Border patrol once stopped David Wulschner because of what he carried in his luggage: engraved seed phrases and all of his hardware wallets. He told me that story at CONF3RENCE in Dortmund, where I sat down with Tangem’s brand ambassador to ask why I run into Tangem at nearly every crypto event we cover. His answer was education, and the advice that came with it surprised me more. If crypto is still a sliver of what you own, he said, stick with your exchange for now.
| What you need to know |
|---|
| 1David Wulschner is brand ambassador and content creator at Tangem, the self-custody company registered in Zug, Switzerland, whose hardware wallets come as NFC cards and a ring. |
| 2Tangem's website describes its wallet as seedless by design, with an optional seed phrase and firmware reviewed by Kudelski Security and Riscure. |
| 3Tangem Pay is a prepaid Visa card issued by Rain and loaded with USDC on Polygon, while the main assets stay in the non-custodial Tangem Wallet, according to Tangem's product page. |
| 4My read: Wulschner makes the case for self-custody by telling beginners when they can wait, which makes his advice on hardware wallets practical for people at every stage. |
The full conversation runs just under 18 minutes.
A wallet that looks like a gym card
I started with something I had already told him when he sat down. We cover 15 to 20 events a year, and I see Tangem at nearly every one of them. How do they pull that off?
We are here to educate people. We’re here to teach the people not your keys, not your cryptos.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
Education turned out to include design. I had spotted a large printer at the Tangem booth, so I asked him why a hardware wallet now has to look good. People want to identify with the product, he said. Some want a card with a Bitcoin logo, or a pizza version in memory of the man who paid 10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas in May 2010, and others want the opposite.
I want to be absolutely anonymous, I want nobody see what I do and what I am, just with a black card.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
A hardware wallet with a screen, buttons and a battery is recognisable to anyone, he said, even at an airport. Then he told me why that matters to him personally.
I moved back two years ago from North Carolina with my family and the border patrol, they just stopped me because I have had my engraved seed phrases and all my hardware wallets with me in my luggage.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
A plain card would not have told the officers anything, he said, and Tangem also makes one with nothing printed on it at all.
It could be your gym card, it could be a bonus card from the store or whatever.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
That matters to people who travel with their savings in self-custody. Anyone with a phone can photograph a regular hardware wallet and look up what it is, he pointed out. A black card between a loyalty card and a transit pass gives nothing away.
Read the thread on X
Why the seed phrase is the weak spot
I asked what Tangem brings to an event about emerging technology like this one. He started with a question of his own.
And what is the biggest hack problem in the market out there when we talk about self-custody? Seed phrases, isn’t it?
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
Tangem’s answer, he said, was a wallet you can set up without handling a seed phrase at all.
So you create your self-custody wallet without having to deal with your seed phrases or your private keys.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
In his telling, that design is what brought in people with no crypto background: grandparents, partners and friends who simply want to put something aside for retirement. He still meets people who remember an older hardware wallet that took them half a day to set up.
Just imagine you have to teach someone for half a day to use a hardware wallet. That is a painful situation.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
With the Tangem app, he said, you are guided through the setup in three to four minutes, and the app checks smart contracts and warns you before you pick the wrong network and lose assets.
Trust is a live question for every hardware wallet maker this year, and he raised the Coldcard case himself. TRM Labs traced that exploit to a March 2021 firmware release that made some Coldcard devices generate seeds with weaker randomness than intended, and the thefts began on 30 July 2026. For Tangem’s part, he pointed to its own code.
Tangem is open source, everybody can watch into the code and make sure that we really do and make what we promise.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
He also pointed to Tangem’s bug bounty program, which pays outside security researchers to report weaknesses so they can be fixed before anyone else finds them, and to the warranty on the cards.
Where do you get 25 year warranty on anything out there on the market right now?
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
The firmware has been independently reviewed by Kudelski Security and Riscure, according to Tangem’s website, which lists the chip as certified to EAL6+. The same chip, he told me, now sits in Tangem’s ring, the first product in what he called a wearable series, with more to follow.
