I strongly advise to experiment and test every recovery procedure, be it something standard or be it homebrewed. Testnet bitcoins and wallets are also very neat for such desaster or heir recovery checks. If it doesn't work, you know you've done something wrong but it will only hurt your pride and not your real wallet. It doesn't make much sense to me to risk real coins for experiments and testing.
Not saying that Testnet coins aren't real but they are supposed to be worthless and the Testnet blockchain is made for, wait for it, testing!
Electrum e.g. can be invoked in Testnet mode simply by adding a command line switch
--testnet. You can get free Testnet bitcoins from a faucet like
https://testnet.coinfaucet.eu.
I didn't know about the electrum testnet I will try it thanks. I do a recovery test twice a year and I update things if needed.
None taken. The idea behind this is mostly to mislead. Like you see all the gibberish but you actually need very few of them, it's impossible to forget (though I have instructions in case I die or something) plus you would need another phrase (again impossible to forget it) in order to crack it. I read all sorts of things people do for extra security only to overcomplicate things and end up losing their coins and made it really simple. The decryption key would be impossible to remember and losing it would cause the same problem as losing my seed phrase so why not just keep my seed as it is and store it somewhere safe? Anyway the risk here is that my wife, brother and mother conspire all together to complete the puzzle, get my private keys and steal my money and all that over few sats? Then so be it I am ok with that. Thanks for everything I learned a lot of new things I will keep experimenting.
If you are using a proper method of encryption, you are not going to back up the decryption key to your memory for it to be
impossible to remember like you said, you are going to back it up on paper and keep it as safe as you will keep your seed phrases separately.
You say everything is fine with your method of obfuscation, so be it! But the message here is just that many people have thought that their method of obfuscation is great and their memory is enough to protect their funds, but it usually turns out to be a terrible idea because we can't trust our brains with things like these for many reasons. So to avoid locking yourself out of your funds, a plain backup of your seed phrases and master public keys in more than one location is probably the best idea, but like i said, if you say everything is fine, then each to their own.
I wouldn't trust my mind for anything worth more than a dime. When you hide something and nobody else knows about that whether is seed phrase, decryption key or your own encryption method the risk is the same. You forget where you hid it you lose your funds that simple.
it's impossible to forget
Nothing is impossible to forget. A simple accident and blow to the head can result in you forgetting who your family members are. It can certainly result in you forgetting your homebrewed encryption.
Anyway the risk here is that my wife, brother and mother conspire all together to complete the puzzle, get my private keys and steal my money and all that over few sats?
So all three of them only know a part of the puzzle? So again, if anything happens to one of these people, your funds are inaccessible?
I would prefer to use something like 2-of-3 multi-sig here, where each of your three trusted contacts hold a single seed phrase (and the necessary xpubs). That provides security against a single malicious party as well as redundancy against the loss of one share.
My TIN for example is impossible to forget so if I die lose my memory or whatever there are instructions and everything needed in a lot of different places. What nobody as of now knows is that they need my TIN which is easy for my family to get from the tax agency when something bad happens to me. Two people are instructed to tell my brother who is more tech savvy to find my TIN and use it as a "decryption key. I have to brothers so if one dies I have the other one, If we all three die then it will be little bit difficult for my wife to get everything but still no funds lost. If everybody dies except me and I don't lose my memory still ok. If we all die then BTC becomes more scarce so all good
Bottom line is whatever method used has its risks you can not eliminate them, just minimize them as much as you can that's why I'm looking for potential mistakes that I have made and correct them.
