ELLIPAL Titan review: Beginner-friendly security

In the last five years, cryptocurrency hardware wallets have gone from being an obscure way to securely manage digital assets, to a popular tool used by even inexperienced crypto investors.

With an explosion in the number and variety of different digital assets available, the number of hardware wallets on the market has surged; each with their own unique feature set.

The ELLIPAL Titan is just one of a number of options in a crowded field of hardware wallets. First released in 2018 and priced at $169, it's heftier than many of its USB stick-sized rivals, with a bulky build that's reminiscent of a smartphone. It's also completely air-gapped for extra security, with no wireless connectivity.

Does the ELLIPAL Titan stack up against its sleeker, more modern rivals? We go hands-on to find out.

ELLIPAL Titan review: Design and build

The ELLIPAL Titan resembles a small, robust smartphone, with an aluminum alloy frame that measures a sizable 118 x 66 x 9.7mm. The wallet's completely sealed, making it tamper-resistant; anyone who attempts to disassemble and reassemble the device will leave obvious damage. Its sealed design also makes the ELLIPAL Titan one of the few dust and water-resistant hardware wallets available.

The front of the device is dominated by a 4-inch touchscreen display, while the rear adorned with a textured metal rear panel and features a slightly protruding 5-megapixel camera. There is only one button to speak of—a power button located on the right side of the device.

ELLIPAL Titan review: What's in the box?

The ELLIPAL Titan comes in a flip box that lacks the security seal or holographic sticker some other hardware wallet manufacturers package their products with.

Inside, you will find the ELLIPAL Titan device itself, along with a flat micro-USB charging cable, a security adapter used for updating and charging the device, and several stickers.

You also get a quick start guide, thank you note and a card used for storing your 12-word mnemonic recovery phrase.

ELLIPAL Titan review: Getting started

Initializing the ELLIPAL Titan is a fairly painless process, and should only take a few minutes for most people. You'll need your smartphone nearby to complete the process.

After selecting your language from the four available options, the ELLIPAL Titan will ask you to download the associated ELLIPAL app. You'll then need to create an account on the device by selecting an account name and a password, following which the ELLIPAL Titan will display your 12-word mnemonic recovery phrase. This needs to be stored in a safe place and confirmed on the device before you can choose which cryptocurrencies to manage on your device.

Once that's done, you'll be able to connect each wallet to the ELLIPAL app individually by scanning the QR code presented on the ELLIPAL Titan through its associated smartphone app. Once connected, this cryptocurrency can then be directly managed through the app, while sensitive actions such as sending cryptocurrency will need to be confirmed on the ELLIPAL Titan.

ELLIPAL Titan review: Ease of use

Unlike most hardware wallets, which draw power through a USB cable, the ELLIPAL Titan features a built-in 1,400 mAh battery with a standby time of up to 259 hours. That means you don't need to plug it into a computer or smartphone to function, and you can tote your wallet about for more than a week without needing to recharge.

Most wallet management operations are performed on the associated ELLIPAL app, which is available for both iOS and Android devices. Through the app, users can create transactions, before signing them on their ELLIPAL device. The ELLIPAL Titan uses its built-in camera to scan transaction QR codes created on the app—enabling you to verify the transaction address on the Titan's screen before signing it and helping to prevent address-swap attacks. It's typically a quick process, which should take less than a minute if performed correctly.

The ELLIPAL Titan's large color touchscreen and Android-like OS make navigating around the device a simple task compared to the miniscule displays and two-button interfaces seen on devices like the Ledger Nano S and Trezor One.

ELLIPAL Titan review: Features

As a completely air-gapped device, the ELLIPAL Titan lacks any sort of wireless connectivity. It also lacks any input ports and instead has to be updated using the supplied security adapter, which has a built-in microSD card port.

The Titan is also rated IP65 for dust and water resistance, meaning that it's completely dust resistant and is able to withstand weak water jets but not complete submersion. Nevertheless, that's more water-resistant than bestselling wallets like the Ledger Nano X and Trezor One, though it's pipped to the post by the IP68-rated Cobo Vault.