Being your own bank as institutions move in
Later I put a bigger question to him. Big institutions keep buying bitcoin and other crypto. How do you convince people not to leave everything on an exchange, where it can be hacked and stolen? He answered with a definition.
One of the most interesting facts that I recognize when it comes to be your own bank, and this is what self-custody is, is you can decide what you want to send to what person at what time in what amount.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
So nobody tells you no, I don’t want you to send that money out there.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
He compared it with how people treat their banks. In Europe we are very attached to ours, he said. Looking back at his years as a machinist in the United States, he remembers colleagues who told him they did not trust their bank and got their money in cash so they could decide for themselves. Self-custody gives you that independence without the cash.
Independence does not mean shutting out the payment system. Tangem offers its own card for spending.
We have an own debit card linked to your account if you want that.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
Tangem’s product page describes Tangem Pay as a prepaid Visa card issued by Rain. You load it with USDC on Polygon and spend only that balance, while your main assets stay in the non-custodial Tangem Wallet. When I suggested that Tangem is ready for whatever traditional finance does next, he agreed and then turned it around.
We love to integrate. We love to work together because this is not a one-way autobahn.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
He also walked me through one practical detail. Anyone who has sent USDT from an Ethereum wallet to an exchange knows you first need ETH to pay the network fee. In the Tangem app, he said, that fee comes out of the USDT itself, and the same works for other assets.
When to move off the exchange
Since he is a brand ambassador, I asked for his elevator pitch to someone torn between an exchange and a wallet. He answered with a play on the word.
I don’t want to elevate people. I want to educate people.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
If you are someone who just is right now at the beginning of the crypto journey and have invested maybe 0.1 percent of their investment portfolio, of their net worth, I would say stick with your exchange.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
But if you come to a point where you will lose your money, it will make you sleepless night and you will have headache and you will feel pain and you cry, then take the next step. Put your money onto a hardware wallet and make sure that you trust this hardware wallet.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
Do your diligence and choose the right one, he added. I told him I had not expected that answer. Coming from the brand ambassador of a hardware wallet company, it showed how seriously he takes the education side of his job. The threshold he describes is personal: the amount you could not lose without losing sleep, and it moves as your stake grows.
He knows how long that learning curve is. He has been in the market since 2016, when he started mining bitcoin with no idea, as he put it, what he was doing. His rule of thumb:
If you just invested 50 hours into the crypto market, you just scratch a little bit on the surface. If you are at 500 hours time, you did your diligence in the crypto markets, you’re a little bit in.
David Wulschner, Brand Ambassador, Tangem
Regulation and tax rules will keep changing, he said, so get to the point where you feel comfortable and then take the next step.
He is also watching the United States, where he expects the CLARITY Act to bring many more people into the market. Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed for cloture on the bill in August, CoinDesk reported, which set up a procedural vote for 2:15 p.m. Eastern time on 15 September, the day we spoke in Dortmund. Cloture needs 60 senators to move the bill to full floor debate. The vote that evening fell short of the 60 votes it needed, CoinDesk reported on 15 September.
On Tangem’s side, the ring is only the first of the wearables he says are coming. Whatever newcomers end up carrying their keys on, most of them will face his threshold question before they choose a wallet: how much could I lose before it costs me sleep?
Read next
Where the risk sits: CONF3RENCE 2026 in thirteen interviews is our complete article on the thread connecting all thirteen conversations.
Every interview we record in Dortmund goes up on our CONF3RENCE 2026 page. Our preview of CONF3RENCE 2026 covers the programme at Kokerei Hansa and how the free tickets work.
If you are still at the exchange stage Wulschner describes, read how CoinJar Europe’s Niall Carson plans to go live across the eurozone without leverage products. Earlier on day one, Bitkom’s Frederic Meyer told me Europe now has to make its crypto rules work for the companies that follow them, and Deloitte’s Alireza Siadat explained why a stablecoin needs a second leg in Europe.
Tangem is at tangem.com and on X as @Tangem.
Recorded at CONF3RENCE 2026, Kokerei Hansa, Dortmund, on 15 September 2026. Quotes are verbatim from the recording with filler removed. Cryptofocus is a media partner of CONF3RENCE. Nothing here is financial advice.
