Topic: Seedphrase security - Pros and Cons of offline storage (Read 369 times)

Unless extremely trustworthy, you shouldn't share information such as the location of your seed phrase with anyone. Let alone the seed phrase itself.

That is so underrated feature. You can't steal someone's bitcoin if you merely break into their house. There are nearly infinite ways to hide a seed phrase if you're creative. The thief must force you to give them permission.

Yes, I think it would be safer to have an extra backup as the text for your seed phrases. As Fundamentals Of said and I agree with him that no method is 100% safe. I know people have many methods, but for me, I still like to write them down in a notebook and store them in the place I think is the safest instead of using other complicated methods. I really don't like the OP's method of online storage, but I find it's not too bad.

It looks fine when you're still healthy, but if you suffered a brain injury regardless what the causes e.g. getting old, accident, crash etc, using passphrase isn't safe anymore. Imagine you're the only one person who know the last word, there's no back up and you can't do anything except let it go.

Every method will have its pros and cons, and the unexpected is something we can never predict.  so choose whatever method you think is most suitable for you, don't listen to or imitate others because we are not in the same situation.  many people don't seem to like the OP's method of storage, but if the OP feels that method is safe for you, then you should continue. I'm also storing my seed phrase using 2 USBs, and I've been safe for years now, I have no reason to change my storage method just because of other people's opinions.

If one of your password managers is compromised, chances are the other will be too. A keylogger could still the passwords to both password managers when you unlock them. To mitigate this you should use password managers with parts of your seed on different devices that do not share a common space that could infect them both.

Offline storage could be encrypted too. Wallet seed could require an extension word, or you could use a scheme that results in human-readable encrypted formats. This would solve the problem of having your coins stolen if the seed is stolen, but would add the problem of managing another key.

Maybe you have to learn to not expose yourself that you own bitcoin. An illiterate armed robber or criminal will go for fiat or TV set and not for a piece of paper.

Maybe you didn't hide it at first. I hardly find the TV remote in my house let alone to find a piece of paper in another person's house.

Hide it more than one place and you will not forget if you have coins in the wallet. A good idea to check it once in a while.

Ok, maybe you hid it close to the waste bin because you haven't thrown away your house documents yet

Very true, but you can hide in more than one house.

I generally stink at storing my seed phrases; I've lost quite a few, if I'm honest, so I possibly don't have the best advice to share. In the past, I usually created new text documents and stored them on my computer. It certainly isn't the safest option, while I had lost quite a few because I ended up losing them in the long run. I'm notorious for losing my offline copies as well, writing them inside a notebook or a piece of paper, only to never be seen again. It's a common occurrence for me. Apart from that, I believe that we're being a little too paranoid without reason. Chances are that none of the scenarios mentioned by the OP are going to happen; no one is going to search you at the airport or wherever and find your seed phrase written on a piece of paper.

Personally, I'd either have copies inside books that I don't use and are light to carry around, in USB flash drives with a keychain on them to carry at all times, or perhaps write the seed phrase in an excel file that already has data in it and hide the seed words in white color. I just thought about the latter option, and it doesn't sound too bad. I don't know if the encrypted folder option on your phone is considered safe; it's supposed to not have access to the internet. I wouldn't trust a Xiaomi or similar Chinese-branded one, though, as they're notorious for being infected with malware.

Great, so you are aware of the passphrase? In that case, your seed phrase remains secure even in physical form, and your concerns about potential theft or accidental discovery are no longer relevant.


But think about this. Storing your wallet seed online or on a device hooked up to the internet opens it up to way more security risks than keeping that seed phrase offline and physical, right? I mean, even with a passphrase for extra protection there is still a chance someone could hack into your wallet if they have the computing power, which there is definitely no shortage of these days.  It really depends how complex your passphrase is and the encryption the password manager uses.  But if you go old school and keep that seed phrase offline? The chances of it getting swiped drop big time cause theres just not as many people who could get their hands on it.   

Just saying, it is something to think about if you want to keep your funds truly safe and  there is tradeoffs either way - convenience versus security. 

I would never advise using any kind of storage to save your wallet seed phrase there. Rather, I will advise maintaining your notebook so that you can have all your wallet credentials. For an important wallet like Bitcoin, just make two copies. Secure it somewhere between two places. So even if you destroy one, the other one will help to restore your wallet. There will always be a hard procedure to secure your wallet seed phrase. We have to handle this in a smart way. I am following this, and this is what I believe is the safest way. But you have to choose the right place to secure your credentials.

when you have a valuable item, you must adequately protect it by securing your private key in a location where you are confident that nobody can quickly access it. It will be impossible for anyone to steal it if it is securely secured. Since you are aware of how important bitcoin is, you are also aware of how to safeguard it so that no one would ever guess that you have secretly stored your private key there.

