Topic: A quick reminder to all beginners, the cloud is someone's else computer. (Read 177 times)

Wallet backups must be stored offline, not online, and not in any cloud storage.

Because cloud storage means online environment and you have to rely on their cloud storage provider to secure their data base, and your account security too. You can set up strong password, and activate 2FA for your account but if that platform database is compromised, hackers will steal your account. Worse, they are hackers so that they have tools to automatic scan and find cryptocurrency wallet or backups.

How to back up a seed phrase?

If you are saying Cloud == Internet, then you are kind of wrong. Cloud can be used if you are storing your data on Cloud Storage providers like G Drive but you can only access it with Internet and even Bitcoin, you need internet to mine. And it should be common sense by now not to store your private data on Cloud as it can always be breached, always store it safe.

Two quick notes to counter some of the replies here:

• Google Drive / iCloud backup is an opt-in service -- your recovery seed won't be stored in the cloud unless you choose to store it in the cloud.
• TrustWallet encrypts your recovery seed: it is not stored in plaintext. As long as you choose a long randomly-generated password, your recovery seed is safe even if someone recovers the encrypted version of the seed.

I would argue that storing an encrypted version of a recovery seed to the cloud is far superior to many of the common techniques that people use, such as taking a screenshot, writing the recovery seed in a draft email, or the worst: not recording their recovery seed at all!

Is this the only warning that scares you about trust wallet, Trust wallet has proven in the past that it shouldn’t be used for any reasonable cryptocurrency storage. They are closed source wallet which is not that good for a cryptocurrency wallet as have codes that stores your key or phrases with them. Also they are rumored to been owned by Binance a centralized exchange which is another red flag for them. I could Remember ledger switching or implement different options like this for seed phrase storage until they started getting hack regularly.

My advice is stay off Trust wallet, create a new wallet. There many multi coin wallets that can be used for storing Altcoins and bitcoin, you can use Unstoppable or metamask as software wallets or use a hardware wallet instead. Do not import your seed phrase from trust wallet to your new wallet rather creat a new wallet instead and sweep the coins there

I just found out that Trust Wallet has a backup option to store the seed phrase in Google Drive if selected this is a bad option because you are risking that it may be easily compromised or your google drive account cannot be accessed.

It's almost like Google Authenticator telling users to sign in to their cloud but I never do it especially for seed phrases that are much more important.

I read about the badness of Trust Wallet lately where many have complained about this wallet as well as closed sources so it is not recommended to anyone after reading a lot of news so before the incident happened, I just stopped using Trust Wallet.

Offline is the present peace of mind and security, I don't trust anything that have been hosted by the Internet and just as you spelt out the obvious fact, making a wallet backup on cloud storage is like posting your secrets phrase on a social media, there is no security and there is no privacy, because the owner of the app who is at the back end know almost everything you thought he may not and can use your information at anytime.


Even for best security you should change or use different password on any new site or apps you use that demands for password and email the real hacking starts from there.


Trust wallet is not an option for me this is because of it association with binance I don't know how the public claim's are with binance ownership, but still on that trust wallet is also centralized for my liking so I don't use them and even if I do I rather write my wallet keys down or even snap it and have it saved offline

Though they make it easier to manage all your cryptocurrencies since they have almost all the coins and tokens available, it is never recommended to use custodial wallets which means that even though they let you have a seed phrase for your wallet, you don't get your private keys for each wallet that you are using which means that if you lose access to your Trust Wallet account or if something goes wrong with the app itself, you won't be able to access your funds stored in any of the wallets you have been using such as your Trust Wallet Bitcoin wallet.

So it's better if people use non-custodial wallets for each cryptocurrency they own so that they can have access to their private keys so that they can import and use those wallets in any other wallet software in the future in case the wallet provider goes offline or something else happens or they just want to migrate to some other wallet software.

For obvious reasons trust wallet is not a "trust wallet"

Ever since I got here I have learnt that any wallet that is a closed source wallet is not advisable for someone to use for storing their crypto assets which has been repeated over times and is not recommended for any reasons.

Personally, I use trust wallet but in a very sentimental way, I can't have more than a $100 in a trust wallet for up to 24hrs, I do not like it for once because it ends up becoming an issue once you begin to use them frequently. Your funds are always in a danger, for this I only use trust wallet for any kind of temporary transactions or especially free airdrops that tends to be so much interesting as I know that it wouldn't require any of my hard earn money.

Anything prune to losses should always be avoided, instead of recommending trust wallet which is obviously not a true wallet, you can suggest a wallet like Metamask, as it's an open source wallet.. it's more safer than the so called trust wallet for a beginner.

I also updated my trust wallet app but the lucky is that I don't have the one that has fund inside active on the app, like log it off from the trust app so this could be a reason why I didn't have my fund stolen from the wallet, but we have to be very mindful with the kind of places we store our seed phrase and private keys because for someone to go keep their seedphrase online makes it look so risky and there is every tendency for them to lose their funds including leaving their address active without logging out from the wallet itself makes more riskier.

Protecting your private key or seed phrase is an important part when making use of a Bitcoin wallet because if someone gets access to your wallet, that person will move your bitcoin to another secured wallet that you will not have access to, and you will lose your bitcoin. Backing up your private key online is just like someone who is keeping his bitcoin in a centralized exchange. You can lose your bitcoin if your computer is attacked by malware, someone can get access to the information stored on the computer, and you will lose your bitcoin to hackers. The best way to store your private keys is to carefully write it down on paper and save it in different locations. We should also stop using public WiFi and unsecured software so that we will not lose our bitcoin.

