Topic: You should write two copies of your seed phrase. (Read 692 times)

I agree with that, sometimes it could be not only 12 but 24 words (BIP39), and it's pretty hard to remember constantly, even for a young age person. I would definitely not recommend just memorizing it and keeping it in your mind. As you said, you could even forget the sequence one day or get a brain injury that would make you forget it.

I mean, it would be extra for you if you remember it in your mind as 2FA (which is really good), but it's better for you to keep it safe somewhere, like on a piece of paper or by engraving it on steel or a stone that won't break, and hiding it in a place that only you can reach. Just think of it as your identity or your passport, or even more important than that if you have a lot of money in your wallet, because it can't be recovered.

My biggest recommendations are:

1. Not to save it on your PC or any device connected to the internet, that's a way too risky.
2. Store your seed phrase 2-3 times in different places and make sure it won't get damaged even in a disaster + (bonus if you have it memorized in your mind)
3. Don't leave any obvious hints about your seed phrase to any of your friends. However, it's probably a good idea to give a hint to at least 2 members of your family (in case you die) so your bitcoins won't be lost.

Edit:

This is another really secure way to protect your seed phrase posted by @fillippone, it's really cool. ~~> Securing Your Seed Phrase with Washers


take a look at it guys!

Remembering or memorizing your seed phrase would never be recommended, it may be easy to remember 12 words in the first few days, weeks or months, but in years and with many other things that the brain accumulates as time passes, you can easily forget some words or the sequence. With good OPSEC nobody is going to find your seed phrase written on paper, just back it up properly. The brain is fragile, and if one stores 12 words or more in their head, then with just a brain disease or injury, their BTC could be gone, it is better and safer for it to be on paper and in two different locations.
The brain can fail you at anytime, unexpectedly, and your BTC may be gone just like that. A stroke can happen to anyone at anytime.
Nothing is 100% safe, but there are methods that are safer than others, and with great additional operational security it can be as high as 99.9% safe.

Exactly, lol. I would rather prefer to remember my seed phrase than write it down and have all my money stolen at some point in the future. Or just sit on the piece of paper, trembling that someone might see it. It's all so troublesome. Why not just remember it? Its only 12 words.

And anyone who has a bad memory could use the 12 words to enter their wallet each and every day. After doing that exercise for a while, they would reach some point where their brains store their seed phrase in their long term memory.

It does not even have to be every day. You could enter your wallet through your seed phrase every few days. It would still commit itself to your memory after a while.

But you are still in danger of keyloggers and the sort... So is there really a 100% safe method? Not really.

If it's the last word, you are lucky, because it derives from the previous 11 haha! It's a joke, I totally agree that we should never rely on our memory! Our brain is extremely vulnerable.

I have kept the two copies of the seed phrases at my home. Those copies are stored in different places but in the same home.
It's difficult to find a place other than my own home to store the seed phrases. Storing at some friend's or relative home in itself is a big risk. You just cannot trust anyone with your seed phrases.

Events like fire, earthquake or other natural disasters are very rare to happen and even if they happen, what is the guarantee that our lives will be safe  

Personally, I have two backups in two different locations. In each location I maintain:

2x: {
         1 piece of paper with my seed phrase written upon it, in black ink.
          I have put the paper in a plastic card sleeve.
          I have put the sleeve in a plastic zip bag.
}

So I have in total 4 backups actually, but placed in two different places.

So, 2 places guard me against physical disaster on the specific place and 2 backups in each place guard me against physical damage on a specific piece of paper (which is highly unlikely).

Thoughts:
1. I know my system is ultra redundant, but I sleep well at night.
2. I maintain paper backups, so putting 2 of the aforementioned packages in a single place, requires less space than using other possible backup media.

Now i think this part is the most difficult when it comes to ones backup, for people who have relatives or family they can trust, they would just move one backup to the house of their relative, and keep one in their own home, people who also have two houses would store their second backup easily in their other home. But for people who have none of this, they may have no option but to have two backups in the same location.

Now i was thinking, for people who have no option but a single location, would having two different types of backup aid them, like having one paper backup and the other one engraved on a stainless steel, so if a situation of a fire outbreak happens, the first backup would surely be destroyed, but the second would not.

Great job! Now the next task is to a figure out a second secure location to store your second back up. There is no point having two backs up if you store them in the same place (i.e. at home), since a single event such as a fire will wipe out both of them.

To tell you the truth, i have written my seed phrases in a small copy and stored in a safe place. Now after reading your post, i have two copies of my seed phrases.

I wonder how many people acted on it, after reading this post:



It's not hard, it's almost impossible to remember if you have more than one wallet. Also, Seed phrases are not limited to Bitcoin wallet, you may have Meta Mask for Ethereum and other wallets like trust wallet, etc too and it won't be easy to memorize each and every seed phrase.

I guess that only happens when you study for it once. If you are indulging in the information continuously, there is a very low chance that you'll forget most of it. Not much of a problem for seed phrases as you should be etching those onto your mind before you start using them to store serious money.


It's not so much about the security as it is about the reliability of the device (it is easy to physically destroy it for instance).

It sounds funny, but that doesn't have to do with the pressure, it's called a the doorway effect, that there's every tendency a person will forget half of everything they've read once they pass through the door of an examination hall, compared to when they're in their reading room. It happens to almost every student, and humans will need to relax and think to remember what is been stored in the brain.

The world is losing brain powers from watching most of these contents for long time on the internet that's why many are afraid of the institution of AI. Many people are losing their brain easily these days.


Lol, you could count a few of your kind in the wide world.

You are right about this. It seems that I was wrong in the mention, it should be Stainless steel.

