A idea from my home boy

[KiaKia]

Ok, good day fellas, someone brought up an idea for storing his Electrum recovery seed to my notice and I feel it's not entirely still safe and I will like to share here for some feedbacks before I tell him my final answer about the idea.

If you get your recovery seed from any wallet, either those with 12 seed words or 24, and you decide to write down 10 out of 12 or 20 out of 24 and keep the other two words separately somewhere else, how stupid or cool is this? He claimed he will keep the two words in a safe location different from the other words and also store the two words off head.

Give your answers please, stupid? Cool? Not great? No need?

[Charles-Tim]

Instead of try to do what can make you to lose your seed phrase, why do you not use passphrase with the seed phrase? You can read about passphrase and it gives your coin additional security.

But know that if you forget the passphrase, you will lose your coins.

Backup the seed phrase and passphrase in different locations. You can have like two or three backup of each. You can do the backup on paper or steel or stainless steel sheets.

[EL MOHA]

Not a great idea I would say. First which words will he take out. Should he decide to take the last two or the first two out, then when the other words are found then the probability of getting the remaining two will be easier. Should he decide to take words from within those seeds then there is a probability also that he would miss up those words when trying to put them together. And should he leave a clue then an hacker could also use that clue.

The idea of also storing seeds off head has been advised against before because of probably future health challenges like brain damage

[dzungmobile]

If you get your recovery seed from any wallet, either those with 12 seed words or 24, and you decide to write down 10 out of 12 or 20 out of 24 and keep the other two words separately somewhere else, how stupid or cool is this? He claimed he will keep the two words in a safe location different from the other words and also store the two words off head.

Stupid idea.

Because if he lost two words of his seed, it the rest 10 or 22 words will be useless. He will have to use service to brute force it and if brute force does not work, he loses his bitcoin. Spliting it does not make it more secured but worse. What will happen if one of two words are from checksum?

Why is Seed Splitting a Bad Idea?
How to back up a seed phrase?

[bitzizzix]

Sounds reasonable, but if he only separates 2 or 4 words from other words at the end or at the beginning, I think it makes sense. But you don't need to keep it in a safe place, because if it's only 2 or 4 words, I think it's easy to memorize.
But that's not good advice because we don't know in the long run, because if you miss or forget even one word phrase, then the coin is gone.
and writing it down on water and heat resistant paper and storing it safely and against whatever it is is a very good option, like a small safe or a glass bottle that only you know about and has hidden somewhere.

[komisariatku]

Give your answers please, stupid? Cool? Not great? No need?

Yes it can be a key security solution. But are you sure you won't forget those 2 separate words? Maybe you can also save 12 of the 24 words in a different place. I think whatever you do will be good for you as long as no one finds out about your plans.

So it's better if you do what you plan to do without sharing it here, so what you keep secret will be completely safe. But for stronger security, maybe you can consider using a multisign wallet. You can store keys in separate places and can share keys (10 of 12 words/ 20 of 24 words). Especially if you plan to hold bitcoins for a long time, multisign is the best. It can be a family asset and you can give keys to each family member to make it more secure

[TheUltraElite]

What you are trying to create is a Brainwallet; read here - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet

It has its problems and hence is not recommended. Now I am not the person saying this, I came across this concept long back and while searching on the net found out about it and the talk given by Ryan Castellucci at DEF Con 23 which was like 7years back when I first started delving into cryptocurrency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foil0hzl4Pg

The bitcointalk thread that came out as the aftermath of this discussion is here - BrainWallet Defcon Attack Discussion, Advice, Q&A, Brainflayer Info, etc.

Please do give the video a watch and proper listening, advice your friend to listen to it too.

[Nwada001]

I think it's a good way to save a phrase, but only if the person is sure enough that the remaining phrase won't go off his head. Those 10, or 20 written-down phrases on a piece of paper will be kept safe out of the reach of others, and even if there is any chance that someone will come into contact with those phrases, they won't be able to access the wallet because of the other missing words.
 
I can remember a guy back then whose wallet had a private key, and among the 64 characters, the guy had four of them removed from different places, not just at the end or beginning of the wallet. This makes everything very complicated; he removed those words and stored them in his memory, and the rest of the key is stored in his email, where he can access it wherever he is. This makes the wallet security strong to me, because in such situations, even if one is given those four missing characters without knowing where they properly belong, you won't be able to access that particular wallet.

[nelson4lov]

I have had this experience before. One time I tried to take the complex approach to safe guard my seed phrase in a bid to make it harder for someone else to gain access to it. Long story short, I ended up losing it myself. Counter-intuitive processes are smart but not always the best idea. Also, it's not completely ruled out. If he feels it's the best way to safeguard his assets, then it's all good.

I read about Brainwallets in ethereum book by the same author who wrote the bitcoin book and it's not a recommended approach when it comes to creating wallet and safeguarding the key/mnemonic phrase.

[Texac]

There are many ways to store seed phrases, and each individual has their own method.  we shouldn't judge someone else's method as bad just because it doesn't work for us.  It might not work or give you security, but for that guy, it's for the best for him. in my opinion, store your seed phrase your way, you don't have to imitate someone, whatever the method, as long as you feel safe with it.

[Lorence.xD]

I don't know for me in my case, despite the easiest password that I've made if I haven't use that words or the account I always tend to forget it. Worse thing is I also forgot where did I put my emergency recovery if it's on my note, my messages or etc. In short, I think it's not a great idea to separate something important especially if those words are needed together. Well we all have different capabilities to remember something or in storing so it's depends on the person with his/her prefer method to do since it their assets at stake. As long as you think you are secured with the thought you're having. Just have an alternative recovery in case.

