If I lost my 24-word phrase for ledger nano s

[Agapios]

Can someone tells me (hypothetically) what happens if I dont use ledger for 5 years and after 5 years I realize i cant find my 24 words phrase, am i Doomed with BTC on them ?

Now, please dont say "dont lose it",  because obviously that post was made for other reason.

MY thinking is, If i lose 24 word passphrase I should just transfer stuff to some software wallet and get new ledger, correct?

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[Mike Mayor]

Yes you wuod be doomed. Always keep the Private key in as many places as you can. Don't even think if risking using any wallet you don't own the key for. It's simply not worth it. The amount of headache and heart ache you will go through can all be mitigated so long as you keep your key around. So lease please keep multiple copies and make them physical copies because they the best and can be kept offline entirely.

[Agapios]

Yes you wuod be doomed. Always keep the Private key in as many places as you can. Don't even think if risking using any wallet you don't own the key for. It's simply not worth it. The amount of headache and heart ache you will go through can all be mitigated so long as you keep your key around. So lease please keep multiple copies and make them physical copies because they the best and can be kept offline entirely.

I dont understand why i am doomed ? because in regular transaction i never use 24 word phrase. So far i never needed, i have my pin code, why i would be doomed? are you sure you know how ledger nano s works ?
no offense, i google for this, but i see responds that doesnt make sense

Right now i can go and send my btc to bitstamp and sell it....WITHOUT 24 word phrase, i just typed in pin, so if now i lost that 24 phrase....why am i doomed ?

PLEASE GUYS ANSWER ONLY IF YOU ARE SURE YOU KNOW HOW LEDGER NANO S WORKS
There is pin code and 24 word recovery phrase.

[datodota002]

the 24 word pharases is just like your password but it use when wanna switch your phone or you wanna open your wallet on another devices.
for transaction you just use your pin but think if your phone are lost or broken. that the 24 pharases function

[Agapios]

the 24 word pharases is just like your password but it use when wanna switch your phone or you wanna open your wallet on another devices.
for transaction you just use your pin but think if your phone are lost or broken. that the 24 pharases function

hm i think you are not ledger user ?

[Agapios]

well i found this on ledger website:
It is extremely important not to lose your recovery sheet: you must keep it in a very safe place. If anyone gets access to it (and understands what it is), they can steal all your bitcoins (no need for PIN or security card).
However, if you were to lose your recovery sheet, immediately transfer all your balance to a temporary wallet. Then reset the Nano and create a new seed. Once done, transfer back your balance to your Ledger Wallet.

So if you lose 24 word phrase you are not doomed. You are doomed if 2 things happens if you lost or lock pin and lose recovery 24words phrase, or combination of damaging and losing 24 word recovery phrasa
Well ledger says so.....

[bL4nkcode]

24-word seed phrase is only use to recover your funds if and only if your ledger nano s lost and you forget the pin as you already said.

And If you dont use your ledger for 5 years it might be impossible that you still remember the pin of the ledger without using it in a long time, so of course the 24 word will be use to recover it.

But if you still remember the pin then you can send it to some address that you own the private keys or seed then you can reset the device and get the 24 word seed and send back your funds to the address generated of your ledger.

[bob123]

You should move your coins out of your nano s ASAP if you don't have access to the backup seed anymore.
The next time an firmware update is pushed onto the nano s (or the next time it might crash,.. ) you will need to recover your nano s from your 24-word-seed.
If you are planning to keep your nano s laying around for 5 years without having access to the backup sheet, there will probably be quite a few new updates which will wipe your nano s,
forcing you to set it up again. Without your seed you won't be able to do so.

You don't have to buy a new ledger. Just create another wallet (e.g. paper wallet or desktop wallet (preferably on offline pc)) and send your funds from your nano s to this wallet.
Afterwards you can just reset your ledger, getting a new seed and transfer your funds back to your nano s. But with the current fees you might wait some time until performing this task.

[HCP]

Can someone tells me (hypothetically) what happens if I dont use ledger for 5 years and after 5 years I realize i cant find my 24 words phrase, am i Doomed with BTC on them ?

No. As long as you still remember your PIN, and have access to a wallet that is compatible with the Ledger Nano S (like the Ledger Chrome App or Electrum etc) then (theoretically) you should still be able to send your BTC out of the Ledger.

