[100 dots] seed phrase backup

[m2017]

Very helpful post, thanks. No I wasn't gonna do it manually, but I don't have super efficient hardware as well. I only have the basic tools (hammer etc).

I meant the use of power tools (electric engraver), instead of hand tools (hammer and engravers). Ultra-efficient electrical equipment is not needed. You can limit yourself to cheap and simple Dremel analogues. To make dots on a metal plate instead of using a hammer. You can limit yourself to not completely drilling a through hole, but you can drill right through. This is optional.

To be absolutely honest with you, I personally choose paper (for fast back-up) and metal for durable back-up. So I back up my wallets twice (paper & metal).

A completely reasonable solution that can be applied. In principle, sometimes, a paper storage medium may be sufficient if we talk about short-term backup and the presence of long-term backup. Only it would be better to cover the paper with a protective layer, such as lamination. Better yet, use cardboard instead of paper. But this is all a matter of "taste".

And even better - diversification: several plates from different types of metal.

This is unnecessary.

You can never predict what will be needed and what will not.

I've said this before, but I think people who use these metal options generally worry about the wrong things. Far more important than having one super durable metal back up, is having two back ups. I'd much rather have two paper back ups in separate locations than one metal back up stored in the same place as my wallets themselves (i.e. at home), which in reality is no back up at all.

How about having 2 metal plate backups in different locations? This will be better than the same thing made from paper, right.

[1714511914]

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[apogio]

A completely reasonable solution that can be applied. In principle, sometimes, a paper storage medium may be sufficient if we talk about short-term backup and the presence of long-term backup. Only it would be better to cover the paper with a protective layer, such as lamination. Better yet, use cardboard instead of paper. But this is all a matter of "taste".

I use black ink and thick paper (300gsm) and I put it in card sleeves (like these https://www.amazon.com/s?k=card+sleeves&crid=QHQWRBIWB1WW&sprefix=card+sleeves%2Caps%2C196&ref=nb_sb_noss_1). I used to have a lot of these cause I used to play trading card games. Then I put the sleeves in zip plastic bags (like these https://www.amazon.com/Reclosable-Resealable-888-Display-USA/dp/B07V5R9CV2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=24D690NZRCAGX&keywords=small+zip+plastic+bag&qid=1695835517&sprefix=small+zip+plastic+bag%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-2). Finally, I put them in bubble mailers (like these https://www.amazon.com/Quality-Park-Envelopes-Redi-Strip-QUA85755/dp/B08QZCY3KY/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=K04CYNKFIIX8&keywords=post+bag&qid=1695835568&sprefix=post+bag%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1). Then I put them in secret places  I revisit them twice a year to make sure they are ok and once a year I rewrite them.

If you 've ever thought you knew what insanity is, please reconsider 

[o_e_l_e_o]

You can never predict what will be needed and what will not.

If you would include the rest of my quote, then you absolutely can. There is no scenario where a given temperature will melt stainless steel, but aluminum would survive. There is no need to use multiple different metals for different scenarios, because for the things we are interested in stainless steel will always outperform aluminum.

How about having 2 metal plate backups in different locations? This will be better than the same thing made from paper, right.

Well, it depends. "Better" is subjective.

Yes, stainless steel will always survive any incident better than paper. But then it depends on your threat model and your individual circumstances. You can hide a tiny slip of paper in far more places than you can hide a metal plate. You don't need to worry about things like metal detectors. What if there is a hurricane, or a flood, or a fire, or an explosion? Perhaps I want my back up to be destroyed so it doesn't wash up on a street somewhere for someone else to find, or for someone else to find in the rubble. And what's more likely - I spend days or even weeks manually sifting through rubble or exploring the wreckage looking for my metal back up, or I simply go and retrieve my second back up from a different location?

[blue Snow]

I just imagine printing that method on A4 paper without using a metal seed.

That A4 paper I laminate and save it in a metal safe box with fireproof.

What do you think?,
I think it's pretty safe. I made it just to trick if there were thieves force come into my house.
The thieves will be confused seeing that 100 dot and don't know what it is.
So if I made it on metal, maybe he would have stolen it, and thought it's quite valuable dropped it in steel.

[LoyceV]

What do you think?

Try it Then test restoring the seed before funding it.

The tricky part is finding the exact dimensions back 10 years later, if you don't have a printed table anymore. It may take some trial and error to print the exact format again for recovery. And you should probably not keep it in the same safe

[Yamane_Keto]

I just imagine printing that method on A4 paper without using a metal seed.

