Topic: What is the best way to store your seed phrase? - page 4. (Read 1299 times)
I think the best is to save it in a diary which only you have access to read and write things, after you might have raped it with waterproof and also copy it down in another place that can't be exposed to danger of loss or being seen by some one else.
Here's a video from Andreas Antonopoulos (anybody still remembers him?) from 3 years ago, in which he strongly advise against splitting seed phrases:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5nSibpfHYE
A lot of people disagrees with him in the comments though and I also find his argumentation and logic lacking. So take it for what its worth.
If his general message is that there are better and more secure ways of storing seeds - that's fine. But I don't understand how storing full phrase in 3 different locations is considered more secure than splitting it. It just makes no sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5nSibpfHYE
A lot of people disagrees with him in the comments though and I also find his argumentation and logic lacking. So take it for what its worth.
If his general message is that there are better and more secure ways of storing seeds - that's fine. But I don't understand how storing full phrase in 3 different locations is considered more secure than splitting it. It just makes no sense.
However you keep your seed phrase you should definitely have two copies hidden in different places imo. If on paper laminate or at least use some clear packing tape to cover the paper. If dividing into parts then should probably have 4 different hiding spots.
My prerequisites for SEED storage:
- Materials to store: both waterproof and fireproof stuff.
- Places to store: waterproof, fireproof, easy to access, control-accessed, not cloud based.
- Encryption (if any): free of any own-developed scheme, like SEED phrase spiting, characters replacement/substitute etc.
I store seed phrase in my tattoo. Here is my way
1. I split seed phrase to several part
2. After split, I replace my favourite character or number with other character/symbol
3. I draw several tattoo with splitted seed. So if i have 4 splitted seed so I make 4 tattoo.
1. I split seed phrase to several part
2. After split, I replace my favourite character or number with other character/symbol
3. I draw several tattoo with splitted seed. So if i have 4 splitted seed so I make 4 tattoo.
There's nothing brilliant about the idea. When it comes to seed phrase complexity should be avoided at all cost. Going the extra mile to interchange the words is not good because he could mess things up and might not be able to remember the correct words combination again. Instead of subscribing to the above seemingly brilliant idea, I'd rather split the seed phrase into two and keep them in separate locations. Though, this is not how I stored mine.
So the wallet will only be decrypted when someone you inherit it from knows these two different places? Doesn't this also sound strange because dividing 50% of the share elsewhere actually increases the risk of you losing that share?As long as the way we store it is not too conspicuous, and it is safe from theft, I call it a good storage technique. Writing it on paper is no problem, but lately I've been interested in writing it on a steel plate and storing it in my family's hidden safe.
1 safe with the highest security in the family. Living outside like ordinary people, but huge treasures are stored in the safe.
Seems to me the best way to store a seed phrase with a hardware wallet would be write your seed phrase down twice and break it into 2 parts. Also make sure you have a passphrase for the hardware wallet. Now you open 4 safe deposit boxes at 4 different banks. But do so in a way where the banks are a bit far from each other... like make sure it isn't 1 mile within each other at least but preferably a lot farther away like 5 miles.
Now you put 2 copies of the 1st part of the seed phrase at 2 different safe deposit boxes at different banks. You then put the other 2 copies of the 2nd part of the seed phrase at 2 other safe deposit boxes at 2 different banks. You then write down your seed phrase in a piece of paper in your apartment or house. You also enter it in a password manager that you save to a usb and the cloud.
OR
Do the same thing with putting 2 copies of the 1st part of the seed phrase at 2 different safe deposit boxes at different banks. You then do the same with putting the other 2 copies of the 2nd part of the seed phrase at 2 other safe deposit boxes at 2 other different banks. You also then make 1 copy of the 1st part and 2nd part of the seed phrase for you to store at your apartment in different locations. This time however, you only enter the passphrase to a password manager that you save to a usb and the cloud but make sure you don't write the passphrase on a piece of paper in your apartment or house. You could also make a 2nd usb flash drive and give it to someone close to you and tell them to hold it as a backup in case something happens to your usb flash drive or something happens to your password manager in the cloud accessing it.
You could put another usb in one of those safe deposit boxes you are using but if you do that... well you are increasing your risk since if someone got access to one part of the seed phrase and has that usb... if they somehow get into your password manager... then they have 2 out of the 3 parts of it. So say imagine the government was to seize your safe deposit boxes, well then they have access to your seed phrase and your usb with the passphrase in your password manager in the flash drive. Now could they always hack into it if they have your flash drive? Or the only way would be to tell you to reveal what your usb passports is and/or the password manager password?
