Where do you store your seed?

[jerry0]

I had an electrum seed and wrote it on piece of paper.  I then decided to write it on a password program like lastpass/keepass.  So in order to get into the lastpass, you need a password.  And i put the lastpass in dropbox/google drive and store it there.  My thought was if someone somehow hacked into my gmail/dropbox, well they still need the password to my lastpass in order to get into my electrum seed.  I put the electrum seed in there as i type it out a long with my other bank account and everything whether its online site or anything.



Then i no longer used electrum.  I used a nano ledger s and store coins there.  But I did not type in my nano ledger seed in lastpass and thus did not store that in gmail/dropbox.  But again if i did... well a hacker would need to first hack into my gmail/dropbox... then get into the lastpass or keepass etc.  Wouldn't that be very hard?  And imagine you encrypt lastpass as well.  Wouldn't that be way too hard?



So i only have the seed written on paper and put it in the house.  But of course things could happen like fire, floods etc.  So what is the best way to store your seed to prevent this?  I heard of cryptosteel where its fireproof and floodproof so that works?  But isn't the issue if someone finds it, well its pretty easy to see oh why is there a bunch of long words and some ppl might even figure out its the seed to a wallet?



Now if you write the seed in a notebook with a ton of stuff there, well that would be hard for someone to find.  Imagine like you have a notebook where you have the seed there but also in the first few pages write down like nursery school rhyme or children books and lot of stuff like that, well obviously it won't look like its important.



Also i hear ppl say break your seed into two or three parts.  That makes sense but do you leave all the parts in the same house/apartment?  You hear about how you give one half to someone else you trust, you keep other half.  Well what if you no longer see the other person anymore or something happens, then what?  Obviously you would need to immediately send your coins to a temporary wallet in the meantime.

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[jerry0]

I heard ppl say put it in bank safety box and put it in two parts.  That seem good idea since well even if someone get access to your box with half the seed, they still need the other half.  But what if someone break into the safe and you didn't know until later on?  Or say it happens and your seed paper is gone... though that person only need to take a picture of it or write it down as taking the paper would be dumb as it would draw suspicion.  But if you lose half the seed, and say your hardware wallet malfunctions, then you are like screwed.


I know ppl say the moment you don't have access to your seed, immediately get the coins out of that current wallet.  But if you are on vacation and you come back and house burn or flood, well then you are screwed.  I mean its like unless you live in one of those nice high rise condos or hotels with security to check in... its like you are always vulnerable?  For example i feel like if you live in those luxury buildings with security and live in the mid to higher floors... well then your seed, device will be pretty safe? 



So wouldn't that mean typing your seed in lastpass/keepass and storing that in your google drive or dropbox... would still be relatively safe?  Because hacker need to hack your email... but they need to get in your lastpass/keepass which would be very hard to almost impossible assuming you dont have malware on your laptop?  I feel like its safe this way because well if there is a fire or flood and your seed is destroyed or device is destroyed or whatnot, well as long as you remember your gmail/dropbox password and of course your lastpass/keepass password, well the seed is there.  People say never store your seed in an email, but isn't this way more complex since they need to get through multiple steps?  First the email or dropbox cloud service, then they need the password program password?  And you might even encrypt it as well.  But if you do so much, of course you could forget one of the passwords.

[tranthidung]

I had an electrum seed and wrote it on piece of paper.
....
So i only have the seed written on paper and put it in the house.  But of course things could happen like fire, floods etc.  So what is the best way to store your seed to prevent this?

The best way to back up your seed or private key (depends on which wallet you use) is creating multiple backups and in some different formats: in harddrives, USBs, piece of paper, metal sheet, in vault, etc.

Important note: you must store your backup offline. More precisely, when you create your wallet, you should also create it offline.

Wallet creation (offline) -- Backup storages (offline).

To further avoid risks of potential physical damages (fire, water, flood, etc.), if you can you should store backups in multiple locations.

Never store your wallet backup or passwords of your accounts online. Never should do that! There are always risks of data breaches on any services, not exclude Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.