Wallets like trust wallet, are mostly web3 wallets and most of these wallets have recently been equipped with Google drive backup option. I usually don't advise others to store valuable coins in them, you can only create such wallets and use it for airdrops or web3 tokens. The option is meant to be a choice so it's up to a user to let his seed be stored on drives therefore exposing them to greater risk. Cloud can be prone to cyber attacks so it would be stupid for any reason investor to store his seed in them. It's also good that your friend asked you questions before using the option at least now he learnt and didn't make a terrible mistake.

the rate of deprivation of privacy that's now rampant on our mobile device makes it totally unsafe to ever store your private key or any access point to your finance on the Internet or on your mobile device. Most of these apps and mediums that promises end to end encryption aren't even keeping to thier words and you can't risk keeping your security pass on an exposed medium like the Google clowed or even your email address.

Scammers have risen and the truth is that we can't 💯 trust these exchanges to the point of assuming that because they recommended that we save our seed phrase on the clowe that it's definitely the best option available. Even the better option of saving in in your mind isn't secured as you have a high probability of loosing it if you ever forget it. Remember that loosing asses to your seed phrases means you've lost asses to your coin so save yourself the stress and ensure you keep your security keys on a paper and in an environment to that's safe and secured. If possible, it's even best to duplicate it into different forms and keep it in different locations so you're damn sure that you're at a safer end.

I have to crop out the rest of the comments and keep this review picture because that's the most important thing we should be talking about. However with this new features that's added to trust wall it can easily be compromised if any hacker have an access to the email linked to the Google drive.
I don't see any reason for trust wallet to add such things in to the wallet since it has been working perfect from days back as the review already said. It won't end well for anyone who's using the Google Drive to back up his/her wallet in this present age where hackers are always looking for what they can test their skills on.

Why would trust wallet add up Google drive to back up your recovery seed, it can be tampered with because it will be prone to hackers.
I know there are lots of documents that is saved on Google Drive, but your recovery seed which is you're top secret shouldn't be one of it.
Your seed phrase should be within you alone or where you've written it down, bringing in a cloud storage system is like bringing in a third party which for me is not among the initial idea of having a seed phrase. Hackers and scammers are scavenging the whole of the internet every day looking for who to devour, so keeping your keys offline should be your priority.

Do not recommend trust wallet to others. It is not open source and they claim to be which makes it worse. Anything could be going on at the back-end and you will have no idea about it.

This drive back-up is just another reason not to use the wallet or recommend it.

- Jay -

When you use a third party service, use their infrastructures and databases to store your sensitive information like your email/ account's passwords, your Bitcoin wallet's private keys/ mnemonic seed, extended passphrase and so on, it's big mistake.

It's because in Bitcoin, we know "Trust no one."; "It's your private keys, it's your bitcoins".

Trust third party services such as Cloud storage, to store private keys/ mnemonic seeds is a bad practice that breaks all above warnings and rules.

Hi Ethan, thanks for the reply, now listen to me, no security information is saved when you store them in your email, I dare you to do some diggings on Email scams and see yourself, no single email is safe from scammers, if they want something in that email the chances of getting it is very high, it is not very different from Sim card swap scams too.

They all have one thing in common, online aka the internet, if you can keep your security informations offline you have neutralized 80% of possible getting leaked, and the remaining 20% is what we can all live with, and that's by guiding the informations yourself, better than letting someone else  or something else do it for you.

Thank you for the information. Despite the fact that I have been using TrustWallet and didn't realize this when I downloaded it, I will now be cautious when recommending it to others. However, I would advise you to save your security information on your email rather than writing it down to prevent it from being lost or invalidated when you're not around.

Seeing they say is believing, so I had to re-install the trust wallet on my phone, but didn't get a "Google drive" backup option.
I decided to check the "reviews and ratings" of Trust wallet on play store and found out that there are people who have identified it already. it seems lots of users are already using the Google drive backup option. I wonder what this users understand about third party involvement . So sad 😢 . We should be guided and take precautions. No one here enjoys reading threads of missing funds.

The security of your coins is solely your responsibility. Never store your private keys online (that includes email, chatlogs, notepad, spreadsheets, cloud, google drive, txtfile, e.t.c). The best way to store your private keys is to store your keys offline (write on paper or engrave them on steel). You should have at least two backups, preferably in different locations.

It doesn't matter how big a crypto wallet company is, they can act stupidly at any time and it takes your smart sense to shun their stupid idea or trust the stupid idea and later pay for it.

Beginners listen, even if a crypto wallet is the first on the best list of wallets out there, the moment they make a stupid upgrade available like what Trust Wallet did, just know that they have downgraded themselves.

Recently I recommended Trust Wallet for someone to use, thankfully he reached out to me about which backup should he use. I told him to just write down his recovery seed and keep it, but I was curious why he asked which backup because I never expected Trust Wallet to have more than one backup.

I asked him what other backup was available, and he said " Google Drive" I at first thought he got the wrong Trust wallet, and asked where he downloaded the wallet from, but he dropped me the official link, so I headed into my Trust wallet which has used for some while now, and it asks me to update to the latest version then I saw that they have added an option to backup using "Google Drive".

This is stupid and unnecessary, if this beginner never asked questions I think he would have felt easier to just use the Google Drive backup instead, why they made this stupid option available is what I can't figure out, it is one of the easiest ways to lose your cryptocurrencies.




It is advisable to avoid using this option if you ever come across one in any crypto wallet you plan to use or the one you are already using, say no to cloud storage, they are easier to get compromised and all you will get is sorry from them, your crypto assets are safer by writing down your recovery seed in a private and offline way.