Are you serious? At least you can say Fireproof and Water Resistant A4 paper is easy to tear, burns quickly, and I don't think a wipe will be enough to be able to read the words well.

[blue Snow]

I just imagine printing that method on A4 paper without using a metal seed.

Are you serious? At least you can say Fireproof and Water Resistant A4 paper is easy to tear, burns quickly, and I don't think a wipe will be enough to be able to read the words well.

I'm also a bit doubtful about my method. But I will try to make some backup and put it on another safebox in my home.

I just tried laminated paper and I poured 1 bucket of water, it does not seep and there is no splash in the paper. but of course, that method does not work for fire, because of that I keep it a fireproof safe box.

[apogio]

I just tried laminated paper and I poured 1 bucket of water, it does not seep and there is no splash in the paper. but of course, that method does not work for fire, because of that I keep it a fireproof safe box.

Perfect. Personally I don't want to bother with laminating paper etc. So I follow this approach: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5466510.msg62910792#msg62910792. It is also kind of waterproof because of all the packaging. However it's not fireproof. But as we said, I am not afraid of the fire since I have 2 backups in separate places. And the chances of both those places burning up at the same time is tiny to non-existent.

[dkbit98]

Who's going to suspect a metal plate with "random" holes to hold your money?

People who know about bitcoin and seed phrase backup solution probably know about similar system like this.
This is not the first time I see stainless seed plates that use combination of letters and number that combine to seed words, but I never like it.
I don't think this is bad in any way but I think it's inferior compared to Steel Washer backup, maybe because you need to have the full list of seed words.
Positive side is that it's probably easier do stamp dots on stainless seed plate (or paper).

One bitcointalk member willi9974 is selling similar product Willi's Recovery Seed Plate:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5323755.0

OneKey is selling similar plates made from aircraft-grade titanium:
https://onekey.so/products/onekey-keytag/

All Metal Bitcoin Seed Storage Reviewed by Jameson Lopp contain several plates like this:
https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/

[willi9974]

For more security Distribute the seed over several plates:
Here's Sam00's idea, here you spread your seed over 3 plates and hide each one separately, and if one is found by an unauthorized person, everything is still safe since you need two out of three plates.

Plate 1: words 1-8 and 17-24
Plate 2: Words 9-15 and 17-24
Plate 3: Words 1-8 and 9-15


Or better use a BIP 39 cryped seed

For information: BIP39 supports an additional passphrase. If you use this feature, lost seed lists are not a big problem. Nice side effect is "Plausible Deniability". Nobody can prove to you whether it is an empty HD Wallet or not. Different passphrases or even no passphrase simply result in a different wallet. You can theoretically store a small amount of money on another wallet instance with the same seed words, while the correct balance can only be accessed with the correct passphrase.

PS: my plate is also tested by Jameson —> https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/reviews/willi-recovery-seed-plate/

[LoyceV]

While watching old episodes of Home Improvement, I got another (even crazier) idea: store bits in your garden fence:

(source)

You need 256 bits, so you'll need 257 planks. Starting from the left, going up is 1 and going down is 0. The above image would read 11110000 Unless you're Wilson, in that case it reads 00001111.

You can easily create a backup by taking some family pictures in the garden.
Who's going to notice? And who's going to look for patters that could be seed phrases everywhere now?

[o_e_l_e_o]

I think you'll find my workmanship is perfect and all my fence posts are exactly equal in height.

[apogio]

While watching old episodes of Home Improvement, I got another (even crazier) idea: store bits in your garden fence:

You need 256 bits, so you'll need 257 planks. Starting from the left, going up is 1 and going down is 0. The above image would read 11110000 Unless you're Wilson, in that case it reads 00001111.

You can easily create a backup by taking some family pictures in the garden.
Who's going to notice? And who's going to look for patters that could be seed phrases everywhere now?

Haha, so now I need to buy a house with a garden. And I thought bitcoin was easy.

[o_e_l_e_o]

"If you wish to make an apple pie seed phrase from scratch, you must first invent the universe buy a house with a garden."

- Carl Sagan LoyceV

[Cricktor]

...
Who's going to notice? And who's going to look for patters that could be seed phrases everywhere now?

Likely nobody, but can you be absolutely sure? My first impuls was: that's hiding a secret in plain sight with a pinch of security by obscurity. Anyway, I had a good laugh and I'll come to a severe flaw later in my post.

