The irony of leaving your private keys in a bank

[takuma sato]

Does anyone use a bank safe service to leave your trezor or whatever you use in there? I have been considering which would be the ways in which one could leave physical backups somewhere else than your own home. If you don't trust anyone to do a good job in keeping the device safe, the only way I see is that you either own 2 homes, which I don't, or that you hire a service in a bank where you can leave the stuff in there. Im assuming there's good security, and no one could realistically get in there, at least in any developed country. The only way would be that an employee is dumb enough to attempt a heist from inside but that's also unlikely.

Could you explain your experience doing this and what to considering when hiring such a service?

[jackg]

I'd advise comparing prices between sage deposit boxes and self storage (self storage is probably about as secure - especially if you're using a passphrase stored elsewhere or multisig between multiple places - attacking them is also less lucrative as safe deposit boxes mostly have things that are expensive to everyone and self storage often just has things the renter won't want to replace).

Additionally, in case you're weary of where you've placed everything, they might be faster to access too. The security likely also depends on you not telling anyone who knows enough about you where they might be too.

[Poker Player]

Does anyone use a bank safe service to leave your trezor or whatever you use in there? I have been considering which would be the ways in which one could leave physical backups somewhere else than your own home. If you don't trust anyone to do a good job in keeping the device safe, the only way I see is that you either own 2 homes, which I don't, or that you hire a service in a bank where you can leave the stuff in there. Im assuming there's good security, and no one could realistically get in there, at least in any developed country. The only way would be that an employee is dumb enough to attempt a heist from inside but that's also unlikely.

Could you explain your experience doing this and what to considering when hiring such a service?

It is confusing what you say because first you talk about private keys and then about leaving your hardware wallet in the safe of a bank. I see less of a problem with the latter than the former.

If you have a lot of capital and only one house I think the best solution for you would be a multi signature wallet where you need 2 private keys out of 3 to be able to manage funds. 1 is held by the company but with that key alone they can't do anything. Another key you have at home, and the other in a safe at the bank.

If you have a second home, instead of leaving one of the keys in a safe at the bank, you leave it in the second home.

[tbct_mt2]

Why you have to save your private key in bank vault. You trust a third party to keep your private key safely. Even you can trust them and their service is good, the service cost should be expensive.

You can take care of your private keys safely only by yourself. Think of reason why you keep your private key in bank vault? It is for recovery later, what you save is only a backup.

And you will have your private key in hands, on your devices to spend your coin. You can not go to bank everytime you need to make any transaction. It is time wasting and unnecessary.

If you use bank vault service, it should be for a wallet with big fund. For a wallet that you store small fund for regularly use and transactions, you should save its key by yourself.

[Strongkored]

Why should you secure your decentralized assets with centralized services?
I think using a safety box and keeping it hidden at home is enough in my opinion, especially if you don't have a large enough asset because storing it in a bank also costs money and moreover you can't access it during an emergency.

[Darker45]

Although extremely ironic, this is indeed a sound option if you doubt your capabilities to self-custody. I actually remember no less than the popular Bitcoin preacher, Andreas Antonopoulos, admitting that one of his backups is safely stored in a bank safe. To me, this is indeed an option. After all, robbing a bank is much harder to do than robbing a house without a single security staff.

But forget about owning a couple of houses just so that you could safely keep your backup in another house. Each house is as vulnerable. So that's ridiculous. Not to mention the cost of building that other house. That's more absurd than keeping your wealth in Bitcoin but storing the private keys in a bank's safe.

[Anonylz]

Why should you secure your decentralized assets with centralized services?
I think using a safety box and keeping it hidden at home is enough in my opinion, especially if you don't have a large enough asset because storing it in a bank also costs money and moreover you can't access it during an emergency.

Don't miss up security consciousness with decentralization talk. Natural disaster, robbery don't understand that word. Whether it is kept in the bank or at home, the priority is to keep it safe, I don't see what decentralization got to do with that, it is not that they will open to see what is inside.

Anyone who is looking to store his/her crypto assets key in the bank or in another separate secured place other than his/her must have large sum.

