A lesson, disadvantage of storing seed into the device.

[The Cryptovator]

We all know the disadvantage of storing your wallet seed/private key into an online machine. Here is a lesson for us, Lost coins in the stupid way. Usually, newbies aren't much active on technical discussion threads, so sometimes I share from where we can learn and get a lesson. You may see the above user had deleted his seed from his computer and he hadn't written any copy on hard paper. As a result, that person in danger now. We don't know reality if that user could recover his funds or not. We use wallet software to save our valuable assets. But it would harmful because of our carelessness. Your fund isn't safe unless you save your wallet credentials.

Hope we all learn and get a lesson from here that, we shouldn't save our seed/private keys on any machine either it's offline or online. Because everything is disposable. We must write our seed phrase or private keys on multiple hard papers and keep them in multiple safe places. So even you lost the one you can access from another paper. Good practice would save your funds.

[YOSHIE]

Maybe what your say is true, I saw and read the topic one day ago 'Friday', in the early morning, it's a very careless act.

What happened to @xmr9, that's a lesson for all, including me 'what can I say', prepare an umbrella before it rains, I also copy something valuable on paper and keep it in a safe place, I did it, ever since I got to know Bitcoin and crypto exchanges.

Other than that: my advice if possible tell one trusted person, about keys such as: wife / husband to have access to traded crypto assets, I think it's important, because we never know age and death.

[pixie85]

We all know the disadvantage of storing your wallet seed/private key into an online machine. Here is a lesson for us, Lost coins in the stupid way.

In the case from the link it was rather a matter of messing up with the private keys or mishandling them. It wouldn't really mattered if he had it on an offline or an online machine. If you delete the only backup you're usually in trouble.

I had my coins on my computer for many years without any problems. The important part is not messing with it if you don't have to. The more you send your coins between wallets and exchanges the greater are your chance of losing or exposing them. Just put them in one place, keep your pc clean and you'll be good.

You want to know who are the people who usually lose coins? The same people who try to invest in every single shitcoin, download a lot of new wallets for those shitcoins and enter all those suspicious sites like mlm, hyip, cloud mining, porn, bitcoin multiplyers, blockchain hacks, you name it.

[Coyster]

Users need to have a proper and efficient backup of their seed phrases, having it in one place and end up deleting it is pretty careless tbh, as a Bitcoin user, if you feel comfortable storing your seed only in your device, then you must make sure the device is offline and also understand that something bad could happen to your device unexpectedly, for example it could be stolen, formatted mistakingly or could malfunction at anytime, so having an additional backup written down is very necessary.

You want to know who are the people who usually lose coins? The same people who try to invest in every single shitcoin, download a lot of new wallets for those shitcoins and enter all those suspicious sites like mlm, hyip, cloud mining, porn, bitcoin multiplayers, blockchain hacks, you name it.

More reason why Bitcoin users should either have a hw wallet, or more than one device, one to keep wallets, store seed phrases and everything that has to do with their crypto funds; while the other device for their online activities/other whatnots.

[Findingnemo]

One main disadvantage while storing the seeds in a physical paper by handwritten is how long they can sustain, what will happen if we accidentally pour water into it? Still it goes into the stupid way. Keeping the seed safer is the real task for someone who wants to hold their cryptos assets for longer years.

[khaled0111]

The user deleted what he thought was a seed for an empty wallet. He shouldn't have done that, it goes against Satoshi's recommendations. Not many (advanced users included) follow them anyways so can't really blame him:

Sigh... why delete a wallet instead of moving it aside and keeping the old copy just in case?  You should never delete a wallet.

One of the good practices is to have multiple back ups of your seeds/PKs saved on different devices.

[jossiel]

One main disadvantage while storing the seeds in a physical paper by handwritten is how long they can sustain, what will happen if we accidentally pour water into it? Still it goes into the stupid way. Keeping the seed safer is the real task for someone who wants to hold their cryptos assets for longer years.

I agree about keeping it somewhere safer is the real thing.

Writing on a piece of paper is also one of the best traditional method but you need to have several backups, whether you keep it offline. I have never thought of keeping it online, we can be infiltrated by someone we don't know on the web and just to be sure, never ever click any unknown links.

Written, virtual(not online) backups where you're not compromising your seeds or private keys is always the thing. It's like where the safe keeper and we need to check it from time to time where it's placed for its safety.

[OcTradism]

Seed need to be kept as much safely as possible.

Safely from strangers, hackers, and safely from physical damages (water, fire, shocks). Storing seed into device or online machine, online service is not safely because devices can be broken and you will need to bring devices to customer service stores for maintenance and fix it. This will never give your seed backup the safety you need for.

Seed instead should be kept offline and as said should not be damaged by physical things. Store your bitcoin seed / private key safely (Water, Fire, Shock-proof). I know there is little people will buy those water, fire, shock-proof plates but it is the examples on the best ways to protect your seed.

I store my seed on paper, and encrypted USB.

[erikoy]

It is because digital smartphones or computers are the direct saving device for the pass phrase and other files that contain bitcoin wallet important details. Being lazy in writing it to back up will result like OP had stated and link to the thread.

I experience this kind of problem where I had deleted important digital wallet information save as a document. I was too wondering that if I could recover it fortunately I did and already made some back up.

How did I recover it? I installed a program that could restore deleted or files deleted after computer system has been reformat. This is how I done shared in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5273904.msg55142213#msg55142213

[Findingnemo]

I store my seed on paper, and encrypted USB.