Haha, so now I need to buy a house with a garden. And I thought bitcoin was easy.

LOL, you definitely have a point here.


Now to the flaw of LoyceV's proposed storage method. There's a not so small risk that some idiot in a car or other vehicle runs into your fence and destroys a good portion of it. Some jerks could break some of your planks just for the fun of it (there are mad people out there, sometimes). You can continue to imagine all sorts of dangers to your fence. Did you implement some error correction planks that can cope with real life? I'm obviously not very serious.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Now to the flaw of LoyceV's proposed storage method.

I'm certain Loyce is joking, but if we're being this critical then the main flaw is that it's not actually random. Given that all your boards are going to vary around a mean height, then whenever you move in one direction the next step is statistically more likely to move in the opposite direction. Not just because if you've gone up you are therefore more likely to come back down, but also because you don't move in even steps and could have gone up to the highest board and therefore must come back down.

And so you are statistically more likely to have a 1 after a 0 than you are to have two 0s in a row. And if you do get two 0s in a row, then you are much more statistically likely to get a 1 than you are to get a third 0. And so on and vice versa.

[LoyceV]

Now to the flaw of LoyceV's proposed storage method. There's a not so small risk that some idiot in a car or other vehicle runs into your fence and destroys a good portion of it. Some jerks could break some of your planks just for the fun of it (there are mad people out there, sometimes). You can continue to imagine all sorts of dangers to your fence. Did you implement some error correction planks that can cope with real life?

I thought I covered that when I mentioned backups:

You can easily create a backup by taking some family pictures in the garden.

Or just duplicate the exact same fence pattern elsewhere. You now need a vacation home too.

I'm certain Loyce is joking, but if we're being this critical then the main flaw is that it's not actually random. Given that all your boards are going to vary around a mean height, then whenever you move in one direction the next step is statistically more likely to move in the opposite direction.

You're assuming I'm using the existing fence as a source of randomness. I was thinking of creating the random string first, and then using a new fence to store the bits.

While you're at it, you can do a similar thing with bricks in your wall

[o_e_l_e_o]

You're assuming I'm using the existing fence as a source of randomness. I was thinking of creating the random string first, and then using a new fence to store the bits.

Ahh, now that's more interesting, although I can't think of anything worse than having to cut 128 boards all of slightly different but very specific lengths. And given that in any random 128 bit number you are highly likely to have at least seven 0s or seven 1s in a row, then you are going to end up with a highly uneven fence which would just annoy me every time I saw it.

Another suggestion would be different colors of tiles on your floor, bathroom or kitchen walls, etc. Bonus is that they are not going to be at far less risk of damage, and they can't be viewed by anyone walking or driving past your house.

[LoyceV]

Ahh, now that's more interesting, although I can't think of anything worse than having to cut 128 boards all of slightly different but very specific lengths.

Only 128 planks? I was thinking of 256 (+1). But you can of course use the bottom for data storage too.

And given that in any random 128 bit number you are highly likely to have at least seven 0s or seven 1s in a row, then you are going to end up with a highly uneven fence which would just annoy me every time I saw it.

Here, people manage to sell their lack of craftsmanship as a style, so the totally uneven fence doesn't have to have small differences. It can be huge gaps.

Another suggestion would be different colors of tiles on your floor, bathroom or kitchen walls, etc. Bonus is that they are not going to be at far less risk of damage, and they can't be viewed by anyone walking or driving past your house.

The problem is that my wife will want to decide on the colors, and it's not going to be random. And if I let my daughter have her way, we'll end up with a pink house.

[Cricktor]

Or just duplicate the exact same fence pattern elsewhere. You now need a vacation home too.

I knew there's a catch and it will not please @apogio. 

Only 128 planks? I was thinking of 256 (+1). But you can of course use the bottom for data storage too.

To avoid ever so slightly but of course noticably rising planks when you have a sequence of consecutive 1s you could waste planks and always use two planks for one bit. A binary 1 is: shorter plank followed by longer plank; a binary 0 is: longer plank followed by shorter plank. That avoids unpleasant rising or falling staircase sequences. Who said it needs to be efficient encoding?

And if I let my daughter have her way, we'll end up with a pink house.

Some shades of pink will give you wiggle room for some more efficient and sophisticated encoding schemes.

While you're at it, you can do a similar thing with bricks in your wall

That sounds like a neat idea actually and innocent looking picture backups are still possible, too. OK, we're now on to something...
 

Couldn't resist a slight detour from the main topic...