Keeping or recovering seed phrases during or after a natural disaster.

[Fiatless]

The increase in the rate of natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding, wildfires, etc. has got me thinking of how safe my seed phrase is when I store it physically. The recent wildfire in the US nearly destroyed the entire town of Lahaina, Hawaii. The recent earthquake in Morocco almost wiped out the entire region of Marrakesh. In Libya, the flooding devastated the entire city of Derna.

I have learned in this forum that it is not safe to keep or save your seed phrase online, on the phone, or on the computer. We are also advised not to keep them with third parties because they can be stolen or accessed by anybody. Rather it is better to write them down and keep them in different safe locations. Another option is to write it on fireproof and waterproof material like steel and keep it safe.

My problem is that these natural disasters happen without warning signs. Recently we just woke up to see that our entire neighborhood has been flooded because of the collapse of a dam in the neighboring country. The earthquake in Turkey, Syria, and Morocco,  and the flood in Libya were impromptu and everyone was only concerned about saving lives and nobody cared about personal belongings like seed phrases. The destruction caused by these disasters is so widespread that it could destroy all the safe places where you safely kept your seed phrase. Recovering these seed phrases saved on disaster-proof materials after a natural disaster is somehow difficult because recovering them with machines like escalators and other earth-moving machines will be close to impossible. In the case of flooding, these materials would have been washed away into rivers or sea.  

I know that the security of our wallet is very important that is why it should be personal. I have heard of saving encrypted seed phrases in the cloud or online personal files. I know this is also risky but is there any means of saving my seed phrase safe from these natural disasters? That could atleast give a Bitcoiner access to a wallet after the loss of seed phrases during or after natural disasters.

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[Latviand]

The solution imo is to store the seed phrases in different storages that have different survivability for different disasters, store your seed phrase in a bank that allows you to store other stuff besides money, they're a thing right? Or a safe that you can happily bury underground for a long time or you can just write it in a piece of paper and put that paper in your wallet which you keep on your person. Another unpopular way would be using Google Drive.

[Blitzboy]

The unexpected nature of these events makes it hard to ensure the integrity of any tangible item, even fireproof and waterproof ones.

You could create a multisig wallet. This configuration requires numerous private keys to access monies. Divide a 2-of-3 multisig configuration and store one key at home, one in a bank safety deposit box in another city, and one with a trusted person in another region. A local natural calamity would not prevent you from using the remaining two keys. "Shamir's Secret Sharing" is another possibility. This breaks your seed into components, only a few needed to rebuild it. You can disperse or hide five portions if any three will regain your seed.

Both strategies are complicated, so study them before committing. However, they balance security and redundancy.

[Hyphen(-)]

Earthquake and other natural disasters are something natural that we can never escape when it comes, but we will do our best to secure our wallets in an expensive way so as to prevent the risk of losing your seed phrase online.

The solution imo is to store the seed phrases in different storages that have different survivability for different disasters, store your seed phrase in a bank that allows you to store other stuff besides money, they're a thing right? Or a safe that you can happily bury underground for a long time or you can just write it in a piece of paper and put that paper in your wallet which you keep on your person. Another unpopular way would be using Google Drive.

Banks are also affected in these countries that are affected with earthquakes so banks is not an option in this aspect because you might be delayed when you need them due to banks due process.

You can use some unique ways to safeguard you seed phrase; you can make reference to this thread created by Fillippone Securing your Seed Phrase with Washers

[MusaMohamed]

The most common damaging factors for your backups are water and fire because a most common type of backup is with Paper.

Securing Your Seed Phrase with Washers
Crypto Security - Additional Protection For Your Seed/Private Keys.
[LIST] Bitcoin Seed Backup Tools
How to backup a seed phrase?

You can use washers, metal as alternatives for piece of paper. Those storage types are better than paper against water, fire, acid and even shocks.

Metal Bitcoin Seed Storage Reviews for Stress tests

[Outhue]

There are some countries you mentioned that are very likely to see natural disasters taking place over there, so if anyone who is living in such country is into crypto it's better to carve your recovery seed on a steal and keep it in a safe with key combination, not just anysafe, I mean the costly ones, if natural disaster happens you will be looking for the safe because of what was locked inside of it.

Also when such things unfold unexpectedly, the fastest thing that comes to mind is your smartphone, you can easily escape the menace with your pocket right next to you, so why is it wrong to keep your seed on your phone?