MY thinking is, If i lose 24 word passphrase I should just transfer stuff to some software wallet and get new ledger, correct?

Yes and No.

Yes, you should really move your BTC to a new wallet... as if you lose your 24 word phrase, you now have NO BACKUP for your BTC... if your ledger died, or you lost it, or you got the PIN wrong 3 times etc... you'd have no way to recover!!

No, because you don't need to get a new ledger, you just need to reset the ledger you currently have... (ie. incorrect PIN 3 times and it will wipe itself and reset)... then set it up with a new 24 word phrase and send all your BTC back into the ledger. This WOULD require a secondary wallet, as you don't have the original 24 word phrase, so there is no way for you to create a new wallet on the Ledger to send to, without wiping the original ledger wallet.

[19battlehill]

If u lose your 24 word phrase and something happens to your nano s ledger -- like it did to mine --- one day the nano screen just went black,  I thought I lost the recovery seed and almost had a heart attack.   -- I thought it was in the safe and when I went to get it and it wasn't there -UNBELIEVABLE FEELING -- I have 5 bitcoin, 90 eth, 2000 etc, and 1000 NEO on my ledger - I was out $250,000 because the ledger died.  Luckily, I found the seed in my husbands desk (have no idea what it was doing there).   By the way after mine died I looked around and saw that this happens to alot of people.  Was able to recover on another nano and all of my tokens were there.  If you do not have your seed -- take all tokens off nano,  wipe nano back to new,  get new recovery seed, load test token back on -- make sure you can recover with new seed.  Then load all of your tokens on.  Better to be safe then sorry,  and make multiple copies of your seed.

[boshugo96]

If u lose your 24 word phrase and something happens to your nano s ledger -- like it did to mine --- one day the nano screen just went black,  I thought I lost the recovery seed and almost had a heart attack.   -- I thought it was in the safe and when I went to get it and it wasn't there -UNBELIEVABLE FEELING -- I have 5 bitcoin, 90 eth, 2000 etc, and 1000 NEO on my ledger - I was out $250,000 because the ledger died.  Luckily, I found the seed in my husbands desk (have no idea what it was doing there).   By the way after mine died I looked around and saw that this happens to alot of people.  Was able to recover on another nano and all of my tokens were there.  If you do not have your seed -- take all tokens off nano,  wipe nano back to new,  get new recovery seed, load test token back on -- make sure you can recover with new seed.  Then load all of your tokens on.  Better to be safe then sorry,  and make multiple copies of your seed.

Still safer than putting funds in the bank 

[johniadeluca]

No, you don't need the phrase for sending and receiving but let's say something happened to your computer if you don't have the phrase you can never retrieve the wallet again. If you've lost it, honestly it may be best to just transfer it somewhere where you know all specs.

[cipher-x_09]

Yeah, this is definitely the one you don't want to get lost or forget you should definitely put your back in this in a small piece of paper and put in a place you will always see like for example on your room so that you may never lose it. Because if you fail to keep it safe then, I guess it's game over for you mate.

[cryptodadach]

Yes you wuod be doomed. Always keep the Private key in as many places as you can. Don't even think if risking using any wallet you don't own the key for. It's simply not worth it. The amount of headache and heart ache you will go through can all be mitigated so long as you keep your key around. So lease please keep multiple copies and make them physical copies because they the best and can be kept offline entirely.

I dont understand why i am doomed ? because in regular transaction i never use 24 word phrase. So far i never needed, i have my pin code, why i would be doomed? are you sure you know how ledger nano s works ?
no offense, i google for this, but i see responds that doesnt make sense

Right now i can go and send my btc to bitstamp and sell it....WITHOUT 24 word phrase, i just typed in pin, so if now i lost that 24 phrase....why am i doomed ?

PLEASE GUYS ANSWER ONLY IF YOU ARE SURE YOU KNOW HOW LEDGER NANO S WORKS
There is pin code and 24 word recovery phrase.

what are you gonna do when your NANO S stops working...let us know...

[HCP]

what are you gonna do when your NANO S stops working...let us know...

Buy another one... or use another BIP39/BIP44 compatible wallet... be it another hardware wallet (like Trezor) or a wallet like Electrum that accepts BIP39 seeds.

[jossiel]

what are you gonna do when your NANO S stops working...let us know...