The ELLIPAL's associated mobile app comes with some additional features; as well as letting users directly exchange cryptocurrencies with the added security of the associated hardware wallet, it includes market tracking tools and lending products similar to those found on Binance.

The Titan is also one of the few cryptocurrency hardware wallets that allow owners to create multiple accounts on the same device. With this feature, users can easily separate their finances into separate accounts, allowing for improved budget and portfolio management. ELLIPAL claims that users can store as many as 10 accounts on a single device, but this can vary based on the size of each account.

Although the ELLIPAL Titan offers features that are difficult to find elsewhere, it does lack the additional functionality provided by some of its rivals, including FIDO U2F support and multi-signature compatibility.

ELLIPAL Titan review: Security

Unlike many new cryptocurrency hardware wallets, the ELLIPAL Titan completely lacks USB and wireless connectivity. This makes the device immune to network-based and other types of remote attacks. Since the ELLIPAL Titan is an air-gapped cold storage wallet, remote attacks are practically impossible. Physical attacks are similarly difficult, since the wallet will automatically wipe itself if it detects a physical breach.

The ELLIPAL Titan's secure enclosure is impact and crush resistant, ensuring funds are kept safe even if the hardware wallet is dropped or knocked.

Access to the device is protected by an 8-32 character password which can include symbols. If this password is entered incorrectly too many times, the wallet will be automatically erased. For those who want to add an additional layer of security to their device, the ELLIPAL Titan also supports passphrase protection. This passphrase takes the form of an extra word added to the 12-word recovery phrase, and will need to be entered when attempting to recover the wallet using its recovery seed.

However, like many hardware wallets, including the Trezor One, the Titan can be breached if a sophisticated attacker is able to gain physical access to the device—as was demonstrated by the Ledger Donjon team. Moreover, the ELLIPAL Titan lacks a secure element like those seen in some competing wallets, like the Ledger Nano X and Cobo Vault, which is widely considered to be the gold standard in hardware wallet security.

Nonetheless, most potential exploits can be avoided by simply restricting physical access to the wallet, while keeping its firmware up-to-date.

ELLIPAL Titan review: Supported crypto assets

The ELLIPAL Titan supports a total of 33 different blockchains and more than 7,000 tokens—including most of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, as well as some offbeat choices.

Some of the major supported assets include;

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH) and ERC20 tokens
• Litecoin (LTC)
• Tether (USDT)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Ripple (XRP)
• DASH (DASH)
• Vechain (VET)
• Tron (TRX) and TRC10/TRC20 tokens
• Digibyte (DGB)
• Verge (XVG)
• EOS and EOS tokens

According to its website, ELLIPAL adds new coins to the Titan every month. A full list of supported cryptocurrencies can be found on the ELLIPAL Coin List page. Titan users will need to update the device's firmware using a microSD card to begin managing newly added assets.

Although the ELLIPAL Titan supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies, privacy coin holders may be disappointed to find a lack of Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC) support.

ELLIPAL Titan review: Verdict

At its current price of $169 (barring discounts), the ELLIPAL Titan sits firmly in the mid-range price bracket, competing with the likes of the Ledger Nano X and Trezor Model T.

That $169 buys you a robust device that should thwart practically any remote attack, while allowing you to store dozens of different cryptocurrencies in a single wallet. At around the same size as a small smartphone, the ELLIPAL Titan certainly isn't one of the smallest hardware wallets on the market. However, it does feature one of the largest screens of any hardware wallet, as well as an intuitive user interface, making it suitable for less experienced cryptocurrency holders.

Whether the ELLIPAL Titan is suitable for your needs will likely depend on whether you favor absolute portability and security, or prefer a mix of security and usability—since the Titan squarely fits the latter option. All-in-all, the Titan is a solid contender in today's hardware wallet market.