Hot wallets, cold wallets, burners

Hot wallets live on your phone or in your browser, connected to the internet at all times. Convenient for clicking "confirm" fast — and exposed the same way anything connected to the internet is exposed. Fine for spending money, bad for your life savings.

Cold wallets, usually a small hardware device, keep your keys offline permanently. Transactions get signed on the device itself and never expose the private key to your internet-connected computer. Slower, more annoying, and exactly what you want protecting anything you'd actually miss.

Burner wallets split the difference: a hot wallet with a small, disposable amount of funds, made specifically for interacting with sketchy new mints and unverified sites. If it gets drained, you shrug and make another one.

The rule of thumb: trench with a burner you can afford to lose, sleep easy with cold storage holding the rest.