I then decided to write it on a password program like lastpass/keepass.  So in order to get into the lastpass, you need a password.  And i put the lastpass in dropbox/google drive and store it there.  My thought was if someone somehow hacked into my gmail/dropbox, well they still need the password to my lastpass in order to get into my electrum seed.  I put the electrum seed in there as i type it out a long with my other bank account and everything whether its online site or anything

But isn't the issue if someone finds it, well its pretty easy to see oh why is there a bunch of long words and some ppl might even figure out its the seed to a wallet?

Now if you write the seed in a notebook with a ton of stuff there, well that would be hard for someone to find.

Basically, the device you use to store your backup should also be kept as much offline as posisble (almost like a cold-backup-storage device).

Also i hear ppl say break your seed into two or three parts.  That makes sense but do you leave all the parts in the same house/apartment?  You hear about how you give one half to someone else you trust, you keep other half.  Well what if you no longer see the other person anymore or something happens, then what?  Obviously you would need to immediately send your coins to a temporary wallet in the meantime.

It is one of the way to complicate things. I would not go to such thing for a single wallet with a single seed/ private key. The biggest disadvantage of this method is sometimes people forgot how they mixed things, and can not recover wallet later. It sucks when you self-create troubles this way.

An alternative for you is multi-signature wallet. You can easily create it with Electrum wallet. You will have to choose how many co-signers who will sign signatures and unlock funds in that wallet. It is safer.

Documents:

• Multisig wallets
• Creating a multisig wallet

[Little Mouse]

I have been using paper to write down the seeds for the last few years. I know this is risky, can be burnt, or lost or destroyed by any other reason and that's why I consider saving 2 pieces in two different place. One is in my hometown and another is in my rented house where I used to live. It's unlikely that both will get destroyed at once.

[serjent05]

I also have my seeds written on paper and laminated it.  Buried it underground enclosed in a waterproof capsule.  Lamination for added protection, and buried underground to be fireproof.  I also create several backups of my seeds on flash disks.  Having both digital and tangible backups also help in case an unexpected thing happens.

[Darker45]

There are unlimited possibilities so you can imagine all kinds of scenarios. As for me, I wrote my seeds on a piece of paper. I made three copies. Since I only got two recovery sheets from my ledger box, I wrote a third copy on another sheet. I kept them in three different spots where I'm living. But I make sure that I'm carrying one with me whenever I travel far or whenever I'm gone for a long while. It may not be safe that way but so is my little box.

I admit that I may lack certain security measures in keeping them. The problem is that I don't want to make things complicated as I might end up not being able to access them myself several years or decades later. As a matter of fact, I've already forgotten where I kept one of the copies of my seed.

[OcTradism]

Stainless steel can help. Bitcoin Seed Backup Tools
Crypto Security - Additional Protection For Your Seed/Private Keys.
https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/
https://www.wikihow.com/Waterproof-Paper
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Fireproof-Paper

[mk4]

Storing your wallet's seed on an encrypted storage such as a password manager makes sense in theory, but this method is really only viable if you do things correctly; and that's a huge IF.

If you digitize the 12-24 words through an air-gapped device running something like Tails OS, with you completely and confidently knowing what you're doing, then sure it can work. But just simply typing out the words on your online personal computer? Definitely not. Your 12-24 words could probably be already leaked by now if you did it this way.

Also, if it's the case that the hacker gained access to your gmail/dropbox, though the hacker will most likely have trouble cracking the password assuming you have a really secure one(40+ characters, etc), I still wouldn't risk it.

[erikoy]

Storing seed phrase for any bitcoin or digital wallet should not be disclose for it can trigger hackers to get your seed phrase in a way that they had already some clue.

But storing a seed phrase is a good discussion especially if seed phrase store not in any digital devices like notes, vault(fire proof) or any way that cannot be access through internet. It can also be done in scripting it to the hard surfaces like woods, limestones and etc. LOL.

For me the best way to store seed phrase is to keep it in notes safety in a storage box or place where it could not be access to anyone unless you wanted to trust it with someone.

