Siacoin is a cryptocurrency of the Sia network, so before going into where to store Siacoins, let’s talk a bit about what Sia is.
Sia is a cloud storage platform that is, unlike Dropbox and Google Drive, decentralized, and operating on the blockchain.
David Vorick and Luke Champine came up with the idea of Sia, and soon, the concept evolved — and the Nebulous team that created a platform.
How Sia works?
When you send your files to Sia, they’re not stored in a Cloud Space on a Provider’s Cloud Servers as it happens within Dropbox, they’re appearing in many different servers that belong to different people.
Your photo is “split” into many different parts and distributed across the network.
When you need to get your data back, you access Sia and it, in layman’s terms, collects the photo that has been “split” back to you.
No one can access your data, no third party can ever see it because of the nature of blockchain: only you can recover your photo because only you have the key to decrypting the photo and know how to access it.
When Dropbox and Google Drive and DepositPhoto and MegaUpload are hacked, Sia stands strong.
Hosts are rewarded for keeping the pieces of your photo as safe as possible — and they cannot access it, too.
Now, Siacoins (SC, not SIA) are Sia’s currency and people use it to pay hosts for storage and other Sia’s services.
As Sia never created ICO, all coins that circulate the space right now have been mined by miner’s community and decentralization fans.
Developers aren’t in control of the network as well: they had 1% of coins but then lost them, by accident, and now they own about 0.1% of the supply.
You can also become a host instead of renting people’s storage — and rent out your space to people across the world.
If you decide so, renters will pay you for the space in Siacoins.
So, Siacoins: a specific currency for a specific platform to make decentralized storage accessible.
If you’ve decided that’s something you want to participate in, you’ll probably need a Sia Wallet. Here are options you can consider.
Sia UI Wallet
It is recognized as the only officially recognized wallet of the Sia project and is deemed the best wallet to stock your coin.
There are versions for Windows, Linux, and macOS, and it was created by Nebulous.
Download the latest version from here. Then, you’ll need to save your 29-word seed — it’s a specific code that’ll allow you to recover your wallet if something wrong happens or if you’ve forgotten the password from your account.
Then, click Receive and Sia UI will create a wallet address you can use on exchange platforms.
Now, it takes time for a wallet to synchronize with the Sia blockchain, so sometimes you’ll need to wait until the sync is complete or re-synch to see your incoming or outgoing transactions complete.
Sia Central Lite Wallet
Sia Central is a web wallet, and it’s considered the most user-friendly platform of operations with Sia Coins.
No need to wait for synchronization, operations are conducted right from your browser, super comfy interface.
The only downside is that, obviously, it’s as protected and safe as your computer is — so if you’re a fan of opening mysterious letters from PayPal or connecting to public WiFi networks without a password — well; at least, install an antivirus.
Sia/Sia Central + Ledger Nano S and X
The good news for fans of public networks — or those who just wish to truly, properly secure their crypto is hardware wallets from the Ledger Nano line up (the S version is USB-powered, the X is connected via Bluetooth).
You store your private Sia keys on the hardware, confirm and deny transactions from the ledger, and, in general, are enjoying one of the most secure ways to store your coins.
By the way, you can manage Bitcoins, XRP, DOT, and other cryptocurrencies with Ledger as well.
Read more on how to manage Siacoins from Ledger here or on Sia’s official resource for support.
Conclusion
There’s a chance that Sia will be migrated to Utreexo paradigm the next year — there’re a lot of technicalities there, but the gist is that it makes blockchain more scalable and faster, you can find out more about it here — and the Sia Foundation that’s now working on a project will release more accessible, streamlined applications for mobile and web.
The list of Siacoin wallets is extensive, though.
Atomic Wallet gets quite good reviews, as well as Sia Android mobile app — if you want to manage multiple crypto assets at once (more than three and five, as allowed by Ledger) or prefer your iPhone accessibility, please ensure your devices have proper security safeguards.
If you cannot be confident they do, use official wallet options.
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