[Kemarit]

Does anyone use a bank safe service to leave your trezor or whatever you use in there? I have been considering which would be the ways in which one could leave physical backups somewhere else than your own home. If you don't trust anyone to do a good job in keeping the device safe, the only way I see is that you either own 2 homes, which I don't, or that you hire a service in a bank where you can leave the stuff in there. Im assuming there's good security, and no one could realistically get in there, at least in any developed country. The only way would be that an employee is dumb enough to attempt a heist from inside but that's also unlikely.

Could you explain your experience doing this and what to considering when hiring such a service?

Yeah, it's ironic that if we decided to leave our hardware wallet like Trezor for safe keeping in their safety deposit box because we can't leave it at home as there are a lot of bad things that can happen like fire etc.

But I would say that you can also invest in steel armored plate? You can read a comparison in here by @OcTradism

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5278839.0

Or maybe you can buy your own safety deposit box and put in at home, but you have to choose the good one.

[mindrust]

Does anyone use a bank safe service to leave your trezor or whatever you use in there? I have been considering which would be the ways in which one could leave physical backups somewhere else than your own home. If you don't trust anyone to do a good job in keeping the device safe, the only way I see is that you either own 2 homes, which I don't, or that you hire a service in a bank where you can leave the stuff in there. Im assuming there's good security, and no one could realistically get in there, at least in any developed country. The only way would be that an employee is dumb enough to attempt a heist from inside but that's also unlikely.

Could you explain your experience doing this and what to considering when hiring such a service?

"If you don't hold it, you don't own it."

"Not your keys, not your coins."

If you are going to trust a third party with your money then it doesn't make sense to keep it in crypto. Banks not as secure as people think. They may look like they are secure but there is a big flaw which people fail to see. Banks will always do what they are told by the government. If the government comes up with a law to seize the money of everybody, the bank will have to comply.

[KaliLinux]

Why you have to save your private key in bank vault. You trust a third party to keep your private key safely. Even you can trust them and their service is good, the service cost should be expensive.

You can take care of your private keys safely only by yourself. Think of reason why you keep your private key in bank vault? It is for recovery later, what you save is only a backup.

And you will have your private key in hands, on your devices to spend your coin. You can not go to bank everytime you need to make any transaction. It is time wasting and unnecessary.

If you use bank vault service, it should be for a wallet with big fund. For a wallet that you store small fund for regularly use and transactions, you should save its key by yourself.

Even if you have a hardware wallet with big funds (cryptos) in it, I want to believe as I might have mentioned before, only if you tell anyone how much worth of crypto you are hodling, then you are bringing attention to yourself.

I also agree with Strongkored here:

Why should you secure your decentralized assets with centralized services?
I think using a safety box and keeping it hidden at home is enough in my opinion, especially if you don't have a large enough asset because storing it in a bank also costs money and moreover you can't access it during an emergency.

If you have a very large amount of assets, I think you can get a fireproof safe that can be hidden in your home where it is quicker to access instead of the bank, and with that kind of fund, bank payment wouldn't naturally be an option but quick accessibility, in this case, is also key for me.

[Mauser]

Could you explain your experience doing this and what to considering when hiring such a service?

I am storing some important documents including my private keys in a bank vault. My uncle has a bank deposit box for 40 years almost and lets me use it as well as he only stores some documents in there. He lives 15 minutes away and his bank is in my city which makes it very convenient for me to access it. You only need to a key and visit the bank to opening hours and you can access your deposit box. It's kind of like a the deposit boxes and the train station only with more security. So far I haven't heard that there was any heist on vault deposit boxes in a bank in my city, they seems fairly secure. Not sure how much they cost though, my uncle had all his business accounts at the bank and I am sure they gave him the deposit box very cheap. It really comes down to how much money you have invested in cryptos and if this extra layer of security is worth it.

[romero121]

In all forms of keeping the private keys secure, there is risk associated with the same. The best choice is to secure the private keys in one or more places, because even if one is lost the second one will help. Even with the bank's secret vault service there is high risk. That means, we agree to the terms and conditions in which if the secret vault gets into any accidental loss then the bank won't be responsible for the vault holdings.