Would you say the 1st option is ideal? What about the 2nd option minus the putting another usb drive in one of your safe deposit boxes?
Well, you can also use ELLIPAL mnemonic device too... 88g of metal and pocket fitting, you can check it up for more details. It's also fire, water and mold proof.Now you put 2 copies of the 1st part of the seed phrase at 2 different safe deposit boxes at different banks. You then put the other 2 copies of the 2nd part of the seed phrase at 2 other safe deposit boxes at 2 different banks. You then write down your seed phrase in a piece of paper in your apartment or house. You also enter it in a password manager that you save to a usb and the cloud.
OR
Do the same thing with putting 2 copies of the 1st part of the seed phrase at 2 different safe deposit boxes at different banks. You then do the same with putting the other 2 copies of the 2nd part of the seed phrase at 2 other safe deposit boxes at 2 other different banks. You also then make 1 copy of the 1st part and 2nd part of the seed phrase for you to store at your apartment in different locations. This time however, you only enter the passphrase to a password manager that you save to a usb and the cloud but make sure you don't write the passphrase on a piece of paper in your apartment or house. You could also make a 2nd usb flash drive and give it to someone close to you and tell them to hold it as a backup in case something happens to your usb flash drive or something happens to your password manager in the cloud accessing it.
You could put another usb in one of those safe deposit boxes you are using but if you do that... well you are increasing your risk since if someone got access to one part of the seed phrase and has that usb... if they somehow get into your password manager... then they have 2 out of the 3 parts of it. So say imagine the government was to seize your safe deposit boxes, well then they have access to your seed phrase and your usb with the passphrase in your password manager in the flash drive. Now could they always hack into it if they have your flash drive? Or the only way would be to tell you to reveal what your usb passports is and/or the password manager password?
Would you say the 1st option is ideal? What about the 2nd option minus the putting another usb drive in one of your safe deposit boxes?
And yes if you're using paper, it should be laminated and put in safes at different locations far from each other and duplicated in case of any situations. If you're splitting the seed into parts. Remember the sequence.
However, do not take screenshots of your seed phrase. Do not type it on nom default keyboards,
Do not save it to Google drive or any cloud storage, I'm telling you.
Try the advanced phrase feature on Trezor wallet if you want.
Not every wallet itself is safe.
The best way to store your seed fresh is to make sure document it by writing it down in a paper and save it to particular document as you're file we are nobody can access it so that is the possible way someone can send or store it seed phrase some people who serve their seat face online are those people that complain that someone has penetrate into their wallet so it is good to write out your seat phrase on the paper and the store it will have someone cannot see it so that in future it will not experience lost of your coin in your wallet even seven in your email is also improper because you can lost your laptop or your system and someone can easily access your email
I personally wrote mine in a piece of paper and then keep it in a safe place. I also mixed those 24 words that only me knows the exact combination. I am actually planning to acquire a gun safe and I'll put it there though not right now but maybe soon when I have extra money.
wow that is even best way to keep them safe mixing your 24 words phrase , but my question now mate is what if one day you have come to sickness in which you cannot remember anything , who will inherit your funds knowing that you are the only one that knows the right combinations?
I personally wrote mine in a piece of paper and then keep it in a safe place. I also mixed those 24 words that only me knows the exact combination. I am actually planning to acquire a gun safe and I'll put it there though not right now but maybe soon when I have extra money.
wow that is even best way to keep them safe mixing your 24 words phrase , but my question now mate is what if one day you have come to sickness in which you cannot remember anything , who will inherit your funds knowing that you are the only one that knows the right combinations?sorry for asking this mate because I'm just concern bout your hard earned crypto that might be gone in the air if that happens.
Yes, but I think he correctly points out that any storage method that relies solely on your own memory is not good. Mixing up the seed phrase words is definitely bad practice and a common reason people lose their crypto.
Seed phrases already have an additional layer of security – a passphrase you can store separately. I don't understand why people wouldn't use it!
Maybe as a example: Set up a website with a couple of pics and enter the seed phrase in single words in the EXIF Data for example. If you keep your mouth shut that this webpage even exist, this should be quite safe...
