Examined Oct 2, 2026 Hardware wallet No recovery phrase by default A Tangem referral code saves you 10%. So does typing an email address into their website.
A friend’s code and Tangem’s own newsletter box put the same discount on the same order. A referral code buys you nothing extra, because the same 10% sits behind an email capture box on Tangem’s own pages. The part of this purchase that genuinely deserves your attention is further down: Tangem has no recovery phrase unless you create one, and the backup can only be made once.
Where the money really goes
| You, buying with a friend’s referral code | 10% off |
|---|---|
| You, entering an email address on tangem.com instead | The same 10% off |
Do this, in this order
- Take the 10% the easy way and stop shopping for codes. Tangem’s own pages carry an email box headed “Leave an email, get 10% discount”. Using a friend’s code costs you nothing extra either.
- Buy the three-card set, not the two-card set. Tangem is sold in sets of two or three devices and you cannot buy a single card. The cards are clones of each other and they are your only backup.
- Understand that the backup is a one-time operation. Tangem states you can back up and clone a private key only once. Add one backup card now and you cannot add another to that wallet later. Tangem’s only way round it: “If you want to add a third device to an existing wallet, you must reset the wallet to factory settings and create a new one with all three.” That means moving every coin out first. Decide on three at the moment of purchase.
- Know that there is no recovery phrase by default. Many hardware wallets hand you a recovery phrase, also called a seed phrase, a list of words that can rebuild your wallet on any device if the hardware is lost. Tangem is seedless unless you deliberately choose to create one. Tangem puts the consequence bluntly: losing all your devices will result in losing your funds. Some people find that liberating, because there is no phrase for a thief or a phishing email to extract. Others should not touch it.
- Store the cards in genuinely separate places. The whole point of a two or three card set is that one of them survives a fire, a burglary, or a house move. Two cards in the same drawer is one card with extra steps.
- Buy only from the official store. Third-party marketplace sellers have shipped tampered or already set up devices. If you do choose to create a recovery phrase, write it on paper, never type it into a phone or computer, never photograph it, and never share it. No legitimate company will ever ask you for it.
- Do not plan around a limited-time promotion. Tangem runs promotions on top of the standing 10%, and they change without notice. On October 2, 2026 the banner at the top of Tangem’s affiliates page read “EXTRA 10% OFF all Tangem products. Till Oct 25”. A week earlier it offered “FREE Shipping to Your Country” “Till Sep 30”, and our saved copies show that deadline read Sep 15 and then Sep 22 earlier in September. The home page also ran a flash sale headed “We drop prices for 20%”. In August and July the banner was a second-wallet discount and a bitcoin offer. A date on a promotion is not a promise that it ends, or that it lasts. Check the live page for what is actually running rather than trusting any number, ours included.
Is it worth your time?
The referral is not worth your time. Ten percent is ten percent whether it came from a friend or from a newsletter box, so take whichever is in front of you and move on. The wallet itself is a real decision: a seedless card set with a one-shot backup is either exactly what you want or exactly what will ruin your week in five years. Spend the time you would have spent code hunting on choosing the three-card set and finding two safe places to keep them.
Once you own a Tangem yourself, you can activate its referral program in the mobile app and earn 5 USDT, a stablecoin worth about five dollars, for each sale made through your link, paid on the Tron network into your own Tangem wallet about a month after the purchase. There is no PayPal or bank transfer option, and Tangem publishes no standalone, dated referral terms on the web.
You'll receive 5 USDT directly to your Tangem Wallet (Tron network address) for each wallet bought with your promo code.