Do you mean it's totally useless? There's no reason to keep it anymore if it stopped working.

As HCP said, you can use another hardware like Trezor and also include keep key as your choice but I haven't used it so just read some reviews about it.

If you don't want to buy, you can also use your phone as your literal "hardware" / gadget wallet.

[jerry0]

To those of you that say its the worst idea to write the 24 word seed in gmail... i would agree with this because someone could hack your account.  However, if you use say lastpass or keepass and then put the seed in either program, isn't that pretty safe?  Thus the hacker would not only need to know your gmail address, they need your gmail password.  Then they would need your password to either your lastpass or keepass.  So wouldn't that be pretty safe?  Or that could still be hacked?


Because they would have to go through 2 layers of security right?  Also isn't it true if someone logs into your gmail account from another location, gmail would block them if they don't recognize the ip address or country etc?  So wouldn't that be another hurdle for that hacker?  And even if they get through that, how could they hack the password for lastpass or keepass then?  Are there cases of this?  Because i have heard of cases where someone types their seed and emails it to their gmail account like in plain letters... that is bad since its not even encrypted.  But with lastpass or keepass, isn't that pretty safe then?



The thing is shouldn't you always have a digital backup?  Because in case something happens physically to your items? 

[Lucius]

To those of you that say its the worst idea to write the 24 word seed in gmail... i would agree with this because someone could hack your account.  However, if you use say lastpass or keepass and then put the seed in either program, isn't that pretty safe?  Thus the hacker would not only need to know your gmail address, they need your gmail password.  Then they would need your password to either your lastpass or keepass.  So wouldn't that be pretty safe?  Or that could still be hacked?


Because they would have to go through 2 layers of security right?  Also isn't it true if someone logs into your gmail account from another location, gmail would block them if they don't recognize the ip address or country etc?  So wouldn't that be another hurdle for that hacker?  And even if they get through that, how could they hack the password for lastpass or keepass then?  Are there cases of this?  Because i have heard of cases where someone types their seed and emails it to their gmail account like in plain letters... that is bad since its not even encrypted.  But with lastpass or keepass, isn't that pretty safe then?



The thing is shouldn't you always have a digital backup?  Because in case something happens physically to your items? 

I do not know why you ever think about it,private key or seed should never be stored in e-mail account no matter how this email is protected.When you get your seed from hardware device or desktop wallet write it down on a piece of paper and make several copies.Since paper is it is not fire and water resistant and ink can blur with time it would not be bad to engrave seed in piece of metal or plastic.

Just for info,Gmail will not block hacker or you to access to your e-mail form different IP address,they will only send you warning that someone is try to log in from different device/IP, something like a warning to a suspicious activity.

[CryptoRobert]

To those of you that say its the worst idea to write the 24 word seed in gmail... i would agree with this because someone could hack your account.  However, if you use say lastpass or keepass and then put the seed in either program, isn't that pretty safe?  Thus the hacker would not only need to know your gmail address, they need your gmail password.  Then they would need your password to either your lastpass or keepass.  So wouldn't that be pretty safe?  Or that could still be hacked?


Because they would have to go through 2 layers of security right?  Also isn't it true if someone logs into your gmail account from another location, gmail would block them if they don't recognize the ip address or country etc?  So wouldn't that be another hurdle for that hacker?  And even if they get through that, how could they hack the password for lastpass or keepass then?  Are there cases of this?  Because i have heard of cases where someone types their seed and emails it to their gmail account like in plain letters... that is bad since its not even encrypted.  But with lastpass or keepass, isn't that pretty safe then?



The thing is shouldn't you always have a digital backup?  Because in case something happens physically to your items? 

I do not know why you ever think about it,private key or seed should never be stored in e-mail account no matter how this email is protected.When you get your seed from hardware device or desktop wallet write it down on a piece of paper and make several copies.Since paper is it is not fire and water resistant and ink can blur with time it would not be bad to engrave seed in piece of metal or plastic.

Just for info,Gmail will not block hacker or you to access to your e-mail form different IP address,they will only send you warning that someone is try to log in from different device/IP, something like a warning to a suspicious activity.

The whole point which makes Nano Ledger so much more safe than a password protected wallet on your computer is that by storing your Ledgeryour  seed offline even in the case of hackers intruding in your computer they cannot get your private key. But if you store the seed on your computer, all safety is gone.