[yazher]

This is not that bad when he has strong memory because he will gonna keep that seed phrases for years and when he doesn't review everything every 2 months in minimum, then I absolutely believe that he will gonna forget everything. The best thing to do is whenever you want to hide it in multiple places by dividing the total words, you need to appoint a schedule where you will gonna review everything or place them in different places in order to secure it. Some people don't really need to do this because they memorized their seeds but others need to do it because they don't have strong memories to remember.

[ImThour]

Or just make your own encryption, I can share one which I made myself and I no longer use now but is good enough.

1. Reverse the words
2. Replace 1st word (A) with second last word (Y) and do it for every character in your words
3. Replace some characters with integers (1, 9)

Now to decrypt this, just need to follow from Step 3 to 1.

You can learn any programming language and code this yourself. Python will be the recommendation.

[cafter]

it is good idea but risky one, may the 10 words written on the paper get destroyed or get lost?

here's my idea very similar to this.

you can write 10 words on you steal or metal door or steel sheets and you need to store that remaining 2 words in very secret place or very securely. or repeat those 2 words every morning. so those words get stuck in your head

[Dunamisx]

If you get your recovery seed from any wallet, either those with 12 seed words or 24, and you decide to write down 10 out of 12 or 20 out of 24 and keep the other two words separately somewhere else, how stupid or cool is this?

If you write out the whole recovery phrase and decided to take only two or four out and safekeep them, my question now is that if you could actually finds a means to keep the two or four seeds phrase secured why can't you do same for the remaining 10 or 20 completion of the recovery phrase, you're just saying that if you have a password, you can leave part of it exposed to people and keep the remaining to yourself, find a means to safekeep all the seeds and then sleep while the fire is on the mountain with part of your seeds exposed out.

He claimed he will keep the two words in a safe location different from the other words and also store the two words off head.

Best advice is for him to calm down and look for more secured ways to keep his keys altogether and avoid third party influence or exposure, he should not trust his brain memory for those two words over a long time, we can forget things over time base on research and findings except if written down on something to serve as remembrance.

[SamReomo]

Ok, good day fellas, someone brought up an idea for storing his Electrum recovery seed to my notice and I feel it's not entirely still safe and I will like to share here for some feedbacks before I tell him my final answer about the idea.

If you get your recovery seed from any wallet, either those with 12 seed words or 24, and you decide to write down 10 out of 12 or 20 out of 24 and keep the other two words separately somewhere else, how stupid or cool is this? He claimed he will keep the two words in a safe location different from the other words and also store the two words off head.

Give your answers please, stupid? Cool? Not great? No need?

I don't that that there is any need for doing something like that because it's always preferable to store your whole seed words in a single text file and save that file on multiple storage devices, and then disconnect all those storages devices from internet. With that simple step our seed phrase and our private key gets the top level of security because no one else can access those other than we ourselves.

I must say that his idea isn't great at all because why take a lot of burden if you can follow the easy path which has already been tested and is currently the most secure and trusted method to keep ones private keys or seeds words without any worries. I think it's always safe to go with the tested method which I have already explained because that method can't be hacked with current GPU's or any other hacking methods.

The most problematic thing that can happen with such idea is brute-force attacks because if someone knows 10 words out of 12 words or 20 words out of 24 words then that person can easily brute-force that wallet and gain access to it. Brute-forcing of 2 words isn't hard these days thanks to powerful GPU's, and even 4 words isn't that much trouble causing for someone who has cluster of those powerful GPU's.

[Blitzboy]

Well, if you ask me, it seems like this guy's trying to split up his lottery ticket numbers! Seriously though, the idea is creative - gotta give him that. But, isn't it also like begging for trouble? The recovery seed is the master key to your wallet. Lose a word, and you might as well have thrown your bitcoins to the wind.

Consider this, the memory can play tricks on you. One day, you might remember those two words, the next day, poof! They're gone. And what if the place he hid those words got compromised? Or worse, he forgets where he stashed them? This plan, while intriguing, is a risky gamble.

He should just take the traditional path - write all the words down and store them securely. There's no need to be a daredevil in matters of security!

[Pmalek]

Don't try to make your own system when there already are working mechanisms of storing seed words.
The most basic one includes multiple copies of all seed words in multiple geographical locations. If you want more security, set up a passphrase and store it separately from your seed. Obviously, you should have several backups of both. Finally, you can create a multisig setup made up of different devices that hold the keys. Preferably, an airgapped computer, a paper wallet, and an online machine or mobile wallet.     

[Aikidoka]

If you get your recovery seed from any wallet, either those with 12 seed words or 24, and you decide to write down 10 out of 12 or 20 out of 24 and keep the other two words separately somewhere else, how stupid or cool is this? He claimed he will keep the two words in a safe location different from the other words and also store the two words off head.

Give your answers please, stupid? Cool? Not great? No need?

I don't like the idea of splitting your seed phrase and hiding 10 words in one place and the other 2 words in another place. Instead, you could find a safe place and hide your full seed phrase there. To be honest, using these tricks could make it even riskier and it's unnecessary to do so.

I suggest simply writing it down on a piece of paper and hiding it in a place that no one has access to. Probably you could just make 2 copy of the papers and do the same by hiding in in a safe place imho.

[kryptqnick]

I believe that when it comes to storing coins, people should not merely rely on public opinion, but also on what they know about themselves. I know that my memory is average, but not reliable enough that I'd trust it to not forget a passphrase. I know that I never take my laptop outside my flat, and that a chance of my particular flat being robbed is pretty small. I also know that I'm way more likely to forget where I put that second piece of paper with the two remaining words than be compromised because of downloading malware or something like that. So based on that, I wouldn't separate the passphrase storage into two places, but that doesn't mean it's the right decision for everyone.