning, and it supports encryption with a passphrase.^[10]

Hardware wallets work differently: the backup is the device’s own recovery phrase. Ledger uses a 24-word phrase, and Trezor derives your Monero keys from its wallet backup with an open standard called SLIP-0010.^[1][7] Whatever the format, write down which kind you have and which app made it, so you know where you can restore it.

What is a restore height?

The restore height is the block number from which your wallet starts scanning the blockchain when you restore it. Setting one makes the first sync faster. Ideally it’s the block that held your first incoming payment, and the official wallets also accept a date instead.^[9]

Getting it wrong in one direction is worse than the other. Set it too high and the wallet misses earlier transactions and shows the wrong balance; set it too low and the sync just takes longer. When unsure, go lower.^[9]

A 25-word seed doesn’t record this, so write the height or the wallet’s creation date next to it. A 16-word seed has it built in.^[2]

How should you back up a Monero wallet?

• Write the seed on paper, or stamp it into metal, in the right order, and check every word.
• Keep it offline. No photos, screenshots, cloud notes or emails: anything stored online can be stolen.
• Keep two copies in separate safe places.
• Note the extras: the format (25 or 16 words), the restore height or creation date, and the app you used.
• Store any passphrase separately. If you add one, you can’t restore the wallet without it.
• Keep only spending money in a phone wallet. A wallet that’s online shouldn’t hold more than you can afford to lose.

Which wallet is best for Monero?

There’s no single best wallet. The right one depends on your device and on how you weigh privacy against convenience. We don’t rank wallets, but these questions help you choose.

• Where is it from? getmonero.org’s Downloads page is a sensible place to start. It says the community wallets it lists aren’t managed by the Monero core team and strongly recommends doing your own research before trusting one. For the official wallets, it also tells you to verify your downloads.^[3]
• Is it self-custodial? You should get a seed phrase, and your keys should be created on your device.
• Can anyone check the code? Open-source code can be inspected by independent reviewers. If an app is closed source, look for published independent audits.
• Is it maintained? Look for regular releases that keep up with Monero’s own updates.
• How does it sync? Does it scan on your device or share your view key with a server?^[3] Can you choose your own node, or connect over Tor or I2P?
• Are the fees clear? The Monero network fee pays the miners who process transactions. Any extra fee an app charges should be shown separately before you confirm.
• Can you leave? Check that you can export your seed or keys and restore them in another Monero wallet.

Where does Mantis fit?

Mantis plans to include a self-custodial Monero wallet inside its chats. In the plan, your keys are created and kept on your phone and never sent to Mantis servers. Payments you send in Mantis would carry a 0.5% fee, shown separately from the Monero network fee, and the recipient gets exactly the amount promised. Because the keys are yours, you would be able to move them to another Monero wallet. Measured against the checklist above, Mantis will be a closed-source app, so its code can’t be inspected publicly; its launch plan instead includes independent security reviews of the wallet and the rest of the app.