Most guides with this title want you to install something. This one starts somewhere else, because for a lot of people the honest answer is that no new app is needed.
You may not need a wallet at all
If you already have an account on a crypto exchange with a balance on it, you can pay from there today. An exchange withdrawal is an ordinary transaction as far as the payment page is concerned: choose the coin, choose the network the page names, paste the address, send.
That route has real advantages for a one-off purchase. The exchange handles network fees out of your balance, so there is no separate gas coin to worry about, and there is no recovery phrase for you to lose.
It also has one real disadvantage, and it is the reason self-custody exists: the exchange holds the funds, not you. Accounts get frozen, platforms fail, withdrawals get paused. For money you are about to spend on a gift card this afternoon, that risk is small. For money you intend to hold, it is the whole question.
So: buying a card today with an exchange balance? Skip this page and go pay. Want somewhere of your own to keep crypto? Read on.
Custodial and self-custody, in one paragraph
A custodial wallet — an exchange account — means a company holds the keys and you hold a login. Forget the password and support can help you. The trade is that they can also freeze it, and their problems become yours.
A self-custody wallet means you hold the keys, in the form of a recovery phrase. Nobody can freeze it and nobody can help you if you lose the phrase. There is no support desk and no password reset, by design.
Neither is the "right" one. They are different trades, and which suits you depends on what the money is for.
Setting up a self-custody wallet
1. Pick a well-established one. A browser extension or phone app from a project that has been around for years, downloaded from the official site or your platform's real app store. Search results and social links are where fake wallets live, and a fake wallet is a wallet whose funds are gone the moment you fund it. Check the URL character by character.
2. Check it supports the networks you will use. We accept BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, BNB and TRX, and USDT specifically on TRC20, ERC20 and BEP20. Not every wallet covers every chain — most people end up with one for Bitcoin and one multi-chain wallet, and that is normal rather than a mistake.
3. Write the recovery phrase on paper. The app shows you twelve or twenty-four words during setup. That phrase is the wallet — anyone with it has your funds, from anywhere, permanently.
4. Then test it. Send a small amount first, confirm it arrives, and only then move a real balance. This catches a wrong network or a mistyped address while the stakes are trivial.
The one rule about your recovery phrase
Never type it into anything except the wallet app itself while restoring.
Not into a website. Not into a form that says it will "verify" or "sync" or "unlock" your wallet. Not into a chat with anyone claiming to be support — no legitimate support, ours included, will ever ask for it, and there is no situation where a real one needs it.
Nearly every drained self-custody wallet was drained this way rather than by anything technical. The phrase is not a password with a reset link behind it; it is the wallet in text form.
Paper in a drawer beats a screenshot, because a screenshot lives in a photo library that syncs to a cloud account protected by a password someone else might guess.
Funding it
Two routes:
- From an exchange. Buy the coin there, withdraw to your wallet address, choosing the same network your wallet expects. This is how most people do it.
- From someone else's wallet. Same rules — address and network must match.
Then remember the detail that stops more first transfers than anything else: the fee to move a stablecoin is paid in the chain's native coin, never in the stablecoin. A wallet holding only USDT cannot send that USDT anywhere. It needs a little TRX on Tron, BNB on BNB Smart Chain, or ETH on Ethereum. Paying with USDT covers this in full.
Then paying is the ordinary flow
Pick a card, check its region, confirm the order, and send the exact amount to the address on the payment page — on the network it names. The full walkthrough is in how to pay with crypto.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a wallet to buy from OnyxGift?
No. An exchange account with a balance is enough, and for a single purchase it is usually the simpler route.
Which wallet should I use?
We do not recommend a specific one, because we would be sending you somewhere we cannot vouch for over time. The criteria that matter: a long-standing project, downloaded from its official source, supporting the networks you intend to use.
Is a hardware wallet worth it?
For a balance you intend to hold long term, many people think so — the keys never touch an internet-connected device. For funds you are about to spend on a gift card, it is more ceremony than the situation calls for.
I lost my recovery phrase but I'm still logged in. What now?
Move the funds to a new wallet whose phrase you have written down, today. While you are logged in you still have access; the moment that app is reinstalled, wiped or the device is lost, the funds are unreachable by anyone.
Someone from "support" asked for my phrase to fix a stuck transaction.
That is theft in progress. No transaction issue anywhere has ever been solved with a recovery phrase — not on our side, not on any exchange, not on any wallet. If your transaction is genuinely stuck, this is what to check, and none of it involves your phrase.
Can I use the same wallet for every coin?
Often, but not always. Multi-chain wallets cover most of what we accept; Bitcoin frequently sits in a separate one. Check the coins and networks before you fund it rather than after.
