Dan Carlson

Background

I'm based in Alberta and have worked in software and product for over a decade. My path into hardware wallets started the way it does for most people: I lost access to a hot wallet on a compromised laptop in 2020, then watched several friends get phished out of five- and six-figure balances on exchanges over the following two years. Cold storage stopped being an abstract security concept and became a personal discipline.

What I couldn't find — and still can't find on any global site — was a Canadian-specific answer to the actual questions people have when they finally decide to buy a hardware wallet: Where do I buy it without getting a tampered unit? How much GST/HST will I pay at the border? Does moving crypto to my wallet trigger a taxable event with the CRA? What happens to my seed phrase in a Manitoba winter cabin? What does my executor need to unlock the wallet when I die? That's the gap ColdWallets.ca is built to fill.

Every device I review is bought with my own money — never a PR sample, never an "influencer package." I keep the receipts. When I recommend a wallet, it's the one I'd put my own retirement crypto on.