It has been some months that I have been in this forum, I have started making arrangements for transacting with Bitcoin in the aspect of buying and storing. I don't have much knowledge of wallet to the extent of knowing a preferable wallet to use for storing my Bitcoin, right now I know that Bitcoin is a valuable asset from my understanding but other people doesn't accept the fact that it is really an asset, so I want to know a good wallet to use for my Bitcoin because I notice that some wallet my friends recommend to me are all exchange kind of wallet and I was told that it's not proper to use an exchange wallet for storing or saving of Bitcoin for a long time. I wish to have more recommendation or articles to read concerning wallets and it's security values but during my research I was recommended to use electrum wallet but I was confused if electrum wallet is an exchange or a custodial wallet, therefore i need a good direction, clarification and update of suitable wallet from senior colleagues.
Well, I don't know what other users have said, but for me, electrum is a great wallet, it is actually a non-custodial wallet, and I think the wallet is open source too (this I am not very sure) but regardless, electrum wallet is one of the top bitcoin wallets recommended by many, but this is if you do not have plans of going for a hardware wallet like trezor and the likes, hardware wallets are actually the best in terms of security of your bitcoin and maybe other crypto assets you might want to invest in in the future.
I would personally advice you go for a hardware wallet if you intend to hold your bitcoin for a very long time, wallets like electrum, mycelium and the likes are much better used as hot wallet for day to day sending and receiving bitcoin, hardware wallets are best for storing bitcoin as a long term investment.
The high security can only be achieved with the help of non custodial wallets. Its even better for OP if they just keep loading their paper wallets instead of loading the bitcoin in any type of wallets. My experience with hardware wallet and paper wallet has been way good than the software wallets. I am surfing the wallet software thread and seeing that their are many arguments and bugs in the wallets thus leading everything towards black hole with surprises.
The paper wallet advantage: You wont be exposing your wallet info over the internet once it is printed and all its digital copies are deleted. Their is virtually no existence of that data since it would be on a printed paper. As long as OP does not insert the private keys in imported wallet they are way safer than any other form of wallet.