Additionally, try to avoid disclosing your bitcoin holdings to everyone, you don't have to tell them everything. Your investment should be a secret at all times. You become more open to assault the more you reveal about your bitcoin possession.

why wont you be able to recall where your key is kept? i cant just forget about where a valuable asset is kept. It's advisable to often check the location where you secure your key. You shouldn't lock your private key away and leave it laying around. Furthermore, it's preferable your key is secured in different places rather than having it in one place.

It's best you educate your family members about bitcoin. Your wife or spouse should be aware of bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and how you protected your key. If they discover the private key while cleaning the home, I'm confident they won't toss it away after they see it.

If your private key is properly secured, it won't be able to be destroyed by a fire incident. Simply carve your private key onto an iron steel so that it won't be destroyed in the event of a fire or water accident. I advise individuals to safeguard their private keys using that way since, as far as I'm concerned, iron steel cant be destroyed easily.

Okay so you are confront with a 5 dollar wrench attack.

Multiple wallets means they get a piece of your money not all of it.

same as I do with me silver I have bullion and it is easy to find it. Hope thief thinks this is a score I will take this and go.

I don't trust any password managers that are not open source. Lastpass is not open source so I would never use them.

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For another layer of security, I'm also using a password-protected, encrypted PDF file that is stored in the password manager vault.

If my password manager was somehow compromised, a hacker would still need to crack the encrypted PDF file to see whatever they think might be inside it.

Then after that they would also have to figure out my hidden wallet passphrase, but they will not even know about any hidden wallet, because of course it is hidden.

I would suggest putting a small amount of bitcoin in the standard (non-hidden) wallet that the hacker can see so they think that is all you have.

But then use the hidden wallet to store larger amounts.  

For every story about someone losing their funds because they stored their private key electronically,
there are stories about others losing their funds because they stored their private key somewhere offline and it was lost or stolen, etc.

Internet forums are filled with people asking about how to recover their private keys because they put it somewhere in their house and lost it.

In most cases offline storage is still best, but there are pros and cons with either method and none is perfect.



Bitcoin worth $186m lost in landfill
https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2022/08/03/bitcoin-worth-186m-lost-in-landfill-how-a-software-engineer-plans-to-find-his-loot/

It's not just about someone physically accessing the laptop and stealing the seed phrase that's stored in the computer, it can be done remotely with the help of a malware like trojan, infostealer or keylogger. There's a recent case of a someone who lost 2 BTC because he stored his seed phrase electronically. Experience they say is the best teacher, but I don't except that and I would rather learn from other persons mistake. Don't say it's because you don't have enough Bitcoin that's why you won't do the right thing, you never know what your small Bitcoin could worth tomorrow.

Forgot to mention, I am adding an additional layer of security to my password manager setup through the use of hidden wallet passphrases.

A passphrase is any word and/or number combination you make up yourself. As long as your passphrase is stored only in your head it will be impossible for anyone to know what it is.
This is also known as a 25th word (or 13th word if using 12 word seed).

Even if someone steals your seedphrase they will not be able to access (or even see) the funds stored in your hidden wallet(s) without knowing the passphrase.

Holding Bitcoin in a hardware wallet, you back up your seed phrase by writing all the words in a paper or steel plate: you will complain like you pointed out in your thread.

Holding Bitcoin in a hardware wallet, you back up your seed phrase by writing few parts in a paper or steel plate: you will complain if there's a chance you will lose one of your back up.

Holding Bitcoin in a centralized exchange: you will complain the exchange can go bankrupt and it's not safe.

So pick your own way to hold your coins and how to access it!

I guess there isn't really a 100% safe way of keeping our seeds. Whichever way we keep our seeds, there are always pros and cons. But I think the risk is much much higher when we keep it online. The online world is so big. I'd rather just keep them in my tiny house. My house is not a public space so even if there are family and friends who come in every now and then, there are little spaces in which they aren't able to access. Of course it still isn't a guaranteed way as there are still things we cannot control like accidents, but we're just doing it the safest way we think.

Yeah that was why I said earlier i have them stored in several places, and again for additional security purposes I planned to print them out as hardcopy to get stored in my file storage where I have my other important documents. This is another way although if you don't indicate any note that mentioned about BTC non would know that idea is your bitcoin seedphrase.. Also most times I do insert my flash drive to my system to regularly check them to know if they are properly active and working effectively before I had this idea of printing it out as hardcopy file.

I don't believe this, criminals come hunting knowing what they are looking for, the first thing that comes to their mind is cash not crypto wallet, if they come looking for such thing they already know that you have crypto, in my country most people look at me like a nuisance who has lost its way because I believe in Bitcoin, so maybe that's why I am not a target? Robbers now rob the bank because they know people don't keep money at home anymore unless they get information that they are holding some cash at home.

There is no way you can lose or forget your recovery seed because it will be the most important thing in your life, you are holding a bag of bitcoin and you will forget? That's impossible, let's talk about natural disasters, this makes a lot of sense than others, fire can break out and a earth quake or even a massive hurricane, and destroy things, but these doesn't happen everywhere.

You should know if it does, and how to be prepared is your job, in this stage it's better to carve your recovery seemed on a steel, it could be heavy iron that fire won't be able to destroy or a short one that you can move around with when the alarm for a hurricane is coming, thanks for sharing your mind though.

If you use flash drives and phones to store seed phrases, you need to know that electronic products can fail at any time without prior notice to you. So you need to check them regularly and replace them promptly if one of them is broken. Furthermore, storing them on your phone is not a smart idea because what if someone can access your phone? Or your phone suddenly breaks down and you won't be able to access it.

No matter how much or how little bitcoin you own, it is your money and property, you should cherish it in every way. It may only be worth a few thousand dollars now but could be worth $1 million in the future if bitcoin increases in price.

The amount of bitcoin you are holding should determine the level of security you should be worrying about, like me I don't get much disturb over my seedphrase as I do have about 2 flash drive where I print it as pdf and get them stored inside. Also stored them in my system and including my phone, that is, it could be very hard for me to misplaced them or someone got them touched hence, putting myself into pressure is something I wouldn't do because I don't have upto 1 btc or even thousand of it to get myself so much worried about security.
Like a user suggested above, to create about several mails to send them in parts whereby no one knows about it even though they succeeded having access to one mail the rest will be untouchable meaning your security is strong. Note if you forgot the passwords of those mails then your funds is losts especially the main mail you used in sending out to the rest mails.

One simple solution is to split your seed phrase in two. Put one half in a safe bank vault and the other in a quiet corner of your second house where no one lives.

Most often, people are too paranoid and expect troubles that will never happen to them. But for your own peace of mind, it is better, of course, to come up with a way to store the seed phrase from which you can sleep peacefully. If you trust the storage of the seed phrase on a flash drive, make it more difficult to store. Make a hidden volume using programs like Vera Crypt, and place the document with the seed phrase on this volume. If a flash drive accidentally falls into the hands of a hacker or just a random person, no one will be able to decrypt it until they know the main password. In addition, when opening a flash drive, a person will not even realize that something may be hidden on this drive.

Trying to rely on anything digital to store your seeds will increase the possibility of losing them, even if this thing is encrypted or open source. Therefore, the more you use cold storage, the less likely you are to lose your money.
If you travel a lot, it is better for you to use a hardware wallet or extend the seeds with an additional phrase. You can save this phrase in a safe place so that if you lose your seeds (leave a small amount in the main account) you will be able to access all of your holdings using the additional phrase. You can save this phrase in a safe vault or In a different place.

If you can't trust yourself to remember the seed phrase, how can you be sure you'll remember or store your 3 passwords well? You can't guarantee that you'll keep one seedphrase well, you can't do better when you have to keep three passphrases. Your idea is not new, many people have proposed it and discussed it a lot, but in reality it is much more complicated and risky. I still prefer to use offline methods to store my seed phrases, they are safer when they are always with me rather than having to trust online and 3rd parties.

I'm not a fan of digital storage of anything secret, such as using a password manager. A hard copy is the best solution and if you want encryption, then you can still store the physical copy of the encrypted seed phrase.
Besides, the only case when a thief that enters your home is going to steal your seed phrase is if they are specifically targeting you for your bitcoins which means you shouldn't let anybody know you are storing your coins this way! Otherwise thieves are always looking for valuable things they "understand" like jewelry, cash, your TV, etc. They don't really know the value of some words on a piece of paper or better yet if it were written on a page inside a book in your bookshelf.