Before you get me wrong, I am not saying you should keep the keys in your phone, but you can also find a steel with an ATM card size shape and write the seed on it then keep that at the back of your phone, in between your phone pouch, I used to keep my ATM card in this location too, I am just giving this option to those living in countries with natural disasters, be prepared.

[Plaguedeath]

All above users doesn't read and understand what @OP is talking about, he already mentioned to save a seed phrase in fireproof or waterproof material, no need to mention it again.

Earthquake, tsunami, hurricane etc are really unexpected disaster, even you leave your steel plate in a safe place, there's a high chance you will not it in the same place because it's already moved to somewhere else.

To prevent this case, that's why I always bought my seed phrase wherever I go in an unexpected media e.g. concealing in a book

[BlackHatCoiner]

I have had of saving encrypted seed phrases in the cloud or online personal files.

What's the point? To recover an encrypted file, you need to have some sort of PGP private key. How are you going to back this up? You won't do it digitally, as it's a bad practice, and you will neither do it on paper, as that would be the equivalent of writing down a seed phrase in paper but with extra steps. And that's if we ignore the intermediary and the fact that if he disappears, you can't do anything.

If you're living in a country that currently experiences climate disasters, like fires and flooding, then I think your best course is to use metal and back it up on multiple places.

[Zaguru12]

but is there any means of saving my seed phrase safe from these natural disasters? That could atleast give a Bitcoiner access to a wallet after the loss of seed phrases during or after natural disasters.

Nothing that can be done rather than a saving it up at a different geographical location, when earthquakes or all this natural disasters happen even if a washer or any damage proof happens definitely they will be lost with them due to damage. So when storing large amounts of bitcoin look for three or more place at different cities if possible to store them. One thing again is to be careful of redundancy because ones it gets too much the seeds becomes vulnerable to been discovered. To reduce the risk again is to add passphrase which is probably known to only you such that when someone gets access to the seed phrases, without the passphrase they cannot have access to the funds on the wallet.

You could create a multisig wallet. This configuration requires numerous private keys to access monies. Divide a 2-of-3 multisig configuration and store one key at home, one in a bank safety deposit box in another city, and one with a trusted person in another region. A local natural calamity would not prevent you from using the remaining two keys. "Shamir's Secret Sharing" is another possibility. This breaks your seed into components, only a few needed to rebuild it. You can disperse or hide five portions if any three will regain your seed.

Both strategies are complicated, so study them before committing. However, they balance security and redundancy.

I like this multi sig idea but my concern is it will not be easily implemented for wallets that are used to store regular used coins. Anytime one needs to make use of the funds you need to reach out to Atleast one of these storage places. Regular asking about it makes it obvious. So I still go with the idea but store only funds in which you would be holding for a very long time there and then have an extra wallet for small holdings. This way you reach out to this locations on rare occasions.

Another thing is make sure the locations of those other seed phrases or keys should be at regions that are not prone to any of disasters.

In setting up the multi sig wallet you can follow the backup tips by Charles-Tim as they seem perfect to cases like this

If you want to increase the security of your wallet, you can go for multisig. Although, it is very useful for multiple users purposes. For individual, we have suggested 2-of-3 multisig wallet several times on this forum with the appropriate backups like this:

Seed 1, MPK 2
Seed 2, MPK 3
Seed 3, MPK 1

Backups in different locations. If you lose one of the backups, you can still use the other two to recover your wallet.

[348Judah]

The increase in the rate of natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding, wildfires, etc. has got me thinking of how safe my seed phrase is when I store it physically. The recent wildfire in the US nearly destroyed the entire town of Lahaina, Hawaii. The recent earthquake in Morocco almost wiped out the entire region of Marrakesh. In Libya, the flooding devastated the entire city of Derna.

When we look into the recent occurence of the natural pandemic we are having this days, storing our private keys could just be a little way needed more careful attention when we are saving them using a physical approach on materials to hide them where others cannot see, nature disaster will only render us no access to these keys from where we kept them if such should occur because we may not know when it could happen or how, neither are we aware of which one may occur in where we lived, the best thing to do is to always have a two different means of keeping the backup to our seeds.

I have learned in this forum that it is not safe to keep or save your seed phrase online, on the phone, or on the computer. We are also advised not to keep them with third parties because they can be stolen or accessed by anybody. Rather it is better to write them down and keep them in different safe locations. Another option is to write it on fireproof and waterproof material like steel and keep it safe.

