Bitcoin Forum

How do you back-up you private key or secret seed?

This includes keys for:

• Bitcoin
• PGP
• Other cryptocurrencies

If you use multiple methods, which do you use most often?

Please note that some of the options above (e.g. cloud storage) are not recommended!

i keep mine on a usb thumb drive in a vault, my coins are safe for ever

I am an old style when it comes to backing up. All in a paper and in a physical wallet.

I have 2 wallets one is at our house and the other is in my pocket. So two backups is than one that way in case I get robbed in a public transport or got pickpocket then I will still have a copy at my house, then copy it again for another one in my new wallet.

same thing, it's easy and convenient, no need fancy thing to secure your bitcoin, you only need to be vigilant above all things, secure does not matter if who is behind security don't know what he is doing

I take much risks to store my private keys.  ;D I just put all my private keys in separate MS Word and set a 13 letter (alphabets both upper and lower case, numbers and symbols) to each files and i remember all those passwords. I think its enough for me.

I put my private seed in 2 or 3 memory sticks and have 1 memory stick from those 2 in my locker.

The simplest thing that you can do with a private key is write it down. Printing it might end up being unsafe under certain conditions (e.g. printers have memory as well).

i think it is best to keep it in multiple forms like storing it on paper and offline pc. and i am looking into it.

but so far i am only keeping it in my cold storage, in an offline wallet only.

i just print it out and save it to the safest place or you can call it under my bed,as long i'd printing in my private computer, i think it'll not going to be a problem,and robber/stealer doesn't aim to took my privkey i think

I usually store my private keys in multiple places. For me, I wrote it a few times on a piece of paper, store it in a few flash drives, and additional backup is one CD-ROM per private key. Well, I mostly wrote it on a piece of paper.

I have not so much of coins so i use paper wallet in printed form to store my coins. I have one cold wallet where i store coins for long term and it is small amount from what i earn daily.

I put in a lot of places.
printed out, i compress and encryption doc file using winrar, put rar file into micro sd and put micro sd in a safe place.  ;D

Voted for:

* Pen and Paper (Electrum Seed)
* Memory stick (Seed, Keys..)

Both of these are then stored at a highly secured facility (Shoe box in my cupboard) where no one can reach.

I have a friend with a 3D printer and we developed some small items where the two pieces fit together and half of the private key is printed on the one side and the other part on the other. You then

store these two pieces in two separate locations and nobody will even know what it is. His 3D printer is unfortunately broken now, but we worked on a project to print Bitcoin addresses on one side and

private keys on the other.. like a pendant. I thought that was a pretty good idea... but there are trust issues, we have yet to solve with this idea.  ::)

until the thumb drive stops working.   

paper is proven to last centuries, properly stored.

usb drives, not so much.

even better than paper would be engraving/etching on a metal that doesn't rust such as aluminum.  Should survive a fire.  they sell aluminum or copper tags for this purpose that can be engraved with a regular ball point pen.  on amazon.

I keep it printed and on an SD card

Hardware wallet is printed for obvious reasons.  Regular wallet.dat is uploaded to local server drive and backed up to offline hard drive.

Cold walet just 2x printed paper wallet in different locations.
Hot wallet although it is encrypted, I rar it with strong password so no one can see transaction history and upload it to my second computer and to my email + cloud storage.

Hardware options are not included here ? Neither are other physical collectible coin wallets . Pen and paper is a old technique ,USB stick with Ubuntu is the safest.

paper wallet everytime with a copy on a usb stored in a safe,

I voted for printed and cloud storage, i combine these two, but both of them are encrypted so even if someone would access there it should be decrypted first. I don't prefer to store the private key or the seed in flash USB drive because it can be easily corrupted.

Just because they're old, that does not mean that they're ineffective.

Don't use physical Bitcoin (art) for storing away money.

Cloud storage is a bad idea.

I wouldn't think that someone who wants to hack your wallet would be interested in your TX history, but that does make sense (I didn't think of this before).

I still feel like multiple ways of coping your wallet data is the best for your security. I have stored my private keys files on both HDD and removable drives.
Also written down secret seed on paper and hide it in a relatively safe place. I hope this is enough.

I'm always backing up my private keys on hard copies and memory stick. For hard copies, I have paper copies and PVC copies, like what ID cards are made off, and believe it or not I bought a USB thumb drive with just 1GB capacity and store all the private keys there along with my other important codes. I store the hard copies and thumb drive to a safe place.