[passwordnow]

Does anyone use a bank safe service to leave your trezor or whatever you use in there? I have been considering which would be the ways in which one could leave physical backups somewhere else than your own home. If you don't trust anyone to do a good job in keeping the device safe, the only way I see is that you either own 2 homes, which I don't, or that you hire a service in a bank where you can leave the stuff in there. Im assuming there's good security, and no one could realistically get in there, at least in any developed country. The only way would be that an employee is dumb enough to attempt a heist from inside but that's also unlikely.

Could you explain your experience doing this and what to considering when hiring such a service?

IMHO, You don't have to have two homes or hire this type of service. If it's related to crypto funds, you don't trust anyone with it even if they're a known service and reputable one.
One of the main reasons and good reasons why we own crypto is because we're holding our own money and there's no need for any third party to hold it for us. Having that said, if you're trusting others to keep your hardware wallet that has your funds inside, you're endagering your funds with it and not just it but also your life.

[michellee]

Luckily, I don't use the bank to store Trezors or other valuables. I also didn't rent such a service before; until now, I still keep valuables in the house. I only consider that hiring such a service will not be cheap and terms and conditions will apply. But maybe someday, I'll try to ask the bank about renting a deposit box to store all my valuables.

I think banks have their own standards in securing deposit boxes at their place and will have a security team that will always take care of the goods deposited by their customers.

[glendall]

if I have to pay to store private keys, I'd better buy a safety deposit box and keep it at home, with a note looking for a good quality safety box and storing it underground combined with other assets to avoid flooding, fires and even theft, and only me and my family who knows where we keep our possessions

[aoluain]

Pretty much echoing what almost everyone else has posted in that you are countering
what Bitcoin was created for - to give us control over our money. The last place I would put
my Bitcoin or anything related would be a bank!

You are relinquishing your control of your wallet by basically handing it to someone else
and you have limited access to it at the best of times too anyway.

Lots of slogans surrounding this topic, I'll add one...

Be your own bank

[kryptqnick]

I'm also interested if the op actually means the device itself or the private keys on, like, a piece of paper. I certainly wouldn't trust a safe in a bank with my private keys because, well, an employee can just read it and take the money, and then it'll be basically impossible to prove it's the bank's fault and especially find out who did it. Also, that would mean needing to go to a bank to access funds, which IMO is very inconvenient. So private keys should be stored somewhere at home. As for the physical device, I still feel like there's no need for a bank safe and that it's safe at home if you find a good place for it.

[Lucius]

In a way, it makes sense to store sensitive information in a bank deposit box, but I would never leave my seed or private key there, not only because it would mean that I am entrusting someone else with such sensitive information, but also in case someone robs the safe, the bank is not responsible for the resulting damage, because you cannot prove whether there is anything in the deposit box at all. However, I could personally store a part of the seed or private key in such a way in case the need for it is shown.

To me, it is much more ironic that people buy Bitcoin through a bank and leave it in the possession of the bank - but that is nothing more strange than the fact that many use centralized crypto exchanges for storage, and they have no guarantee for these funds. Perhaps the biggest irony in everything is that Bitcoin exists, and many do not understand what its advantages are compared to fiat.

[NotATether]

In a way, it makes sense to store sensitive information in a bank deposit box, but I would never leave my seed or private key there, not only because it would mean that I am entrusting someone else with such sensitive information, but also in case someone robs the safe, the bank is not responsible for the resulting damage, because you cannot prove whether there is anything in the deposit box at all. However, I could personally store a part of the seed or private key in such a way in case the need for it is shown.

Banks are the usual targets for crooks - I don't think anyone can afford losing their hardware wallet even if the thief cannot unlock it. Better to keep it in a safe at home. At least then your home will only be robbed if you have aroused their suspicions.

[Husires]

I can use the security service provided by some banks but after I split my seeds using Shamir_Secret_Sharing https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Shamir_Secret_Sharing

It would be foolish to do one of two things:

 - Print your private key and try to keep it on paper.
 - Keep all the seeds in one place without trying to split them.

Splitting seeds reduces risk if the bank gives you camera access to your safe box