If we are to broaden the means to how we can recover our seeds incase of any of these natural disasters, using mettalic sheath material like washers could have a long durability and can be indestructible, which means fire, water or wind can not destroy or displace this means, but am not sure of earthquake because these involved a massive opening of the land mass and the depth of the rubbles could be unpredicted by the scenario, yet having another alternative means to secure them is a good ideas.

[hugeblack]

I wish mercy and acceptance to everyone who lost a life in these disasters, and I extend my condolences to their families and a speedy recovery to the injured.

You can solve this problem by using a multi-signature wallet. Approximately 2 out of 4 would be ideal, and you can do the following:

• Encrypt one of these private keys and place it in a secure cloud account, so that even if it is hacked, the hackers still need a second key.
• Store the second seeds in metal and keep them in a safe place in your home.
• Encrypt the third in the form of a hardware wallet and keep it in a secured bank vault somewhere else relatively far from your location.
• Encrypt the last key and keep it in another state or another country.

add more keys as needed, but keep all scenarios in mind and then start developing solutions using multi-signature wallets based on that.

[buwaytress]

Metal, but easily concealable, light, and easy to access, while at the same time not easy to detect as a seed phrase is my personal best-case scenario. I try to think like a refugee (with the understanding I've never been one) and try to think of scenarios we already know.

Long travel by foot over land and sea, fraught with personal risk, metal sheets and other valuables like rings are easily robbed (or in parts of the EU confiscated) so these make it extra vulnerable to risk (not just of exposure but loss). It'd have to be inscribed on tiny items concealed in clothes.

And, only because of that situation, committed to memory. I do note that memorising mnemonic phrases is not so difficult for me, but could pose a language difficulty for most people.

[Lucius]

I see only one possible solution, and that is that the backup simply has to be stored in different locations that are far enough from each other that they cannot be affected by the same natural disaster. However, it is not something that most people can afford because they simply do not have a location they trust, and therefore they have to be innovative and improvise.

In any case, being your own bank is a big risk and challenge, and there is no universal solution that could be called perfect. After all, in the situations mentioned by the OP, the primary thing is to save the life of yourself and your family, but also of other people - because what is the best backup worth if you lose your life or the life of someone who is of inestimable value to you?

[kryptqnick]

That's a valid concern, especially considering that as climate change progresses, there will be more natural disasters. Of course, it also depends on where you live and whether it's an area that's prone to natural disasters, but aside from natural disasters, there are also political instabilities that can have the same effect. For instance, I live in Ukraine, and while we don't have tsunamis or big earthquakes here, we frequently have fires and destruction of property due to missile and drone attacks by Russia, so the concerns about seed phrases are relevant as well, just as in case of natural disasters.
I'll admit that despite knowing that yeah, storing a seed phrase digitally is unsafe, that's what I do because I personally feel that the risk of getting hacked is lower for me than the risk of locking myself out of the wallet because of a physical seed phrase copy getting misplaced, lost, or destroyed.

[2Pizza410000BTC]

The solution imo is to store the seed phrases in different storages that have different survivability for different disasters, store your seed phrase in a bank that allows you to store other stuff besides money, they're a thing right? Or a safe that you can happily bury underground for a long time or you can just write it in a piece of paper and put that paper in your wallet which you keep on your person. Another unpopular way would be using Google Drive.

I will definitely take your second suggestion despite not following your first suggestion. I would definitely be much safer if I saved my seed phrase to Google Drive for safekeeping. Because the Gmail a person has is worth remembering that Gmail. As long as he remembers his Gmail password, he can save the recovery phase of the wallet.  If you save the seed phrase to Google Drive, it will never be deleted. Repaired my used phone a few days back then my phone completely refreshed and restarted. Although I lost all my documents, I was able to recover my wallet's seed phrase from Google Drive very easily. So to me, even if the unique system is less secure, storing the seed phrase in Google Drive seems much safer.

[xSkylarx]

This made me think for a while but for now my best solution is to engrave it on steel plate and store it in multiple locations like in your house and one on your parents house though it is still debatable that it could possibly get swept away by a flood or even the house got destroyed because of the wild fire. The best part is that you have 2 or 3 copies of it or others made song lyrics about its seed phrase, which is time-consuming but kind of encrypted with hidden meaning.

I am lucky that I am not in a flood-prone area and there are no wildfires here only earthquakes which I am still able to recover my seed phrase if ever my house gets broken as it will still stay where I've put it.

