Part 2/11:
At its core, a hardware wallet such as the Cold Card Q functions as a secure vault for your private keys—the keys that grant access to your Bitcoin. Unlike software wallets that reside on internet-connected devices, hardware wallets keep these keys isolated, ensuring they are never exposed to potential online threats.
The critical distinction is that hardware wallets do not hold the Bitcoin directly. Instead, they house the private keys that unlock and authorize transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. When you initiate a transaction, you're essentially signing it with your private key on the device; only then is the transfer broadcast to the network.