I have discussed about good materials to use as seed storage. And the choice that I think is good and resistant to rust and can withstand extreme temperatures is Stainless Stell 304 which is a type of Austenitic Made from several ingredients such as 16% Chromium and 7% Nickel and Nitrogen, which will make it have strength and resistance at high temperatures or low temperatures and resistant to corrosion.

There are several types of stainless steel with different resistance

Aluminum is a poor choice. As far as metals go, it has very low strength and durability, it is highly malleable, it has a melting point well below temperatures reached in an average house fire, and it is very prone to corrosion. It offers very little over just using paper.

You can easily pick up stainless steel at a hardware store. Use this instead.

It is just an alternative or safer option. A sheet of aluminum Stainless Stell plate when can even be obtained at a cheap price at the building store.
Or using washers which is certainly easier and this method has been discussed by @fillippone

Securing Your Seed Phrase with Washers

You can use the Blockmit Washer Jig to stamp the washers with precision and easier.
https://www.cryptocloaks.com/product/blockmitjig/

Or if you want to save more money, you only need to stamp it manually.
All you need is Metal Stamps Letter & Number tools, a hammer, and Bolts.
You can get all those materials easily.


https://johnchow.com/how-to-make-your-own-crypto-steel-recovery-seed-backup/

USB Drives and Printing paper are just the initial solutions, but when someone needs a backup that is more durable in all conditions.
Then it is necessary to use washers or some other media. Security always comes first.

And USB drives today have many counterfeits that have poor quality materials and result in the performance of the USB drive (components break down faster).

Unfortunately, people not very wealthy rarely have to store amounts way bigger to what they hold on exchanges and other platforms. So storing their 2FA backup safely is usually as critical as protecting their cold wallet seed for them, and using an aluminum plate is not suitable for that. For them usb drives or printed papers will always remain the only viable solution.

Every technology will follow the development of new technologies. Especially if quantum computers are really coming, then cryptography that is resistant to the threat of quantum computers will also be made.

As is currently the case with AI ChatGPT technology which is able to provide a lot of conveniences and also some negative impacts on the manual writing of an original forum user with AI writing or thinking, AI Approximation is presented so that it will inhibit all fraud that arises due to AI.

Quantum computers are not a threat if technological developments go hand in hand and they will be a great solution for future technological developments.
We are still in the early stages, that's very good.

Yes, it is undeniable, if quantum computers are present today and used commercially, nothing will be safe, all systems can be paralyzed easily, not just cryptography, but covering all security systems.

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All will experience the cycle, but there will definitely be improvements to the solution that will be provided.
As with the type of seed phrase storage solution being discussed this time. There are various kinds of solutions and problems that arise.
But each solution has a different level.

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All devices have the possibility of breaking down and that's a given, but it also depends on maintenance and how durable the device or USB flash drive is.

I found a few recommended USB Flash Drives that seem to have good initial security as well as resistance from extreme conditions.

Corsair Flash Survivor Stealth

It seems to be a USB Flash Drive that is resistant to all conditions with a design that is specialized for extreme conditions.
The CNC-threaded Anodized Aluminum body is able to withstand 40Gs of shock and impact, and the rubber seal will make it survive underwater at a depth of 200m.

Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3 NX

A dual-security USB Flash Drive that uses a PIN-based locking feature right from the drive. It uses 256-bit, real-time AES XTS Encryption for all file types, meaning that as soon as you transfer anything to the onboard storage, it's already locked behind a wall of military-grade protection (FIPS 140-2 level 3).

See the reference here: https://www.pcmag.com/picks/top-rated-usb-flash-drives

Don't make paper your best backup, upgrade to aluminum Stainless Stell plate material which is safer in all conditions and will not be damaged or faded.
It will be better and recommended.

It's interesting but how have you been able to change the first letter of your seed? Some words of the BIP39 dictionary are exactly the same except their first letters? If it's true, you are not afraid that the guy finding your seed could be aware of those special words, spot them in your seed and try to make the swap of the letters? Especially if your fake seed doesn't contain any transaction?
And if the modified words don't belong to the BIP39 wordlist, you're not afraid that the attacker could spot them instantly if he tries to enter them in a wallet? You don't think he could try and manage to find the original word?

A USB flash drive is not the worst method of a backup for your seed phrase, but i will still choose paper over it. USB flash drives have a lifespan, and even if it is not too short, it can become corrupted earlier on and you would lose data stored in it, which you can only recover most times with the help of a third party service, and that is not recommended because the data stored there is your seed phrase and it can be stolen by this third party.

Make sure your USB flash drive is not connected to the internet regularly, and it must be encrypted and a strong password set up. Paper backup seems the best to me, but since you said you use 3 flash drives, i hope you have not kept all these backups in one location, if you have done so, you should consider separating it in different locations.

So, isn't it far more dangerous to entrust the location of your private keys to another person? Even if it's wife? Doesn't matter, the minute more than two people know a secret, it's no longer a secret.

I think it doesn't need further discussion, your way of doing this and my way of doing this, both have pros and cons and we highlighted it very well in favor of protecting our arguments. I think it will enlighten some people to read our opinions and choose whatever they think suits them. It was my point at some point too
I love it, when people protect their opinions, the more holes they seek in opposite opinion and more positive sides they are looking for in their opinions. When both sides do that, then discussion gets more meaningful.

This life is an endless cycle of Problem -> Solution -> Problem -> Solution ∞

Why should you worry if you know how to preserve and appreciate it. There are many ways how we can hide or put our seed phrase keys in a safe, maybe it depends on us.

      Because I don't put them on paper to write them, all I do now is save them on my flash drive usb, well, in fact I have 3 flash drives and it's just hidden in a place that only I really know . I've been doing this for a few years now and so far so good.