[yudi09]

My problem is that these natural disasters happen without warning signs. Recently we just woke up to see that our entire neighborhood has been flooded because of the collapse of a dam in the neighboring country. The earthquake in Turkey, Syria, and Morocco,  and the flood in Libya were impromptu and everyone was only concerned about saving lives and nobody cared about personal belongings like seed phrases. The destruction caused by these disasters is so widespread that it could destroy all the safe places where you safely kept your seed phrase. Recovering these seed phrases saved on disaster-proof materials after a natural disaster is somehow difficult because recovering them with machines like escalators and other earth-moving machines will be close to impossible. In the case of flooding, these materials would have been washed away into rivers or sea.  

I know that the security of our wallet is very important that is why it should be personal. I have heard of saving encrypted seed phrases in the cloud or online personal files. I know this is also risky but is there any means of saving my seed phrase safe from these natural disasters? That could atleast give a Bitcoiner access to a wallet after the loss of seed phrases during or after natural disasters.

Condolences to all the citizens of the country who have been mentioned who have experienced the disaster. Hopefully they will remain strong in accepting everything that has happened and can become food for thought for all behind the disaster that befell our brothers.
Natural disasters and other events that can result in damage to buildings and so on cannot be avoided. However, as humans we must protect and take good care of this nature.

For the time being, storing the seed phrase by making it in water-resistant and fire-resistant metal at least with the estimated time of arrival of the extinguishing unit is the best in my opinion. Of course, by estimating the storage location in a place that can be taken when the building collapses to the ground and is not carried away by large water currents.
If you store it in a place that has internet access, it is very risky.

[Z-tight]

Before you get me wrong, I am not saying you should keep the keys in your phone, but you can also find a steel with an ATM card size shape and write the seed on it then keep that at the back of your phone, in between your phone pouch, I used to keep my ATM card in this location too, I am just giving this option to those living in countries with natural disasters, be prepared.

Don't do this, it is totally unrecommended no matter where you are living and all you get by doing this is a false sense of security. This 'solution' of yours means you are going to carry your seed phrase anywhere you go with your phone, you are closer to losing your phone, your seed phrase and funds in this way faster than you are ever going to be affected by a natural disaster.

I would definitely be much safer if I saved my seed phrase to Google Drive for safekeeping.  
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So to me, even if the unique system is less secure, storing the seed phrase in Google Drive seems much safer.

A very bad advice, don't store your seed phrase online for any reason, anything stored online is prone to hacking and you will lose your funds even before an earthquake happens, that's if it ever affects you.
I have read a lot of bad advises so far in this thread, too many of what a lot of you are recommending will make you lose your seed phrase faster than you'll ever be affected by a natural disaster. Take note that there is no security in obscurity and trying to go overboard to mitigate instances like natural disasters can make you lock yourself out of your funds, without ever being affected by one of those disasters. Just do it the traditional way, write your seed phrase down or engrave it in steel; make multiple backups of it in different locations, and if you are ever affected by a natural disaster, take it as life; if you survive a natural disaster, you may not be so sad that you lost money, but it'll be a sad event if you use unrecommended solutions to mitigate disasters, but lose your funds because of that without ever being affected by one.

[Yamane_Keto]

These natural disasters and artificial humanitarian crises such as wars will give companies like Ledger Recover more demand. As I said in the past, this service will find demand due to either people’s lack of interest in being your own bank or their lack of trust and fear of losing the private key.
I do not recommend this service or any similar service here, but the risk assessment strategy requires you to be prepared if anything happens.

I made this topic when 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake happen Is Metal Seed Storage Safe in an Earthquake?

[flyingcarpet]

I know that the security of our wallet is very important that is why it should be personal. I have heard of saving encrypted seed phrases in the cloud or online personal files. I know this is also risky but is there any means of saving my seed phrase safe from these natural disasters? That could atleast give a Bitcoiner access to a wallet after the loss of seed phrases during or after natural disasters.

In an environment where everything online is at risk, people generally think that physically storing passwords is safe. But as you said, many disasters can happen and we may lose our passwords.

Here are some of the ideas that came to my mind for this.
- After writing down our passwords somewhere, we can give them to someone we trust in another city or to someone who is not very familiar with the internet for safekeeping. For example, to an elderly relative.
- We can keep our passwords in a small safe.

After taking all the precautions, sometimes it is necessary to let things go.