Do you know that website can shutdown and it can be hacked by hackers, and one thing about hackers they try to hack everything even if they are not sure about the information you have in your website, they just want to get in their to see if their is any valuable information that will benefit them. Online is not the best place to store seedphrase because anything can happen and their is no guarantee that is that very safe the way you think. One of the reasons online is not safe to store seedphrase is because you can just control what will happen at anytime. But when seed phrase are store offline you can decide to store and secure it in the best way that nobody can have access to except you. We are all visitors in the internet, anything can happen that can make not to have access to the account any more. The offline, specially written note is the best place to store seed phrase because with this you can give the best security to the seed phrase just to make sure the seed phrase is safe just make your bitcoin safe.
I personally wrote mine in a piece of paper and then keep it in a safe place. I also mixed those 24 words that only me knows the exact combination. I am actually planning to acquire a gun safe and I'll put it there though not right now but maybe soon when I have extra money.
wow that is even best way to keep them safe mixing your 24 words phrase , but my question now mate is what if one day you have come to sickness in which you cannot remember anything , who will inherit your funds knowing that you are the only one that knows the right combinations?sorry for asking this mate because I'm just concern bout your hard earned crypto that might be gone in the air if that happens.
There are people who never trust anyone, whether it's their wife or their parents. For them, they would rather let those bitcoins disappear than share them with others. But there are others who are willing to share with those closest to them because whether it's bitcoin, gold or diamonds, everything we do is for family. So sharing with them is necessary.
Personally, I keep my seed phrases in a safe place, but my mom is also the one who knows where I keep them. Because I don't want my efforts to go down the drain while my relatives have to suffer poverty if something happens to me.
I personally wrote mine in a piece of paper and then keep it in a safe place. I also mixed those 24 words that only me knows the exact combination. I am actually planning to acquire a gun safe and I'll put it there though not right now but maybe soon when I have extra money.
wow that is even best way to keep them safe mixing your 24 words phrase , but my question now mate is what if one day you have come to sickness in which you cannot remember anything , who will inherit your funds knowing that you are the only one that knows the right combinations?sorry for asking this mate because I'm just concern bout your hard earned crypto that might be gone in the air if that happens.
I personally wrote mine in a piece of paper and then keep it in a safe place. I also mixed those 24 words that only me knows the exact combination. I am actually planning to acquire a gun safe and I'll put it there though not right now but maybe soon when I have extra money.
The idea you Ave mentioned is great as it will keep the seed phrase safe and I would probably think of t if I am hodling a huge amount of crypto in a particular wallet. But at the moment it's too much of an hassle for me and as a person who had already lost seed phrase of blockchain wallet in the past by writing and keeping it somewhere I have started a simple strategy of sharing the seed phrase from my personal email to alternative email so it's there in two separate places and also uploads the same in cloud.
A stupid idea like this coming from a hero member on this forum is a big shame, how did you become a hero member without knowing that it's wrong to keep or store your recovery seed online? Even if you are using a hardware wallet, if you keep it's seed in any form of online storage, either email or cloud then you are not safe.
This is crazy and stupid, newbies are looking up to high ranking members on this forum, believing that they have passed through a lot and always know better, it's disappointing that this nonsense is coming from a hero member, wtf?
Any recovery seed or private key must stay offline, there is no better way to keep your keys safe than using offline mode, this is why airgapped wallet are the most secured, they lack the need for internet, they are always offline, may God have mercy on your soul.
Maybe as a example: Set up a website with a couple of pics and enter the seed phrase in single words in the EXIF Data for example. If you keep your mouth shut that this webpage even exist, this should be quite safe...
Just my thoughts about this
Just my thoughts about this
Hi. This is not a very good option.
Bitcoin seed phrases should never be online. That's a must.
Specifically for the approach you mention though:
1. the website will be stored in a server.
(a) if it's a local server, it needs to be backed-up properly, otherwise if the disk fails, the website is gone and the bitcoin as well.
(b) if it's a remote server, then you need to trust the owner of the server.
(c) if it's a cloud server, then the company that provides the service will know everything about the website and of course problem (b) arises again.
2. there are websites like https://www.exifdata.com/ that will easily allow the hacker to get the seed phrase from the images.
3. there are website scrapers that search for websites and download all their contents.
Finally, the following approach is really super easy and people should just follow the easy paths:
1. generate a seed phrase in an airgapped device.
2. write it down in a piece of paper twice.
3. store the backups in 2 separate locations.
4. check them up twice a year.
I guess you never know in what kind of circumstances you will possibly need access to your seed phrase, so maybe an online option and a couple of offline options are in order.
1) Online: of course it should not be ebvious that it is a seed phrase and on the other hand it should be simple enough so that you know yourself what the words and the order are.
