My experience with my hardware wallet is that I put some stuff on it, left it for a year, and then when I went to go plug it in it wanted to update. The update will wipe it.
I can use my recovery seed phrase after, but as far as I’m concerned that’s an “oh crap” backup. For all I know I could have screwed up writing it down. Unlikely, but possible. Apparently it’s also possible to other software wallets to get the crypto off of there.
Frankly, if there aren’t ways for the average non-tech person to safely and reliably hold crypto there’s no point. Most of my stuff is on Coinbase and I’ve always figured that if that ship goes down the whole thing will come crashing down anyhow.
I can use my recovery seed phrase after, but as far as I’m concerned that’s an “oh crap” backup. For all I know I could have screwed up writing it down. Unlikely, but possible. Apparently it’s also possible to other software wallets to get the crypto off of there.
Frankly, if there aren’t ways for the average non-tech person to safely and reliably hold crypto there’s no point. Most of my stuff is on Coinbase and I’ve always figured that if that ship goes down the whole thing will come crashing down anyhow.