[FinneysTrueVision]

I keep one of my seeds hidden inside of an image using steganography.

[Memminger]

I secure mine on a clean usb flash drive and I also have a copy of it on a piece of paper but I always misplace it so I find it safer for me to use flash drive rather than a piece of paper.
But of course there are risk on holding it on such thing some would agree that the safest way is to store it on a paper because it could never be hacked online or be infected by a virus.
That is why I only use my flash drive when needed and I don't connect it on other device only on my computer.

[maydna]

You can use the deposit box at your bank to save your seed's and everything related to your assets in the crypto. Besides having a hardware wallet, you must have special places such as a deposit box or rooms that you can use to keep your private stuff, not just everything from the crypto. I don't suggest you store your seed or your password for another account in the cloud because that will be too risky if something bad happens to your account, even if you can restore all of your cloud accounts. After all, when your account gets hacked, you will hard to get your asset or account. After all, the hacker will use it for themselves.

Writing your seed or password in the paper and laminate it with plastic will be a good idea since you can save it in the deposit box, and I think that can prevent other people from stealing your stuff.

[TheUltraElite]

I keep one of my seeds hidden inside of an image using steganography.

Mr Robot spotted
Seriously, you cannot take any risks when storing the private keys to your wallet. It is the only thing that can give the owner the full control of the wallet. Think of it as "Admins rights", for laymen

The concept of a air-gapped device to store it, is definitely good provided you can spare one.

However storing the keys written online is a risky way to store them. We have seen iCloud hacks which led to some embarrassing situations for many celebs and other cloud service hacks too because hackers know there is sensitive info there they target them. So dont keep it there.

You could also prefer to go with the hardware wallets, keeping it written somewhere safe or store it in an external USB drive which you will only use for this purpose. Just dont get paranoid over it, be logical.

[@MostakH]

I write my seed in a notebook pen and write it on a mobile notepad..

[Astvile]

One of my wallet seed is stored separately. I split the seed into 2 papers and I hid one under my phone case and one is in a text file on my pc encrypted with password that is saved and written in another piece of paper lot of work but makes me feel secured because I've been traumatized getting hijacked around 2bitcoins before.

[Peanutswar]

There are a lot of wallet stating and making a warning to their users before using this wallet they need to keep their seed which is not on only or any kind of digital storage, so instead, I store this on my notebook and wallet of course I made two copies to make sure if there is a chance I lost the paper on my seed wallet phrase I have a backup, also I made a different kind of backup with the use of the paper, of course, there are a lot of seed everywhere on my place, so to make sure I will do not forget about the phrase, it's better to be safe and secured than forget all the money on your wallet.

[imstillthebest]

be careful, your slowly becoming paranoid now .  like they said you dont need to complicate things . why not chose 1 method that you think you are capable with  . not hard and not too easy but its just the right amount of difficulty for you and to the people around you  . i did once wrote my seed on a notepad and transfer it to my phone but i forgot and i reformat my phone  . fortunately it was an old wallet with nothing important stored on it  . storing elsewhere can be useless if you have memory problems with your brain  .

[pinggoki]

I'm not like others who think a complicated way to store their seeds like splitting it in half because there's a chance I might forget it for a long time. That is why I am now storing all of my important info in Keepass, I choose this program because it can be used offline yet the database created on it was saved on your phone so you don't need to worry where the database located. Just like I said the database of KeePass was made by you, unlike an online password manager.
I also once used to store it on a piece of paper but this can be destroyed instantly if something natural disaster happens. So I moved it in form of digital.

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

Or you can refer to this comprehensive thread: Bitcoin Seed Backup Tools. There are a lot of options in there, choose what fits your need and requirements

[batang_bitcoin]

I heard of cryptosteel where its fireproof and floodproof so that works? 

Exactly, there's this thread[1] that's made to discuss storages like this. Fire proof and water proof.
[1] Store your bitcoin seed / private key safely (Water, Fire, Shock-proof)
My only strategy is the basic one, written on a piece of paper for the backup while keeping the paper that came from Ledger and keep it to a place that nobody knows.