Topic: [100 dots] seed phrase backup - page 2. (Read 782 times)

I think you'll find my workmanship is perfect and all my fence posts are exactly equal in height.

While watching old episodes of Home Improvement, I got another (even crazier) idea: store bits in your garden fence:

You need 256 bits, so you'll need 257 planks. Starting from the left, going up is 1 and going down is 0. The above image would read 11110000 Unless you're Wilson, in that case it reads 00001111.

You can easily create a backup by taking some family pictures in the garden.
Who's going to notice? And who's going to look for patters that could be seed phrases everywhere now?

For more security Distribute the seed over several plates:
Here's Sam00's idea, here you spread your seed over 3 plates and hide each one separately, and if one is found by an unauthorized person, everything is still safe since you need two out of three plates.

Plate 1: words 1-8 and 17-24
Plate 2: Words 9-15 and 17-24
Plate 3: Words 1-8 and 9-15


Or better use a BIP 39 cryped seed

For information: BIP39 supports an additional passphrase. If you use this feature, lost seed lists are not a big problem. Nice side effect is "Plausible Deniability". Nobody can prove to you whether it is an empty HD Wallet or not. Different passphrases or even no passphrase simply result in a different wallet. You can theoretically store a small amount of money on another wallet instance with the same seed words, while the correct balance can only be accessed with the correct passphrase.

PS: my plate is also tested by Jameson —> https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/reviews/willi-recovery-seed-plate/

People who know about bitcoin and seed phrase backup solution probably know about similar system like this.
This is not the first time I see stainless seed plates that use combination of letters and number that combine to seed words, but I never like it.
I don't think this is bad in any way but I think it's inferior compared to Steel Washer backup, maybe because you need to have the full list of seed words.
Positive side is that it's probably easier do stamp dots on stainless seed plate (or paper).

One bitcointalk member willi9974 is selling similar product Willi's Recovery Seed Plate:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/stainless-steel-bitcoin-recovery-seed-plate-5323755

OneKey is selling similar plates made from aircraft-grade titanium:
https://onekey.so/products/onekey-keytag/

All Metal Bitcoin Seed Storage Reviewed by Jameson Lopp contain several plates like this:
https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/

Perfect. Personally I don't want to bother with laminating paper etc. So I follow this approach: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.62910792. It is also kind of waterproof because of all the packaging. However it's not fireproof. But as we said, I am not afraid of the fire since I have 2 backups in separate places. And the chances of both those places burning up at the same time is tiny to non-existent.

I'm also a bit doubtful about my method. But I will try to make some backup and put it on another safebox in my home.

I just tried laminated paper and I poured 1 bucket of water, it does not seep and there is no splash in the paper. but of course, that method does not work for fire, because of that I keep it a fireproof safe box.

Are you serious? At least you can say Fireproof and Water Resistant A4 paper is easy to tear, burns quickly, and I don't think a wipe will be enough to be able to read the words well.

Try it Then test restoring the seed before funding it.

The tricky part is finding the exact dimensions back 10 years later, if you don't have a printed table anymore. It may take some trial and error to print the exact format again for recovery. And you should probably not keep it in the same safe

I just imagine printing that method on A4 paper without using a metal seed.

That A4 paper I laminate and save it in a metal safe box with fireproof.

What do you think?,
I think it's pretty safe. I made it just to trick if there were thieves force come into my house.
The thieves will be confused seeing that 100 dot and don't know what it is.
So if I made it on metal, maybe he would have stolen it, and thought it's quite valuable dropped it in steel.

If you would include the rest of my quote, then you absolutely can. There is no scenario where a given temperature will melt stainless steel, but aluminum would survive. There is no need to use multiple different metals for different scenarios, because for the things we are interested in stainless steel will always outperform aluminum.

Well, it depends. "Better" is subjective.

Yes, stainless steel will always survive any incident better than paper. But then it depends on your threat model and your individual circumstances. You can hide a tiny slip of paper in far more places than you can hide a metal plate. You don't need to worry about things like metal detectors. What if there is a hurricane, or a flood, or a fire, or an explosion? Perhaps I want my back up to be destroyed so it doesn't wash up on a street somewhere for someone else to find, or for someone else to find in the rubble. And what's more likely - I spend days or even weeks manually sifting through rubble or exploring the wreckage looking for my metal back up, or I simply go and retrieve my second back up from a different location?

I use black ink and thick paper (300gsm) and I put it in card sleeves (like these https://www.amazon.com/s?k=card+sleeves&crid=QHQWRBIWB1WW&sprefix=card+sleeves%2Caps%2C196&ref=nb_sb_noss_1). I used to have a lot of these cause I used to play trading card games. Then I put the sleeves in zip plastic bags (like these https://www.amazon.com/Reclosable-Resealable-888-Display-USA/dp/B07V5R9CV2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=24D690NZRCAGX&keywords=small+zip+plastic+bag&qid=1695835517&sprefix=small+zip+plastic+bag%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-2). Finally, I put them in bubble mailers (like these https://www.amazon.com/Quality-Park-Envelopes-Redi-Strip-QUA85755/dp/B08QZCY3KY/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=K04CYNKFIIX8&keywords=post+bag&qid=1695835568&sprefix=post+bag%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1). Then I put them in secret places  I revisit them twice a year to make sure they are ok and once a year I rewrite them.

If you 've ever thought you knew what insanity is, please reconsider 

I meant the use of power tools (electric engraver), instead of hand tools (hammer and engravers). Ultra-efficient electrical equipment is not needed. You can limit yourself to cheap and simple Dremel analogues. To make dots on a metal plate instead of using a hammer. You can limit yourself to not completely drilling a through hole, but you can drill right through. This is optional.

A completely reasonable solution that can be applied. In principle, sometimes, a paper storage medium may be sufficient if we talk about short-term backup and the presence of long-term backup. Only it would be better to cover the paper with a protective layer, such as lamination. Better yet, use cardboard instead of paper. But this is all a matter of "taste".


You can never predict what will be needed and what will not.

How about having 2 metal plate backups in different locations? This will be better than the same thing made from paper, right.

This is why I back them up. I was born in 1994. If my passphrase was 1994, why would I bother backing it up? I mean I can safely assume that I will remember it. As a software engineer, but more importantly as a rational person, I can state that on the internet there is no such thing as "100% security" or "100% privacy". We can only try to diminish single points of failure and avoid silly mistakes. We can educate ourselves to think calmly and rationally. If I have a single backup (in the strongest material of the world), if I lose it, I am done... At the same time, if I have two backups at the same geographical place, it's stupid. I know these things are trivial and super simple to realise but I come across people that don't understand them. A friend of mine told me the other day that he had two backups of his seed phrase, in the same drawer. He said "two is better than one". I felt I had to explain the simplest thing, but apparently I had to do it. He also had his passphrase backed up in the same drawer all together. The back up was something like "my birth year". Anyone who stole this paper could just try all the years from 1923 to 2023 (assuming he is not older than 100yo and not younger than 1yo ). Just observe how many mistakes were made by my friend, that have nothing to do with Bitcoin, but it's just common sense.

But, at this point, I would like to merit you personally, because you have helped me a lot in this journey. And LoyceV too. As I have stated in other threads, I also have a multisig vault. The backing-up idea of the XPUBs in a cyclical manner along with the seeds wasn't so obvious to me at first, but it is a great idea after all.

What I try to say with these two paragraphs is, we must think rationally. Establish the proper precaution measures, that are trivial to everyone. Then, take small steps to ameliorate things even more.

Provided your passphrases are strong enough. You strike me as someone who does indeed use long and complex passphrases, but as we know many people use weak passwords, use names or dates, reuse passwords across multiple accounts, and so on, and the same applies to wallet passphrases as well.

It would also be the last thing I worry about, not because I use metal but because I know I have other back ups off site. Should your house burn down, are you going to sit and sift through the debris looking for your steel plate back up? Will it be safe to do so? Will the fire service or similar even allow you to do that? What about if you live in an area prone to flooding or hurricanes, and your steel plate back up ends up a few kilometers away? How are you ever going to find it? An off site back up is significantly more important than using metal over paper.

In fact, I have lost money before. I have opened a relevant thread. It didn't matter how well I had backed up my wallet. I made more severe mistakes.

Having two backups is vital. We don't discuss about this actually. The only wallet for which I have no dual backup is my multisig vault where I have the necessary redundancy with 3 cosigners backed up once.

Finally, I also have two backups of my passphrase. I don't trust my memory at all. So I have 2 wallets (2 seeds + 2 passphrases). I have backed them up as follows:

Place 1: Seed A + Passphrase B
Place 2: Seed B + Passphrase A
Place 3: Seed A + Seed B
Place 4: Passphrase A + Passphrase B

Losing 1 packet, I have no problem. If an attacker steals 1 packet they cannot take my funds from any wallet.

Even losing 2 packets, I have a small chance of not losing all my money.


It is the last thing I will worry about. It must be devastating, seeing your house on fire.

This is unnecessary.

For all the qualities of the metal we are interested in for our purposes here - durability, strength, malleability, reactivity, melting point - then titanium is better than stainless steel, which is better than copper, which is better than aluminum. If a piece of aluminum will survive certain conditions, you can be certain the same sized piece of stainless steel would also survive those conditions and more.

I've said this before, but I think people who use these metal options generally worry about the wrong things. Far more important than having one super durable metal back up, is having two back ups. I'd much rather have two paper back ups in separate locations than one metal back up stored in the same place as my wallets themselves (i.e. at home), which in reality is no back up at all.

House fires hit around 1000 Celsius, so you are quite safe with either stainless steel or titanium.

Yes, that's what I saw too.

I think when it comes to corossion resistance, then Grade 5 is the winner.

When it comes to heat, I saw this on the internet:

Metal	Melting point (C)
Aluminum	660
Copper	1084
Stainless Steel	1510
Titanium	1670

I guess that according to titanium grade you can only go higher than 1670 Celcius.

Anyway, according to Wikipedia there are 38 grades for Titanium alloys, so.........

From what I understand, Grade 5, also known as Ti-6Al-4V or TC4 (titanium-aluminum-vanadium alloy), is the most commonly available commercially and generally provides better characteristics compared to pure titanium (Grades 1-4). The price is only slightly higher than that of pure titanium plates.

Yeah and depending on the application you can choose your desired grade. Take a look at this page: https://www.titaniumprocessingcenter.com/tips-choose-right-titanium-grade/

I found 25x25 cm at 1 mm thickness for 22 euro. It turns out there are different grades of titanium, I guess they're different alloys with different characteristics.