Introduction

Being able to choose a wallet from a reputable and trusted team is not always easy, let alone choosing the wallet from a trusted source. Choosing the right wallet is half the battle. You also need to make sure you receive the wallet safely and untampered with. Can you trust the source? Can you trust the seller? Can you trust the distributors? Can you trust the logistical personnel?

Despite knowing that your wallet is going to go through many hands before it gets to you, being able to ascertain that the wallet is authenticated and untampered with is crucial before starting to use the wallet. Many naysayers in the industry would suggest one to buy straight from the manufacturer, which is a good idea most of the time, but there are also many trusted marketplaces that should be given the benefit of the doubt in being able to sell you an untampered crypto wallet.

Ballet has a plethora of different marketplaces you can buy our wallets from instead of straight from our official website. There could be many benefits of using the other trusted marketplaces such as BestBuy, Amazon, Lazada, and more. For example, purchasing through your local Lazada marketplace could help save on any import taxes. Many Ballet wallets are also available through local resellers.

Regardless of where you purchase your Ballet wallet, there are methods to authenticate your wallet to make sure that the wallet is an official Ballet wallet and that it has never been used before. Those methods are listed below:

1. Inspect the outer packaging.

Obvious tears on the package or if the package shows signs of it being literally opened is a red flag. You want to make sure the package itself shows zero signs of foul play, especially to the actual wallet package. On the cardboard packaging for our REAL Series wallets, specifically you want to ensure the right side perforation strip and the middle QR code window lift-up perforation hasn’t been torn off. Obvious signs of previous lifting will show if this was the case.

2. Inspect the scratch-off material and tamper-evident QR code stickers.

REAL Series wallets are protected by tamper-evident QR code stickers and passphrase entropy scratch-offs. As long as the sticker and scratch-off are intact, then you can be assured that your private key entropy and passphrase entropy are safe and have never been exposed to an unauthorized third party. This feature also makes it safe and reliable to give (or receive) Ballet wallets as gifts, loaded with cryptocurrency. If you see any signs of the sticker being peeled off previously, a honey-comb pattern would be visible on the sticker. This should prompt you to not use the wallet and contact the seller immediately.

3. Verify that the private key entropy can decrypt the passphrase entropy via the Ballet Crypto app.

Within the Ballet Crypto app, you verify the authenticity of your wallet by entering its passphrase prefix or by entering its full passphrase. You can access the verify feature via our app, after you add the physical wallet to the app, or you can access our desktop verify feature here.

And check out this blog here, to learn about the differences between the passphrase entropy and private key entropy.

4. Use a blacklight to confirm the UV-visible inked components on the wallet.

REAL Series wallets have strong anti-counterfeiting measures. The top and bottom stickers have print that is only visible when exposed to ultraviolet light. The graphic below highlights the hidden UV-visible ink in pink. There are 3 hidden inked components: the Ballet Crypto app logo on the bottom QR code sticker, the Ballet logo on the top left of the top QR code sticker, and the word ‘BITCOIN’ on the right edge of the top QR code sticker.

5. Scratch to release the special Ballet scent.

If you scratch on the surface of the top QR code sticker, a lovely aroma will fuse allowing you to smell a special scent from Ballet. Not only is this a nice touch to the wallet itself, but also another method in making sure that the wallet is in fact a Ballet wallet.

6. Confirm with the BIP38 confirmation code.

Within the Ballet Crypto app, you can also verify that the passphrase entropy corresponds to the public address by confirming with the confirmation code. This confirmation code is only available via the app and nowhere else. A confirmation code is 75 characters long starting with “cfrm38”. You could also use open-source tools online to perform the exact same confirmation.

Conclusion

Scams are everywhere in this market. Many other wallets have been victims to nefarious imposters trying to replicate them with a fake version of the wallet. Ballet has put in place rigid protocols in engineering the wallets so that the end user has the liberty in authenticating that their Ballet wallet IS a REAL Ballet wallet. Knockoffs and counterfeit wallets will inevitably become more of an issue. Purchasing direct from the manufacturer is a good method but one could also purchase from 3rd party marketplaces as well, if the original manufacturer has approved them.

About us

Ballet is a U.S. company that provides simple and secure cryptocurrency storage solutions for the global mainstream market. Ballet is the team behind the world’s first multi-currency, non-electronic, physical crypto wallet. The company was founded in 2019 by Bobby Lee and an international team of cryptocurrency industry veterans. Ballet is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States, and has an office in Shanghai, China.

For more on our products please check us out at: https://www.ballet.com/

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