[Ads-l] Physical Wallet & Hardware Wallet (absolutely sure it's plain ASCII this time)

[Brian Hitchcock]

Apologies for the gobbledygook earlier.  Michael Quinion got me straightened out on "encoding".
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There needs to be a retronym for a traditional (e.g. leather) wallet that you can store actual credit cards in. This retronym is necessitated by the existence of software-based digital wallets a.k.a. virtual wallets (Google Wallet, ApplePay, etc.). 

There is a term, Hardware Wallet, (apparently not a retronym) which refers not to a traditional wallet, but to a folder (sometimes made of paper) that is intended to store thin payment-oriented hardware devices. For example, in one place, Bitcoin describes their Hardware Wallet as:  "a Secure USB smart card based wallet for crypto-currencies (sic).  Apparently this means a wallet to hold smart-card-based USB devices (hardware) which support cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin).   Elsewhere (on their own Wiki - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardware_wallet  ), Bitcoin defines Hardware Wallet as "a device that stores a part of a user's wallet securely in mostly-offline hardware." So the hardware wallet apparent refers either to the physical folder or to the electronic device it holds! (note that Bitcoin uses 'Wallet' by itself to refer their software/digital/virtual wallet -- bwh) 

There is also now a variety of hardware wallet called HD Wallet (the HD stands for Hierarchical Deterministic, which IIUC has to do with the encryption method for credentials), but that sample of tech argot might be too esoteric or ephemeral  to join the vernacular.

Wikipedia uses the term Physical Wallet in its article on BitCoin, to refer to something (made of any material) that can 'store the credentials necessary to spend bitcoins offline' (This corresponds to one of Bitcoin's definitions for Hardware Wallet, above.) However, Wikipedia does not show Physical Wallet in their list of retronyms ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_retronyms  ). They list no retronyms starting with "physical", nor do they list Physical as a Retronymic Adjective.

It seems to me that Physical Wallet should be applied to any traditional wallet, but maybe we'll have to start calling them Traditional Wallets, or something else. Anyway, I don't believe either Physical Wallet or Hardware Wallet are in dictionaries yet. I'm not sure whether they have cropped up outside of computer-tech or banking circles. 

-->   Is anybody interested in tracking down E.D.U. for physical wallet and/or  hardware wallet, and possibly submitting them to the powers that be (however that might be done) for consideration as new terms?  

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