It's less that I'm confused about the basics and that I'm overly-cautious as a result of underestimating the complexity.
Isn't the Ledger not the wallet, but instead the key to access the wallet? I went to setup Electrum, but the setup instructions seem to suggest it's going to give me a set of seed words different from the ones I got when my Ledger first got here. I was under the impression I'd be using Electrum to trade and my wallet would be separate from that, but it's looking like Electrum is a wallet and I'll just be using the Ledger to access it. Is there a way of going about it without having to set up an entirely new wallet with new seed words? I read that I'll still be using the 24-word seed I got with my Ledger will still be used, but I'm still not 100% on why I'd need a new set of seed words with setting up Electrum.
Think of your seed words as the same as your wallet. A wallet is just a collection of private keys. The private keys for your wallet are generated from the seed words. Your seed words/private keys are what allows you to transact the crypto that is yours on the public blockchain.
Ledger and Electrum are both wallets. You can import your seed words from your Ledger into Electrum if you’d like. However, using a hardware wallet like a Ledger is generally more secure, unless you know how to use Electrum with a cold-storage wallet (high difficulty). Hardware wallets generally are the best combo of security and ease of use. If you want to trade the crypto that is on your Ledger, or any other wallet, you must transfer that to a crypto exchange, such as Coinbase.
Is it like having crypto on a wallet is your cryptocurrency, but having it in a crypto exchange is like owning Bitcoin on Robinhood?
Yes
Your wallet = your bank, your keys, your wallet.
Exchange = their bank, their keys, their wallet.
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