Flash drives, USD sticks, SSD, HDD all are good for long term storage but not really too long. The expected lifetime of all these storage devices is just 5 - 10 years which may look like longer but compared to the traditional investor person this is just really a small part. So don't forget to move those files to new devices before it gets ruined.

[OcTradism]

I store my seed on paper, and encrypted USB.

Flash drives, USD sticks, SSD, HDD all are good for long term storage but not really too long. The expected lifetime of all these storage devices is just 5 - 10 years which may look like longer but compared to the traditional investor person this is just really a small part. So don't forget to move those files to new devices before it gets ruined.

You need to make multiple backup and I don't think make a backup then let it out of hand for a decade is a good idea. You need to check backup conditions after a while some time, 1 year or 2 year. Check backup condition offline. For balance check, you can use block explorers with Tor browser.

With regular checkup you can know if a backup is damaged and can replaced it by a new one.

[Darker45]

Hope we all learn and get a lesson from here that, we shouldn't save our seed/private keys on any machine either it's offline or online. Because everything is disposable. We must write our seed phrase or private keys on multiple hard papers and keep them in multiple safe places. So even you lost the one you can access from another paper. Good practice would save your funds.

As you said, everything is disposable. In which case, whether you are saving your seed on an offline or online machine or a piece of paper, it could still be gone. Machines could get destroyed as much as papers. Even if you etch your seed on a piece of wood, it could still perish. So basically the lesson here is not to avoid saving your seed on a machine but keeping several copies stored in different locations.

[mk4]

It just shows how expectedly foreign self-custody is to a lot of people. We have been so accustomed to contacting PayPal and our bank's customer support when a problem arises with our money. And not only that, let's also take into consideration scammers and hackers in the space. A lot of people are going to learn really really expensive lessons in the cryptocurrency space.

[joniboini]

what will happen if we accidentally pour water into it? Still it goes into the stupid way.

And that's analogous to what OP of that thread did. His mistake is not because he save his seed on his device, but because he mistakenly delete and save the file with little hope to recover the previous version of the file. If anything, it shows like being careless is one of the reason why people lose money. Does not matter if you use a hardware wallet when you mistakenly wipe the seed with no backup.

[Lucius]

A lot of people are going to learn really really expensive lessons in the cryptocurrency space.

Things like this happen because people do things the wrong way, buy Bitcoin first, and then learn the basics - but the problem is that some don't get to learn before they do this kind of nonsense like the OP example. However, it is illusory to expect that the situation in this field will improve, because it is not something that is taught in school or what parents teach their children - knowledge is power, and in the case of cryptocurrency, everyone should think carefully about what he does before some irreparable situation occurs.

I may be too pessimistic, but I deeply doubt that even 50% of existing Bitcoins is adequately secured, by which I mean those on crypto exchanges, various online wallets, or those backed up on email, cloud or as plain text on a computer/mobile phone.

[Trinx01]

Internet is the main way for the hackers to access your account or to steal some of your important information and funds, storing your seed or private key on a device is such a risky action, you are putting your wallet at risk because there is always a possibility that your device can have a virus and that virus can steal your important information in your device.

If you want to secure your see, you may write it down on a piece of paper and place it in a safe place in your house and always create a back up for it because there is still some danger that can happen that can cause to lose the paper you used to store your seed, create it a copy then place it on other places.

You may also store your private seed only on your memory, if you are confident enough that you won't forget your seed then be it, that is the very safest way to store your seed but a risky one as well.

On my personal security for my seed, I have two copy of it located in our main house and to our apartment, this will assure myself that I won't lose access on my seed, I never store it in any device I have, that is risky especially if you have too much money on your wallet.

[RapTarX]

There's no point of using such a wallet unless you don't bother keep the seed securely in offline (writing in paper etc). Storing on electronic devices are risky in many ways; can get hacked, device can get destroyed etc. I have written my seed which I use to store BTC for long time and kept it securely. Still, it's not safe. I'm looking for ways to save it from fire damage.

[slackovic]

A seed phrase is something that you probably don't use often so it's best to write those words on a several pieces of paper, protect them with plastic (I can't remember of a word in English for this ) and put them in few geographically separate places (to protect them from fire, floods and stuff like that). That way those papers will be protected from the elements and they will be safe.

[mk4]

I may be too pessimistic, but I deeply doubt that even 50% of existing Bitcoins is adequately secured, by which I mean those on crypto exchanges, various online wallets, or those backed up on email, cloud or as plain text on a computer/mobile phone.

That's honestly not really much of a "pessimistic" view, simply just a realistic one. Honestly I'd even bump that number to probably 80%. It's really safe to assume that people leave their funds on the exchange giants like Coinbase and Binance simply due to the ease-of-use and convenience factor.

[The Cryptovator]

As you said, everything is disposable. In which case, whether you are saving your seed on an offline or online machine or a piece of paper, it could still be gone. Machines could get destroyed as much as papers. Even if you etch your seed on a piece of wood, it could still perish. So basically the lesson here is not to avoid saving your seed on a machine but keeping several copies stored in different locations.

I think you hadn't read the thread carefully. I know everything is disposable. My goal was of this thread to spread the word that you shouldn't store your seed in a machine and you should write your seed on multiple hard papers to save it in multiple places. So that all paper wouldn't destroy at the same time. Means even you shouldn't save in a single house to make sure wouldn't destroy all for fire.