Topic: Why is the brain wallet not better than regular paper wallet? - page 2. (Read 433 times)

then use something else to "print" on. even laminating the paper would increase its durability but you could use a metal plate and engrave your mnemonic on it. there are also already available tools such as Cryptosteel that you could use to make it easier.

the problem with paper wallets in general is similar to the problem with choosing a password. people (most of the times) are always choosing things that are weak. take a look at this topic to get the gist of what i am saying: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/collection-of-18509-found-and-used-brainwallets-4768828

as for your idea, it is two parts:
- choosing the words. this is the same risk as i just mentioned, lack of "randomness". besides if you are actually writing them down, even if it is only a part of it, that defeats the  "brain wallet" thing. stick to BIP39 and choose 24 words and let the wallet generate a good entropy for you.

- splitting. based on how the words are chosen, the remaining 5 might be brute forced specially if you are also providing clues on what they are. additionally you should avoid using Emails or anything that has to do with the internet (like a computer that was or is going to be connected to the internet) when you are creating a cold storage.

and finally, like i always say: it is best that you don't try to re-invent the methods that already exist and have something to do with cryptography. all those methods (like BIP39) are well designed and have taken a lot of things into consideration. not to mention reviewed by other experts.

Maybe I should have specified that I am strictly talking about long term storage.  Sorry about that.  You said you didn't like the brain wallet in general.  Can I ask why you why?  And why you don't like my 3/4 paper 1/4 brain wallet idea? 


         

What makes you think you only need to have 1 paper? You can copy that paper (with your own hands) and spread them to different secure locations. You can even create your own secret method to restore the order of the words, and yes you can custom those words all you want or even steno-graph them somewhere...

I don't like brain anything, and email is just begging for trouble.

I'd keep the cold wallet (with paper seed words) for the savings, and the hardware wallet for the small change (daily use), if you'd rather not use a computer or phone app wallet.

I believe my 1 btc will be worth $100,000 in 10 years.  So, I don't mind having to do all that work if I have to.  Just for the sake of education, would you disagree with me that the wallet method I described is less secure than a Ledger nano S?  If you do disagree, can you explain why?  Thanks.   

Do you really think is it worth to do all this effort, instead of just buy a hardware wallet because you want to customize?

The key here is safety, and for now the hardware wallets are one of the best methods available and it's simple

You are right.  Thanks for correcting me on that.  I realize I don't have exact term for the way I am going to protect my BTC.  I don't like BTC paper wallet because of the possibility of losing it or it gets too damaged for me to read it.  I don't like hardware wallet because I cannot customize the seed phrase to what I want (Ledger Nano, ie).  

Now, here is my solution.  I can create a private key using 20 words.  And I can make the last 5 words something only I know.  I can email my family (and myself) the first 15 words.  Then, I can email them the clues of my last 5 words.  Of course, I have to do a damn good job that only the ones I fully trust know the answers.  So, I guess my method is 3/4 paper - 1/4 brain wallet?  

I would appreciate some feedback on this idea of mine.  

If you write a seed phrase or words we can't consider it as brain wallet but a paper wallet because we can only call it brain wallet by memorizing the seed phrase. That is why Brain wallet is a bad idea. 12 to 24 words is not easy to memorize so having a hardware wallet is the best option without memorizing the seedphrase.

I think you just don't understand or confused about the concept of brain wallet.

Better read this https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet

I don't understand why people say BTC brain wallet is a bad idea.  Of course I have to be careful how I write the seed words.  For example, if I used words such as "roof Tokyo 1313 cucumber ....  wrestling 62 blue," there is no way someone can guess them intentionally or otherwise.  If I wrote the words down on a piece of paper somewhere safe, and if water damage smeared a bunch of the characters, the chance of me guessing the correct characters would be immensely better than guessing random characters. Am I missing something?