I think you are making it way complicated. I am already having 3-4 different wallets that includes one hardware wallet and other paper based wallet plus (going to change soon) mycelium wallet. I have properly stored the seed phrases by writing them down on paper in the perfect sequence I received. I have made one digital copy as well and have stored them in password protected drive. I don’t think you need any further security for your seed. If you are going to be “too” careful about it then you will definitely end up making mistakes and then my friend that’s gonna be Issue someday. Just keep it simple and traditional. Let us not try to make a big deal on how to store them safely.

Just Store it in similar ways you save your gmail password or password for gf or bf Instagram account. 

Any storage method whether offline or online will have pros and cons and nothing is 100% secure. Your method may be a good way to deal with hackers but it is also risky, if you forget your password or cannot access one of your many password managers, you will not be able to access your bitcoins. Your method will make things more complicated because you'll need to remember more passwords as well as find a place to store passwords for your password managers. I really don't like this idea.

Don't be too paranoid, Virtually almost all you have listed above is applicable to your body which is the most precious part of your life but you are just keep living.

Regarding SEED phrase. I see the most of your concern is what to do with it while  traveling.

There are a lot tricks that can help you.

Just a few examples.

You may fix SEED words in the  carry-on book. Don't forget to burn that book after end of your trip.

You may put your SEED inside indigestible capsule and swallow it. Don't forget to examine your dung  to find that capsule.

After all, you may memorize you SEED phrase and mutter  it under the  breath while travelling.

All is in your hands, just string-up imagination.

Cheese.

Don't do this. It provides zero redundancy and greatly increases your risk of loss, not to mention still creates a single point of failure on creation and restoration of said seed phrase.

If you want to require access to multiple back ups in order to recover your wallet, then use multi-sig. Multi-sig effectively solves all five of OP's concerns. If you lose or throw away one back up, you can recover from the others. If a natural disaster destroys one back up, you can recover from the others. If someone steals one back up, not only can they not access your coins, but you can recover from the others. Need even more redundancy than that? Use 3-of-5 instead of 2-of-3.

Pros & Cons

-Hackers can't steal your seedphrase if it's not online.But thieves can
-Offline storage methods like metal plates and paper wallets can withstand a lot of wear and tear.Secure But like fire & other things gone a damage it
-You're the only one with access to your seedphrase.If another person find it , You lose

Do this

-Make multiple copies of your seedphrase and store them in different locations. (Or sites , notes , encrypted sites.)
-Use a durable storage medium, such as a metal plate or paper wallet.
-Choose a storage location that is safe from fire, water, and theft.
-Do not share your seedphrase with anyone.expect friends

I don't know about best  solution because we have all read stories of people losing these wallets and trying to get them back to the point of suing garbage collection companies and it's never a pretty scene.
AFAIK, best to go with what works for you especially that we live in different environments, different house setups and ease of others having access to personal space is something to factor in.
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I love the idea of breaking the seedphrase in several parts as this can be applied to both password managers and paper wallets , but in the hands of a crypto minded person if these 3 or 2 parts are  obtained then it's over for our coins.
Otherwise all these solutions have their own strengths and weakness.

All the points you mentioned can be avoided by making enough copies, storing them in a safety box or other place that will be difficult for anyone, including your partner or children to access.
In my opinion, the more afraid you are of losing it and trying things that look complicated, the more troublesome it will be later when something unexpected happens.

Trusting banks or centralized party is a mistake.

Theoretically the banks can reverse the money, but the reality they will not always refund it because they will asking more and more evidence to make you don't have any way to proof it.

Why you can assume the robbery would do that on the street? criminality can happen in a house and I've pointed out above. People will choose to give everything they have rather than die.

Doesn't matter, the robbery will force you to give them the seed phrase.

You can report your credit card lost or stolen and you will not be responsible for the unauthorized charges, and you don't lose a penny.
You can't do that with bitcoin or crypto. Once your bitcoin is lost it is lost forever and you cannot call someone at the bank to help you.

If someone robs you of your fiat money on the street you might lose a couple hundred dollars or something, not a big deal to lose such a small amount because
that's how much people carry around at most. Most people don't walk around with thousands or millions of dollars in cash they keep most of their money in a bank.

But a seedphrase could have someone's life savings stored in it, even millions of dollars worth of digital assets.
It is much easier for someone to steal a seedphrase than for them to break into your bank and steal all your money.