Maybe as a example: Set up a website with a couple of pics and enter the seed phrase in single words in the EXIF Data for example. If you keep your mouth shut that this webpage even exist, this should be quite safe...
2) Offline: You should always consider that you maybe have an accident and have to stay in a hospital for some time, if you are not lucky some one cleans up the house and throws your secret passphrase in the trash or so.
Maybe you should additionally simply write a will and add a closed envelope with your passphrase and deposit it with a lawyer at a courthouse or so, this also makes sure in case you die early the Bitcoins are not lost....
Just my thoughts about this
1) Online: of course it should not be ebvious that it is a seed phrase and on the other hand it should be simple enough so that you know yourself what the words and the order are.
Maybe as a example: Set up a website with a couple of pics and enter the seed phrase in single words in the EXIF Data for example. If you keep your mouth shut that this webpage even exist, this should be quite safe...
2) Offline: You should always consider that you maybe have an accident and have to stay in a hospital for some time, if you are not lucky some one cleans up the house and throws your secret passphrase in the trash or so.
Maybe you should additionally simply write a will and add a closed envelope with your passphrase and deposit it with a lawyer at a courthouse or so, this also makes sure in case you die early the Bitcoins are not lost....
Just my thoughts about this
The 12-24 word seed phrase etched on a steel sheet, with 2(not split up) copies, in 2 separate locations that you have easy access to, and packaged in a way where you know if someone has gained access to either of these steel sheets; plus using a secure passphrase. That should be more than enough. Less complexity, less chance of error.
Also, personally not a fan of digitization.
Just to add to what you have already said, each of the seed phrase etched on the steel should also be numbered according in it sequence order as it appeared while creating your wallet so as to avoid mix-up and the difficulty of accounting for each orderly in the future. Another importance of the numbering, peradventure, of a sudden death by accident it makes it easy for a posterity you trust the secret to to be able to identify each phrase in the number they fall without fail.Also, personally not a fan of digitization.
*Steel plates are durable, more like everlasting with an anti-rusting property making it to last for even a thousand years.
*The etching can't also be wiped off by fire in the case of an arson or any domestic related fire engulfing the storage location, unlike when one may use other means of storage i.e offline paper.
It may vary in location. one can keep it in a pen drive, one can keep it in his pc or smartphone, and one can write it in a diary. But the whole purpose is to store it safely because if we don't have the wallet key, there will be no wallet and no bitcoins. So a non-custodial wallet should be used to keep bitcoins safe and the wallet should be kept private. I use 2 methods one is to write in diary other way is to keep in pen drive. So op you can use method according to your convenience
Just make sure that your Diary will always be safe mate because I'm afraid that someone may come your room and get into your diary(for some other reason and sadly will find your phrase)
i also have a written copy but not in my Diary , yet will not tell it here for my own safety.
It is estimated between 4 to 6 million bitcoins have been lost forever because people lost the physical copy of their seed phrase. So I don't agree that storing offline is necessarily safer, at least not for me.
Storing online can be a safer option depending on how you do it, also depending on your specific needs and situation and technical ability.
For example billions of people use password managers to store extremely sensitive password information which are rarely if ever hacked.
With that kind of track record that tells me password managers are generally pretty safe. But some are better than others,
Do your own research but in general I would only use password managers that are fully open source and reputable.
Always make sure you use bitcoin's hidden wallet or passphrase feature (always stored separately from your seedphrase) so in the event someone ever gets a hold of your seedphrase
it will be useless to them without knowing the passphrase. You can even have both a physical copy and online backup of your seed phrase.
There is no fail-proof method to store your coins as every single one of them has inconveniences, however storing your coins online seems like a terrible idea to me, and there is a lot of evidence of this being true as the amount of fiat stolen by hackers is enormous, so any form of online storage seems inherently risky.Storing online can be a safer option depending on how you do it, also depending on your specific needs and situation and technical ability.
For example billions of people use password managers to store extremely sensitive password information which are rarely if ever hacked.
With that kind of track record that tells me password managers are generally pretty safe. But some are better than others,
Do your own research but in general I would only use password managers that are fully open source and reputable.
Always make sure you use bitcoin's hidden wallet or passphrase feature (always stored separately from your seedphrase) so in the event someone ever gets a hold of your seedphrase
it will be useless to them without knowing the passphrase. You can even have both a physical copy and online backup of your seed phrase.
Now is it true that keeping an offline copy also presents risks? Yes, but compared to the online threats in which a hacker at the other side of the world could get your coins, obtaining a physical copy of your coins requires access to the place where you store them, something way easier to monitor and control.
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