trezor-firmware VS mempool

https://trezor.io/ - Easy to use, no matter how new in Bitcoin you're.

Added (November 2021): https://github.com/trezor/trezor-firmware/pull/1903

Next thing to have is a hard wallet if you haven’t already like a Ledger or a Trezor and let it sit there. That’s the safest thing to do! Also, there’s always been a risk of KYC (Know Your Customer) on CEXes as mentioned several times. This was all meant to be decentralized and keep our identity under wraps and retain that anonymity that crypto was originally designed for… and you get a hold of your keys.

https://trezor.io/ - Easy to use, no matter how new in Bitcoin you're.

where "x.y.z" is the VERSION of trezor (aka TrezorCTL) you are trying to install. See the version history when picking a version. "Oldest" is not necessarily "best". You'll want to pick a version that was released around the same time your Trezor-1 was last updated.

I've purchased a Trezor model T from what I believe is the official Trezor website (https://trezor.io/). Is it rational for me to have a slight fear that it isn't a legit trezor and maybe the chip is compromised, possibly being able to send off my seed to an unknown party?

That's about 50$? I don't blame them https://mempool.space/

get some theory of mind. you are a person who is willing to pay onchain fees to use your trezor or open a channel. there are people in the world who are not willing to pay these fees and they probably outnumber you. and the plan has been spelled out in plain english a million times. the fees are supposed to go up by design. this means that most people will not self-custody, whether it is legal or not, and even if they would like to.

I’m not an expert so someone smarter than me can clarify, but the high/priority rate is the going rate (estimate) to get confirmed on the next block. Medium is the average rate for those transactions to be confirmed next. You can see current and historical rates at mempool.space.

The current fee to get into next block is about 40 sats/vB.

Check mempool.space for a better idea of how big a fee you need to offer to get into the next block.

The mempool is a bit crowed now. A few weeks ago it was only around 5 - 10 cents, and now it is between 3 and 13 dollars. (yesterday even 25 dollar) If you have a lot of UTXO's it can be very expensive to consolidate them all. In that case I would wait till the mempool is less crowed for lower transaction fees. it is important to understand that whirlpool or wasabi wallet will take many UTXO's (transaction fees) to mix your coins and maybe in the future exchanges don't want to touch your mixed coins. I mixed all my KYC coins as I'm not planning to exchange my bitcoin for fiat via a exchange in the future.