A cryptocurrency wallet is not an account with a company — it is a key pair you control, backed by a seed phrase defined in BIP39. Lose the seed and nobody can recover your funds. Paste the wrong address and the transaction is permanent. This guide covers how wallets work, not where to buy coins.
When you "have" Bitcoin or Monero, what you actually hold is a private key — a long secret number that proves ownership on the network. The wallet software is just a tool that stores that key and derives public addresses where others can send coins.
There is no bank to call. No chargeback. No "I forgot my password" recovery unless you saved a backup seed phrase when the wallet was created. The phrase — usually 12 to 25 English words — is the entire wallet. Photograph it, store it in iCloud, or type it into a phishing site and the money is gone.
Drughub and similar Tor marketplaces accept Bitcoin and Monero. Both work differently under the hood. For why that matters for privacy, see Monero vs Bitcoin. Here we focus on using either one without losing it.
Hot wallets run on your computer or phone. Fine for amounts you actively spend. Hardware wallets (Ledger, Trezor) make sense for larger long-term holdings — overkill for a small market balance.
Lightweight desktop wallet. Downloads only block headers, not the full chain. Supports custom fees so you can speed up or slow down confirmation time. Download only from electrum.org — fake Electrum sites have stolen funds for years.
Each receive creates a new address. Reusing addresses makes your transaction history easier to trace on the public blockchain.
Official desktop wallet from getmonero.org. Syncs the Monero blockchain locally — first launch can take hours and several gigabytes of disk. Privacy features are built in; you do not need to manage addresses manually the way you do with Bitcoin.
Use a subaddress when a service gives you a deposit field. Subaddresses isolate incoming payments without exposing your main wallet address.
Get Electrum from electrum.org, Monero GUI from getmonero.org. Verify the download hash if the site provides one. Fake wallet installers are one of the oldest scams in crypto.
Choose "create new wallet" on first setup. The software displays a seed phrase. Write every word on paper in order. Not a screenshot. Not a Notes app. Paper, stored somewhere dry and private.
Most wallets ask you to re-enter a few words to prove you wrote them down. Do this seriously. The test exists because people skip it and lose everything later.
This encrypts the key file on disk. It protects against someone opening your laptop — not against losing the seed phrase. The password and the seed are different things; you need both understood separately.
Every send has three variables you control: the destination address, the amount, and the fee. Get any one wrong and there is no undo.
bc1,
1, or 3. Monero addresses are 95 characters and start with
4 or 8. Sending BTC to an XMR address destroys the funds.Google Drive, iCloud Photos, password managers synced online — all of these are reachable if your account is compromised. Paper or metal plate, stored offline, is the standard for a reason.
Malware watches for copied crypto addresses and swaps them. After pasting, read the address in the send field before confirming. Some wallets show the first and last few characters — check those against the original.
A transaction with a fee below current mempool rates sits unconfirmed for days or gets dropped. Electrum lets you raise the fee after sending (RBF) if you enabled it. Plan for network congestion during busy periods.
Some services generate a unique deposit address per user. Sending to an old or someone else's address on the same platform means the credit never appears. Always copy fresh from the page you are logged into — not from a saved text file.
After you log into Drughub through a verified Tor session, the market shows a deposit address on your account page. Get the wallet side right first — backup, test send, correct coin — then copy that address inside Tor. The FAQ lists which currencies the market currently accepts.
A list of 12 to 25 words generated at wallet creation. It is the master backup for your private keys. Anyone with the phrase controls your funds. Write it on paper, store offline — never in cloud storage, photos, or email.
Bitcoin: usually 1–3 confirmations, roughly 10–60 minutes depending on fee. Monero: often credited after 1–10 blocks, typically under 30 minutes. The exact number depends on the service — check its deposit page for the threshold.
Only with the seed phrase. No password reset, no support line, no reversal of a wrong-address send. Lose the seed and the funds are gone permanently.
Official documentation behind the recommendations on this page.