How do you keep your mnemonic phrases?

[Forsyth Jones]

read my post Here that I did, I approached strategies on how to protect their mnemonic codes, it is in Portuguese but if they want me to translate it into the English language I can do it later. I hope you can understand.

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[bob123]

When it comes to my mnemonic phrases, I just copy and paste it in a word document then store it here in my smartphone.

Though sounds careless, I'm still confident that they are safe because I do not permit anyone to touch my personal stuffs especially that wallet and phone.

This sounds more than just careless.
Storing your mnemonic seed on your mobile phone (unencrypted  ) is a bad idea.
Mobile phone manufacturer often skip security patches while displaying everything would be up-to-date. [1]

You are running a relatively huge risk of getting your seed compromised.

A digital storage is never a good idea for such sensitive information (doesn't matter whether encrypted or not).
The only form of digital storage which seems to be 'ok' is to have a backup encrypted on a device which is not connected to the internet (USB only used for this purpose, Offline PC, ...).


Storing your seed printed/written on a piece of paper in your wallet at home would probably be way more secure.



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/13/android-phone-makers-skip-security-updates-users-smartphone-software-google

[Forsyth Jones]

There is a way to encrypt the mnemonic code at the time of creating the wallet, if it is called BIP39 encryption consists of adding a password on top of your mnemonic, as if it were an additional word, a second authentication factor, I use this method and do not need worry about hiding my mnemonic, because even if someone has access, it's encrypted, it works like encrypting a paperwallet with BIP38.

See it: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mnemonic_phrase#Two-Factor_Mnemonic_Phrases

[bob123]

There is a way to encrypt the mnemonic code at the time of creating the wallet, if it is called BIP39 encryption consists of adding a password on top of your mnemonic, as if it were an additional word, a second authentication factor, I use this method and do not need worry about hiding my mnemonic, because even if someone has access, it's encrypted, it works like encrypting a paperwallet with BIP38.

BIP39 does not define any encryption. The additional word (passphrase) is not used to encrypt your mnemonic seed.
The additional word is used to derive a different (pseudorandom) seed (which is then used to derive HD wallets) from your mnemonic seed.

If someone gets access to your mnemonic seed, he will see all words. Nothing is encrypted.
But this mnemonic seed will generate a different seed (which is then used to generate HD wallet) than the same mnemonic seed with the additional word.

This is two-factor-authentication because you need to (1) have something (the mnemonic seed) and (2) know something (the additional word (=passphrase)).
This way you can add plausible deniability to your wallet. Use the mnemonic seed without a passphrase for a low-value wallet and use one with a passphrase for your 'big' holdings.
You will be able to disclose your seed/wallet to authorities/gangster/etc. without them being able to know you have a second (hidden) wallet tied to that seed.


You can read more about the additional word (passphrase) usage of BIP39 on github: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki#from-mnemonic-to-seed

[YuriyBum34]

I am using an archive width a random name: The key hunter couldn't to find it through a search on documents.

[Forsyth Jones]

thanks Bob, I know nothing is encrypted in the sentence, just an additional word that derives another HD wallet, if anyone see my mnemonic phrase, they will not know if it have BIP39 password or additional word, actually I made a topic about it and a tutorial on how to protect your mnemonic with password BIP39 at a glance here, but the wallets Coinomi, electrum, mycelium and samourai allow you to add BIP39 password in your mnemonic. I think this is the best way to protect your backup wallet with your founds.

[Spendulus]

Since other posters already suggested good ideas, I'd like to share one sort of "unorthodox" way of storing your mnemonic phrases.

Memorize it. Yes, you heard that right. A 12-word recovery seed is a lot easier to memorize that most people thought(though memorizing 24-word seed is still possible, just significantly harder). But I understand that this is definitely not for everyone.

This is very wrong because you can easily forget it

Hence the reason why I said "this is definitely not for everyone".

As someone who has just for fun memorized card decks and just to prove he could do it memorized four decks, I strongly advise against this.

Yes this is a method which is usable for a person with a trained memory. But for people who do not even know what that means, it is an extremely bad idea.

[Spendulus]

OK, this would sound noobish but I'm interested to know how other people keep the mnemonic phrase generated by the wallet. I do have the wallets secured with a pw and backed up (still not enough to warrant a hardware wallet) but I also have the passphrases handwritten in paper (someone said be wary of printers) and stashed somewhere but I'm wondering if there's a better way to keep them.

I don't know any cryptography but I'm thinking of shuffling the words rather than writing them down in order. Like a 12x12 grid where I'd spread them out in certain patterns and then finished with filler words. Since it's no longer as straight-forward should anyone get their hands on it, I think it would finally be safer to keep digital copies of it. Any suggestions?

very interesting topic . i will convert mnemonic phrases to arabic numerals . each word as a group . each letter as a unit . such as :" good day"  it is "[7, 15,15,4][4,1,25]" the numbers are the order of letters in the alphabet . you can also assign a specific number to each letter .