I'm off using these applications that are suggesting or keeping our passwords, it's not just right for me although they look helpful for someone who doesn't know about keeping passwords.

Anything that's related to finances, crypto and money, I wouldn't use these apps that are gonna keep my passwords, etcs.

They seem to be suggesting strong passwords but you'll never know if they keep backlogs of their users and then you'll just find it out that you've been lost and gone with as you've been used by them.

Here we go, someone who always trying to see a bad thing even it's really small and forget about every good thing.

#1 and #2, what's the difference with robbery who point your head with his gun and ask the password of your credit card/debit card or every assets you have? regardless you hold fiat, gold etc aren't nothing different.

#3 and #5, that's your fault, it's easy to prevent by back up your seed phrase more than one with different medias/tools.

#4, teach them and they will not do that.

Same thing as keeping online, the online storage is even worse because it is exposed to almost every hacker on the internet.


If a thief actually breaks into your house and requests for your seed phrase then that is no ordinary thief but rather someone close to you that you might have discuss your holdings with so the best will be to stay on a private about your holdings. And if the thief actually just sees Randomly then it was your lack of proper storage that caused it.


This can be solved by having a one or two more back up but most importantly it will be hard if you actually have significant amount on that wallet because you will regularly remember and check that place.

Why throw your seed around just anyplace in your house, it should be where your precious documents are.

Solve this by using metal washers instead of paper and try to increase your backup to areas which faces less disaster if your place is not that secure


You don’t need to store them on a password manager just like you said it is bad but the best thing would be to use add a passphrase that you can remember and even the thief gets access to the seed phrase they would still need a passphrase who will be know to only you.

Splitting the keys in halves doesn’t help the thief and also you too, because should you lose the other half then it poses risk to the Wallet. Also with half the seed the thief could use a btc recovery tool



You don’t need to carry it about when traveling just back it up properly at one place and the added passphrase should be with you that will save it.

Do not trust yourself to cram the seed phrase off heart, health conditions can change and will cause the lost of it

4) you can hide your seed via emails . you send 24 emails to three emails.

each email has some seeds in it

5) my suggestion above in 4 prevents this.

At least, but important, you control it until a day you lost the control. It's better than storing it online by that you don't have any control and rely on many third parties to control security of your account, information inside it including your backup.

Is it seriously?

Backups are strong tools to help you avoid those situations and when you make backup, you should have some backups, not only one.

If you store your backups at locations where easily to be seen, your methodology is not good at beginning.

Good backup methodology can help you. Multiple backups, multiple locations.
How to backup a seed phrase

1+2 are basically the same issue and can be solved by three groups of eight seed words.

Number 3 is always an issue. Even if you put clues 🕵️‍♂️ in a few spots you can still screw up.

I wouldn’t use any password managers. There was a leak a few years back, I think it was called Lastpass. Don’t rely on them.

Just put it somewhere safe like your bank security box or hide it somewhere in your home. If you are worried about a fire you can buy some seed stems and you can have it in metal that will withstand fire. Or you can take some pipe and just bang it in there with some letter stencils.

you need

to realize

1) hiding a 24 word seed in three sets of eight solves that issue.

Of course offline storage of your seedphrase is usually the best means of keeping your seedphrase safe, but what are some potential drawbacks?

1. Someone could find it and steal it.

2. Someone could break into your house or your room where you have hidden it, find it and steal it.

3. You lose your seedphrase and never find it again, or you forgot where you hid it, etc

4. You or your wife/spouse do some housecleaning and accidentally throw it away.

5. Can be destroyed by fire or a natural disaster.

6. Other

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I'm thinking of using encrypted notes inside of more than one reputable open-source password managers.
So my idea is to break up the seedphrase in two or more parts. Each part gets stored in a different good password manager.  

So even if one of the password managers is somehow compromised, the thief only has part of your seed phrase which is useless without the other parts.


I plan to do a lot of traveling and even moving to another country but feel paranoid carrying around my seedphrase.
Customs agents can randomly search you and your luggage, and if they find your seedphrase they may be tempted to steal it from you.

I don't want to carry around my seedphrase on my person everywhere while traveling for fear of losing it or having it stolen.

Of course I could keep my seedphrase at home while traveling but if you are going to be away for extended time you start to worry if your seedphrase is going to be safe when you are not around.

I don't trust myself to be able to remember a long seedphrase, but I could remember two or three good passwords a lot easier.

Good idea or no?