Topic: Simple Tips to make a fire-proof Cryptocurrency Wallet (Read 196 times)

What you're looking for is a letter punch. You can buy them for a few bucks, and all you need is a hammer.

Once in a while, I see someone roaming around with a metal detector. Usually they search in public spaces though (look for coins or rings), not people's garden. Unless they know what to look for.

If you bury it in private ground, say the crawlspace under your house, you can just as well hang it on the ceiling of your crawlspace. Who's going to look there for treasures anyway?

If you bury the metal, you don't need to worry about the melting point. Don't bury it on a volcano.

Another advantage is that you can engrave or stamp countless seed phrases or private keys with a single tool, whereas a ready-made product can only save one wallet at a time. There are also those who would argue that making something with your own hands is more satisfying, but I guess it depends on whether you are a DIY person or not.

Fair enough, point taken, but if you compare the final picture of the Safe Seed (https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/reviews/safe-seed/) to some high quality steel such as the Seedplate (https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/reviews/seedplate/), I'd say that that steel still fairs significantly better than the copper. If you look at the tables Lopp gives here (https://blog.lopp.net/metal-bitcoin-seed-storage-stress-test/), you'll see that steel has a higher melting point, is less reactive, has more hardness, and is less ductile than copper. Given that both are so easily and cheaply available, why not pick the superior of the two?

Sure, but there is one more angle to consider, and that is your data. As we saw with the Ledger hack, if a company selling metal wallets leaks their customer database, then that can end in significant problems for the people on that database. If I walk in to a hardware store and spend a few bucks up a small piece of steel, no one is any the wiser and my details are not linked to owning a significant amount of bitcoin on some database somewhere.

Take a look around these experiences included in this list^[1] will give you insight into the best minerals that you can choose.
In short, the more you try to make the moving parts less, the better the results will be, but in general all metals fail to be ideal tools for storing the private key.
The best thing you can do is write the words with a stonebook like shieldfolio-stonebook  and buy a metal case.
you can try any other solutions but let the metal being as a case.

[1] https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/
[2] https://shieldfolio.com/products/shieldfolio-stonebook

I guess that's an advantage over buying something like a SteelWallet, but it's not like the energy and materials that go into making wallets like that even come close to that used by, say, car manufacturers.  And maybe it's just me, but I'd rather spend a little extra to get a metal wallet that's ready to go rather than buy all the tools necessary to stamp a seed phrase into some scrap metal.

My point is, there are much better ways to be kinder to the environment than creating your own metal wallet.  I do agree with the utility and importance of them, though.  There's probably no better way to create a "paper wallet" than to inscribe your private keys onto something that's fireproof (or at least fire resistant; obviously even steel can melt if the temperature is high enough, as noted by dkbit98). 

If you don't mind the price cost of the metal you can add these too.

Tungsten - melting point at above 3,000 degrees celsius, I think that's enough to have a fire-proof and now your problem is how to engrave the private key, that kind of metal is very solid.

Just make it simple, print the private key into the sheet of paper, and put it into the vault with a cover of high-speed steel, and surely it is fireproof metal.

One of the best and cheapest tested plates (Safe Seed) in JamesonLopp website is made of copper, it survived all his torture very well, and here are melting points of most metals:

Aluminum 1220 F  or 660 C
Aluminum Alloys 865-1240 F  or 463-671 C
Brass 1650-1880 F or 900-1024 C
Copper 1983 F  or 1084 C
Stainless Steel  2750 F  or 1510 C

Copper is not a good choice. It's melting point is probably high enough to survive most house fires, and it is unlikely to corrode unless you store it somewhere weird, but it is a very malleable and ductile metal. Gold has a slightly lower melting point than copper, and is one of the most malleable elements there is, so again, not a good choice. Given how easy it is to get your hands on stainless steel, there is no good reason not to use it.

In Jameson Lopp's stress tests which you mentioned, the majority of the best performing devices were simply words etched on to a stainless steel plate. There is no need to spend $50-100 bucks on a custom device though - simply go to a hardware store, spend $5-10 on a small piece of stainless steel, and engrave your words.

Just don’t tell anyone that you buried Bitcoin in your garden, otherwise you might hear some weird noises in the middle of the night, and when you look out the window you see a neighbor with a metal detector looking for hidden treasure in your garden

Metal scrap is not really a cryptocurrency wallet unless you are some magician who can do this alchemy...
You can use metallic plates for backing up seed phrase words but only if right material is used like stainless steel and copper, because all other metals are worthless and can be destroyed in fire.
Gold will hold in fire and it would be interesting to use it as metallic plate and make it even more valuable, but you would probably be crazy to use it for this purpose.
Jameson Lopp tested many metallic plates and not all of them pass the test and similar thing would probably happen with your random metal junk.

You can't cancel the keys, and it's not easy to destroy metallic plate made from stainless steel or copper, not to mention that you need proper tools for doing this.
One alternative  and cheaper way would be to put regular paper wallet inside certified fireproof bag.

The most common scrap metals are aluminum and copper. Both are bad choices for long term storage as both have low melting points and are prone to corrosion (aluminum more than copper) and both are weak and malleable (copper more than aluminum). If you are going to use metal, than you should be looking for stainless steel at a minimum, but probably titanium is even better.

Also, inscribing a seed phrase is far preferable to inscribing private keys. It is far easier to do, less prone to error, easier to restore, and solves any issues with change addresses or reusing the wallet.

I do not like the idea of burying assets which are probably worth a lot of money. Unless you map it out and keep a reminder of where it is but as soon as you do that it becomes less secure from physical threats. Most wallets are probably more at risk from natural occurrences, accidental damages or data loss than theft but it is something that you should always consider.

Unless you are burying it in your backyard and it is easy to locate but then I am not convinced that is any more secure than storing it in a safe in your house. Anyway for fireproofing your paper wallet it would probably be more beneficial to store it inside a fire proof safe on a high melting point metal. Most scrap metal you come across is probably low melting point so it would not be great in a fire and if the vegetation burns up above where you buried it depending how deep it is buried it could melt regardless of being covered in dirt.

I think the best option in my opinion would be a fire proof safe which prevents fire from damaging the paper wallet but also keeps out corrosion from being wet and being exposed to oxygen. Unless you got a metal which is resistant to this but then the scrap metal that you find around the place probably is not going to be rust resistant so it limits your choice.

This would surely work. Just don't forget where you burred it 

I've seen this advise and really a good idea that I've never thought of it aside from a paper and putting on a place where we think it's safe.

Just don't let somebody work for that metal writing, it should be you that must work on it, as you know it's for the sake of privacy and you won't expose your private keys in other people.

I haven't done this before but I know it will work because it's a common sense idea.


How to do This
Get a flat scrap metal, write your private keys on it with a sharp/strong metal to make the keys hard to clear off over time. Write down as many private keys as possible on the metal, then bury it in the ground somewhere safe . You can always dig up the metal whenever you want to copy some private keys that cointain coins you want to spend in the near future . Bury back the metal after copying some keys on something like paper, your jotter, etc.  Once the coins are spent, dig up the metal and cancel the spent keys.  

One of the main reasons I like this idea is because it puts the scrap metals lying around into good use rather having people mine new metals , waste energy for manufacturing  and then end up selling the metal for more $10,$50.






* Hand safety advise:  Try to put on handgloves before  doing this