Very briefly, may I explain why each of these is a bad idea?

Cryptographic security is not a new topic and anything you think up has like been thought up decades ago and critiqued.

Actually the 12x12 grid is a variation of an old technique.

Why not just read about and use industry standard methods?

[Spendulus]

Here's a total paranoid way of storing it. It was (and probably still is) used a lot for message coding by intelligence services of many countries, so old, but still effective.
Take a book. Any book you like.
Find all the words your mnemonic phrase contains.
Mark their location using page-paragraph-word number combination, ie 120826 would mean page 12, paragraph 8, word 26.
As a result you will have a series of 6 digit numbers which you are free to store on your Google drive, email to yourself or paint on your roof Without knowing what the key book is no one will be able to decipher it.

Actually there's a bit more to it than that.

Not "any book you like" but "any book you can get an exact page for page, word by word" copy of anytime in the future.

For example the first edition of Heinlien , The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."

First editions are really good for this purpose. For a famous book these are not going to be cheap, a couple hundred USD or so.

[Spendulus]

Mostly websites recommend you to write your mnemonic phrases or backups but I don't think is a safety habit. For years, what I do is to copy and paste it in microsoft word document. I password protect it  and then send it to my own email that is secured with a google 2fa and my phone number. In such a case, I walk with my backup wherever I go, and it will take miracle for anyone to get break into.

There are 18,000 ways your method can and has been hacked.

Just one example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZdTP8erZE0

[Sonofshmidt]

Mostly websites recommend you to write your mnemonic phrases or backups but I don't think is a safety habit. For years, what I do is to copy and paste it in microsoft word document. I password protect it  and then send it to my own email that is secured with a google 2fa and my phone number. In such a case, I walk with my backup wherever I go, and it will take miracle for anyone to get break into.

There are 18,000 ways your method can and has been hacked.

Just one example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZdTP8erZE0

I just wrote it once in my diary and use it when in need:)

[Stedsm]

First, try billfodl. It's a better way if you want to keep your seeds and keys secured - https://billfodl.com/pages/compare-to-cryptosteel

Second way, and the most cheaper one that I personally follow is, you can buy some small (memory) sized memory cards and keep your private keys secured in them as well, you can put each of your cards at different places so that you can have alternatives that if one card goes corrupt, you can use the other ones.

[anhzaibro]

You can store them in a personal notebook or a notebook software written by yourself. I think it's quite safe. And you should mess up the information according to your own rules.

[Emmy92]

Mnemonic phrase you say? Not private key right. As for me I write it down and keep in secure and strategic places within my home.  I don't keep in my phone nor system. The best way is to write it down... Hope it helps.

[Wahyud11]

Save,
before saving we must complete the enconding first, then it can be stored for a certain time, at this stage there is storage of some notes, impressions that have been received from previous experience.

[mettalmag]

it is ironic but one copy of my hard wallet mnemonics are stored in bank storage
other copies in fire proof safe
never copy paste, never use word or any other digital document for those.
I always right them down on paper, then do a reset and check in action if everything works and only after then I store them.
For 2fa QR codes I use offline pc and printer and hideez key

[LtMotioN]

Store two sets of the first 50% of the phrase and 2 sets of the last 50% of the phrase in four places. Places like your parents house, inside your roof, safety deposit boxes or a close friends house are good to consider. 

You dont have to trust the person that much because they wont have the complete phrase.

[bob123]

Store two sets of the first 50% of the phrase and 2 sets of the last 50% of the phrase in four places. Places like your parents house, inside your roof, safety deposit boxes or a close friends house are good to consider. 

You dont have to trust the person that much because they wont have the complete phrase.

There are better approaches than this one.
With your approach if you split your seed into part A and B, store them at 4 different places and 2 now get lost you have a 50/50 chance that you can't recover your seed anymore.
In this case it would depend which of these 2 parts (A or B) got lost. If both A-parts get lost, you are out of luck and have 2 redundant part B left.

It is better to use shamir's secret sharing. You can split your seed into any kind of combination needed (e.g. 2 of 4, 3 of 5, ... ).


You can take a look at https://iancoleman.io/shamir/ to check shamirs secret sharing. Try it out yourself. With 2 out of 4 you just need ANY 2 out of these 4 to reconstruct the seed. Not 2 specific ones (like in your example).

But make sure to download the site and run it offline if you are going to use it.

[tranthetai]

The Mnemonic phrase is a private key that is not encrypted. If someone did get ahold of your Mnemonic phrase, it is equivalent to taking control of your wallet.

[bob123]

The Mnemonic phrase is a private key that is not encrypted.

The mnemonic phrase is just a depiction of a (big random) number. This big random number (seed) is used to derive private keys.
The mnemonic phrase is being used because it is less error-prone when backing up (12 - 24 words) than a 256 bit long decimal/hex value.
It basically just is a big number which is being encoded into words using a special 'sheme'. See more here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki.