Old, formerly used keys / seeds should always be saved, not disposed

[1miau]

Surely, you still have some old, already used cryptocurrency keys / seeds and maybe you don’t have any use for them anymore, so you were considering to get rid of them. If so, please wait!

A list of reasons why an irreversable disposal of old addresses and their private keys, seed words or similar may be an action, you might regret later:

• If you have ever given your addresses to anyone else to send you a transaction of cryptocurrencies on your address, it would not be unlikely that these people could assume that you still have access to your address and send your some coins AGAIN (for whatever reason). As a result of a misunderstanding, cryptocurrencies sent to your old address would no longer be accessible because you don’t have your keys anymore.
• If you send some cryptocurrency to such an old address you own yourself by accident, you would no longer have access, as you would no longer have your private keys.
• Even if you have entered your address on any platform as a regular payout address, crypto currencies sent to your address would be lost.
• It is quite possible that an airdrop could be made for all addresses holding a certain amount of coins at time x. If you have no access to your wallet anymore, you won’t be able to access and sell such Airdrop coins.
• If your address was used to create a signature, for example for your Bitcointalk account, you would also lose all possibilities to verify your ownership by creating a new signature from your address. All signatures generated from your address would be very useless.
  In general, you could no longer prove ownership of your address.
• Remember: even if you consider your (remaining) crypto currencies on your address are of low value, I would still keep my address in case your coins should rise in value. Applies to Bitcoin as well as Shitcoins.

Maybe even more reasons to keep your old addresses are valid but are not mentioned here for now. If you have some, feel free to share it here.  


Reasons against keeping your old keys may exist, for example if your old keys are not disposed and destroyed and someone doing mischief gains access, such as signing from your address, for example, but such considerations are relatively unimportant compared to the reasons to keep old addresses.

Keeping and not disposing old keys is always an advisable consideration.



Translations

Language	translated by	Title
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Nigeria (Naija)	Chilwell	Old, formerly used keys / seeds Make we dey always saved am, and not throw away

Reserving new translations is currently not available.

[1714784511]

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[Upgrade00]

If you operate an offline backup method (as you should), there is no extra required to store your used addresses and the corresponding seed phrase. You likely still own bitcoins and have a safe area where you store them, you can always keep your previously used mnemonics there as well.

The chances of one receiving bitcoins randomly to an address they no longer use is slim and making a mistake when sending should ideally not happen, but if there's no cost to save it and there's a potential downside of not doing so, no matter how slim the possibility is; It is best to keep it.

[Findingnemo]

Imagine someone sent 10BTC to our address by a silly mistake even though we are too good and want to return we can't because we don't have the access.

I don't think keeping the private keys of unused wallet doesn't need any extra cost so there is nothing wrong but we should not have too much of secure data to keep so its better to keep all the keys in an offline drive with appropriate details so in case we need it we can access them at anytime we want.

[Falconer]

No one knows what will happen in the future even if we only have some shitcoins in the old wallet. Of course there is always the best chance of seeing this shitcoin valuable in the future so it's good to consider keeping that old seed or PK wallet safe.

I still keep some PK from my old ethereum wallet until now, maybe long term too. But my first point of keeping it is not for a hope it will be of great value in the future but maybe I can use it again when I need it. It would be great if the shitcoin would have a price, but of course we don't have to spend a lot of money just to keep it safe.

OP, thanks for reminding him again.

[Oceat]

Imagine someone sent 10BTC to our address by a silly mistake even though we are too good and want to return we can't because we don't have the access.

I don't think keeping the private keys of unused wallet doesn't need any extra cost so there is nothing wrong but we should not have too much of secure data to keep so its better to keep all the keys in an offline drive with appropriate details so in case we need it we can access them at anytime we want.

How lucky if someone received 10BTC by mistake.

But in reality that's not going to happen unless of course, if someone knew your address which you could consider saving the private keys/seed just in case someone might mistakenly sent to your old address. Well, it just depends actually if your old address was quite active in the past that do a lot of trading or p2p which is so hard to leave/forget.

[1miau]

Imagine someone sent 10BTC to our address by a silly mistake even though we are too good and want to return we can't because we don't have the access.

Yes!
That's exactly what happened to many people of the early days and I'm sure they will be quite sad for the rest of their life. Just by doing one simple mistake. 

If you operate an offline backup method (as you should), there is no extra required to store your used addresses and the corresponding seed phrase. You likely still own bitcoins and have a safe area where you store them, you can always keep your previously used mnemonics there as well.

That's true and a very recommended method.
But I'm sure, many people are still at a risk for whatever reason (maybe getting rid of all backup files  ) or even some more avoidable mistakes like this guy here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/12/in-bits-the-programmer-locked-out-of-his-130m-bitcoin-account

[khaled0111]

Even Satoshi advised against deleting old wallets even if you believe you are not going to need/use them anymore:

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

A private key or a seed phrase is a few bytes long so storing thousands (even millions) of them shouldn't be a problem.
Wallet files can be a bit large (if it has many addresses and labels) but you don't always have to back them up, you need only to save the wallets seed.

[Ultegra134]

I've recovered three old Blockchain.com wallets one or two years ago, to be honest, I wasn't sure what to do with them anymore. They weren't used anywhere important, thus, junking them is the most likely option. However, the wallet corresponding to the address I have on my Bitcointalk account, was inactive, due to moving my funds to an offline wallet (transfered from BitGo to Electrum) and was recovered a week or two ago.

To be honest, I never thought I would ever need that online wallet, nor its credentials anymore. It would have never crossed my mind that if sh*t happened, I could potentially need it.

Thanks

[Viscore]

Surely, you still have some old, already used cryptocurrency keys / seeds and maybe you don’t have any use for them anymore, so you were considering to get rid of them. If so, please wait!

A list of reasons why an irreversable disposal of old addresses and their private keys, seed words or similar may be an action, you might regret later:

• If you have ever given your addresses to anyone else to send you a transaction of cryptocurrencies on your address, it would not be unlikely that these people could assume that you still have access to your address and send your some coins AGAIN (for whatever reason). As a result of a misunderstanding, cryptocurrencies sent to your old address would no longer be accessible because you don’t have your keys anymore.
• If you send some cryptocurrency to such an old address you own yourself by accident, you would no longer have access, as you would no longer have your private keys.
• Even if you have entered your address on any platform as a regular payout address, crypto currencies sent to your address would be lost.
• It is quite possible that an airdrop could be made for all addresses holding a certain amount of coins at time x. If you have no access to your wallet anymore, you won’t be able to access and sell such Airdrop coins.
• If your address was used to create a signature, for example for your Bitcointalk account, you would also lose all possibilities to verify your ownership by creating a new signature from your address. All signatures generated from your address would be very useless.
  In general, you could no longer prove ownership of your address.
• Remember: even if you consider your (remaining) crypto currencies on your address are of low value, I would still keep my address in case your coins should rise in value. Applies to Bitcoin as well as Shitcoins.

Maybe even more reasons to keep your old addresses are valid but are not mentioned here for now. If you have some, feel free to share it here. 


Reasons against keeping your old keys may exist, for example if your old keys are not disposed and destroyed and someone doing mischief gains access, such as signing from your address, for example, but such considerations are relatively unimportant compared to the reasons to keep old addresses.

Keeping and not disposing old keys is always an advisable consideration.

If you don't want to be in trouble accessing your old accounts in the future, then its best to keep your private keys and seed words safe and secured. Disposing them because you think you won't be needing them anymore, well think twice, because that might bring you big fortune in the future who knows? As long as you always keep them to yourself, not sharing it to others, that will serve good purpose in the future.

[Despairo]

Hopefully I always saved all of my private keys and seeds that I've ever use because we don't know what happen in the future. However it's good @OP to reminds everyone to not delete their private keys and seeds, many users doesn't care enough with their old addresses.

In addition, I would to add importing and sweeping private keys are different thing. If you ever sweep private keys, you're need to save your old address private key and new address private key. If you just import, you're not using new address.

To save your private keys / seeds in very secure way, this thread can be your guide:
1. Crypto Security - Additional Protection For Your Seed/Private Keys.
2. How best to secure your Private Keys and/or Seed phrase

You don't need to quote all the whole @OP post.

[libert19]

I have them saved in password manager, as long it's there these keys will stay. To bother deliberately? No.

[lovesmayfamilis]

If you don't want to be in trouble accessing your old accounts in the future, then its best to keep your private keys and seed words safe and secured. Disposing them because you think you won't be needing them anymore, well think twice, because that might bring you big fortune in the future who knows? As long as you always keep them to yourself, not sharing it to others, that will serve good purpose in the future.

Buddy, you exactly repeated the text of the OP. Do you think that the author was not clear enough? Why not rewrite advice in your own words?

I have them saved in password manager, as long it's there these keys will stay. To bother deliberately? No.

Yes, the password manager helped me out at one point. Being a beginner and far from the Internet, I registered on one forum, and after not finding and not understanding the topics of the forum, I soon left it. But after a while, I again decided to get to that resource, but it turned out to be paid. And as if nothing had happened, I was able to log in, without any payment.

And yes, as far as old passphrases are concerned, I've been lucky too. I came to this forum by purchasing some ether. But participation in the bounty did not inspire me, and I completely abandoned my wallet. But it was a surprise to me when I saw that ETH itself grew after some time, and also some coins that were dead weight began to cost something.

[Lucius]

From day one, I thought it was important to keep all private keys or wallet.dat files, even if I stopped using them at some point. I didn't do it because I thought someone would send me something by accident, but because I considered it my personal property. I use one of these addresses even today after 7 years and let’s say it has sentimental value for me.

Some others would certainly like to have thought similarly, because there are a lot of them who have lost their private keys and everything that those keys controlled.

[Ultegra134]

From day one, I thought it was important to keep all private keys or wallet.dat files, even if I stopped using them at some point. I didn't do it because I thought someone would send me something by accident, but because I considered it my personal property. I use one of these addresses even today after 7 years and let’s say it has sentimental value for me.

Some others would certainly like to have thought similarly, because there are a lot of them who have lost their private keys and everything that those keys controlled.

Stupid dum dum used to save them in Windows notepad when I was a lot younger, only to proceed and lose them some time later. I'm pretty certain that I've lost more than 3 wallets that way, one of which was a Dogecoin one, containing a few hundreds of Doge, never to be recovered, despite my attemps several years later. I've also found one more BTC address, containing a few mBTCs, but its private key or seed phrase was nowhere to be found.
 

Edit: Found one of the two wallet addresses on an email

https://dogechain.info/address/DU2i9qvUdThnSJQcrsh5u3rUNDKEBpzAaa

[PrimeNumber7]

But I'm sure, many people are still at a risk for whatever reason (maybe getting rid of all backup files  ) or even some more avoidable mistakes like this guy here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/12/in-bits-the-programmer-locked-out-of-his-130m-bitcoin-account

What is described in that article is just a really bad design on the part of the HW wallet manufacturer.

In theory, a security researcher might find vulnerabilities in that HW wallet that would allow someone to make a copy of the HW wallet so someone can at least brute force password attempts.

• If you have ever given your addresses to anyone else to send you a transaction of cryptocurrencies on your address, it would not be unlikely that these people could assume that you still have access to your address and send your some coins AGAIN (for whatever reason). As a result of a misunderstanding, cryptocurrencies sent to your old address would no longer be accessible because you don’t have your keys anymore.

While it is good practice to return any coin erroneously sent to you, it is not good for someone to rely on this went creating a transaction. There is always the risk that someone, for whatever reason no longer has access to their private keys.

[aoluain]

snip

Some others would certainly like to have thought similarly, because there are a lot of them who have lost their private keys and everything that those keys controlled.

Exactly, we have seen many times where people come to the forum requesting help to
retrieve coins from wallets where the keys have been lost/forgotten/discarded.

Its good practice for all the reasons in the OP to keep everything secure, in good order
and accessible by the owner at any time.

I have all mine apart from some worthless $hitcoin ones.

Private keys would only take up bytes on a memory stick, there would be no need to
delete them.

How often do you all check your old addresses to see if anyone sent anything to them?

[Lucius]

What is described in that article is just a really bad design on the part of the HW wallet manufacturer.

There is no problem with this device, which is not actually a hardware wallet but an encrypted flash drive, but the problem is that the person in question was not able to save his password properly, which is very strange for someone who calls himself a programmer. If you lose the backup for any hardware wallet and enter the wrong PIN x times, the device will reset to factory defaults. The problem is not in the devices but in the people who use them.

In theory, a security researcher might find vulnerabilities in that HW wallet that would allow someone to make a copy of the HW wallet so someone can at least brute force password attempts.

The article claims that there is a person who says he can do it in 6 months with a 10% commission, but I do not know if the owner accepted the proposal - I did not find the news that he managed to get his BTC back.

Following the publicity of Thomas’s plight, Alex Stamos, an internet security expert at Stanford Internet Observatory, said he could crack the password within six months if Thomas gave him a 10% cut of the digital fortune

I've also found one more BTC address, containing a few mBTCs, but its private key or seed phrase was nowhere to be found.

If you have not deleted something irrevocably, there is always hope that you will find it. I was convinced that I had lost several hundred altcoins I had collected by solving a captcha (Nano), but then I found a seed that was stored on an old USB stick - the value at the time was a few thousand $.

[Pmalek]

Private keys would only take up bytes on a memory stick, there would be no need to delete them.

I hope you aren't relying on your USB drives when it comes to storing the keys and seeds for your more important coins.

If you have ever generated a seed, received coins to that wallet in the past, it doesn't hurt to save it. You don't have to go through the trouble of laminating the words, using steal plates, or whatever other methods of seed storage you like, but it takes just a minute to write it down somewhere in a notebook and keep it there.

Keeping all generated seed words is especially important if you create them often for whatever reasons. Testing new wallets or new features, or maybe even creating wallets for your family or parents. I gifted Bitcoin to a friend not that long ago, but I generated and funded the wallet on my end. I gave him the seed and informed him I am keeping a backup. He had a choice to ask me to get rid of the backup or keep it. He didn't mind me keeping it. 

[Ultegra134]

I've also found one more BTC address, containing a few mBTCs, but its private key or seed phrase was nowhere to be found.

If you have not deleted something irrevocably, there is always hope that you will find it. I was convinced that I had lost several hundred altcoins I had collected by solving a captcha (Nano), but then I found a seed that was stored on an old USB stick - the value at the time was a few thousand $.

Unfortunately, I highly doubt it, there's also a slight possibility that there was a wallet saved in a USB drive which was lost a few years ago. However, it's worth a try to recover old deleted files in an attempt to find lost crypto. You can never be too certain.

I'm currently on a treasure hunt, part 1 

[tranthidung]

Private keys would only take up bytes on a memory stick, there would be no need to delete them.

I hope you aren't relying on your USB drives when it comes to storing the keys and seeds for your more important coins.

Digital devices have risk of technical issues and we don't know when it happens.

If I have 2 options, paper wallet and USB drive, I would prefer to choose Paper for storage of my private key or mnemonic seeds.
Another key point is: Always make multiple backups for each wallet. When one is broken and unusable, you will still have another/ other ones to use.

I don't choose USB drive because I don't want to wake up, open a USB and see it is broken, all data inside is lost.