Best Buy has taken a significant step in the cryptocurrency market by offering Tangem’s hardware wallets in over 200 stores across the United States. This marks the largest retail expansion for the Swiss company, bringing its cold storage devices to mainstream electronics retail for the first time at such a scale. The move also complements Tangem’s existing presence at major retailers like Walmart and Amazon, indicating a growing acceptance of cryptocurrency solutions within traditional retail environments.
This expansion comes at a pivotal time when many cryptocurrency holders are choosing to move their assets off exchanges and into self-custody options. The demand for hardware wallets has surged in light of high-profile thefts and breaches that plagued the industry in the preceding years. According to Chainalysis, crypto theft reached a staggering $3.4 billion in 2025, with the breach at Bybit amounting to $1.5 billion—marking the largest individual hack in the history of the cryptocurrency market. Such incidents have heightened concerns about how exchanges secure customer funds and have contributed to individuals experiencing a total of approximately 158,000 wallet compromises last year.
In response to these growing security concerns, many users are shifting towards self-custody solutions, relying on hardware wallets that keep private keys offline and separate from internet-connected platforms. As stricter platform regulations and identity checks prompt this shift, analysts at Mordor Intelligence project the hardware wallet market will skyrocket to $2.25 billion by 2031, following a significant growth trajectory from its current valuation of around $720 million in 2026.
At Best Buy, consumers can find two notable Tangem products: a credit card-sized NFC card and the Tangem Ring, a ceramic wearable device. Both products utilize secure chips to store private keys, eliminating the need to rely on servers or mobile devices. Instead of traditional recovery phrases, Tangem employs backup cards, although users have the option to import a recovery phrase if desired.
Furthermore, Tangem is not the only company pushing the boundaries of crypto self-custody. Other players like Trezor are focusing on simplifying the process for newcomers, while Block Inc. is expanding its own self-custody Bitcoin wallet to a broader audience. The key question that arises from these industry movements is whether this newfound retail access will convert casual shoppers into dedicated self-custody users, a development that stakeholders will be watching closely in the near future.
