How to keep safe the mnemonic phrase - Whats Your method?

[mvdheuvel1983]

fellow members,

As we all know keeping mnemonic phrase in a secure place is the first step of bitcoin journey. But there are few thing that comes in my mind:

->Writing and keeping it with you/your place: What if someone got the access in your absence of theft or any disaster?

I use hardware wallets to store my keys and sign transactions because it gives me the highest level of security. Another benefit of it is that it allows me to make paper backups of my key phrases in order to achieve resilience and continuity incase something happens to me.
My desktop isn't secure at all just like every other desktop out there. My assumption is that both my computer and mobile phone have been compromised. Therefore, any information stored in there vulnerable to being accessed by bad actors.

[kro55]

Each person has their own method, but I also really like the traditional way, writing them down on paper and then backing up many copies to store in many places and sharing with the closest people is indispensable.

Keep in mind when you're share your seed phrase to closest people, you're taking a risk they will make a silly mistake to keep/save the seed phrase because their knowledge might be less than you.

Maybe their knowledge about bitcoin is worse than ours, but in protecting valuable assets, we are not really better than them. When sharing the secret of the seed phrase, we need to emphasize its importance, I believe they will understand its importance and will protect it with their lives. I even trust my wife more than myself because she is very good at preserving precious things in my family.

What I did was simply encrypt it in a secure box and save it on a laptop that I no longer use and as a backup I saved it in a secure file on Box.com. I think that this is quite safe, considering that it is encrypted, and I also put some of my assets on the exchange, so that even if I lose access to my wallet I still have backup funds on the exchange.

You're trusting your seed phrase over third party, I don't think it can be said as safe regardless it's encrypted or having password.

The chance you lose your funds is higher in online e.g. centralized exchange than in offline.

Both of his methods place trust in a third party, which is worse than trusting a bank. If I have to trust centralized exchanges or online storage services, I'd rather trust bank. How can our bitcoins be safer in the hands of others? @retreat?

[BVeyron]

fellow members,

As we all know keeping mnemonic phrase in a secure place is the first step of bitcoin journey. But there are few thing that comes in my mind:

->Writing and keeping it with you/your place: What if someone got the access in your absence of theft or any disaster?
-> Obviously keep it online in email of any other way is risking your funds.

What can be the best possible way, My favorite method is to using a metal keycard where I marked the phrase buy again it can be stolen

What your way?
 
 
 

I think that, in general, mnemonic phrase should be stored in a place where you can easily find it if you need it. There are many cases of lost seed phrases due to the fact that people couldn't remember where it was (really, its not a joke, though sounds funny)... So, any way of storing is ok if you always keep in mind where seed phrase is located. Unfortunately, there is no backup if mnemonic phrase is lost...

[Casdinyard]

To me, the safest method of securing your seed phrase is anything that doesn't involve saving it in your email or facebook or any social media account for that matter. Securing your seed phrase involves making sure that there's no risk of you ever sending it accidentally to someone else, or even the prospect of getting hacked and risking giving access to other people.

So do whatever you think is safe. keep it to your person through a paper wallet you keep in your pocket, use a trezor, make a hardware wallet using your hard disk, whatever really works for you as long as the premise is that it's shut off from the internet, and only you could gain access to it.

[suzanne5223]

There is a diversity of methods in itself that each one is like a zoo, it is if from earthquake in its protection method. (metaphor)

And! generally what works best is the individual, his everyday skills in that aspect, such as answering openly in this post what would be his preferred ways to protect some phrases.

#TBT Topic

However, it's not about people preferring a way that's important but using the most secure way to safely keep the mnemonic phrase and the best way will always be offline. Write the phrase down on a piece of paper using a pen (have multiple copies of it), and keep it in a protected location, such as a safe deposit or a lockbox which also protects it from potential possible hazards, theft, etc.

[retreat]

While putting some in that exchange, hope you put only the one which you can afford to lose. I’m sure you did that because no person will save more money in exchange than a decentralised wallet where they have complete ownership of the funds. Only a novice that have no knowledge of crypto will do that or the ones that are negligence in events like this.

I already know that. I don't fully believe in centralized exchanges and therefore I only put my money on the most reputable exchanges and the value of my assets is also not much.

You're trusting your seed phrase over third party, I don't think it can be said as safe regardless it's encrypted or having password.

The chance you lose your funds is higher in online e.g. centralized exchange than in offline.

Well, I know that risk too. However, the exchange that I believe has been operating for a long time and has the largest valuation currently. So if you think it's more risky, I don't think so. And also the seed phrase that I put on Box.com was pre-encrypted in text form, so if someone could crack it I think he would need a quantum computer for that.

Both of his methods place trust in a third party, which is worse than trusting a bank. If I have to trust centralized exchanges or online storage services, I'd rather trust bank. How can our bitcoins be safer in the hands of others? @retreat?

My answer is clear enough. So I don't need to explain any more.

[Wend]

Each person has their own method, but I also really like the traditional way, writing them down on paper and then backing up many copies to store in many places and sharing with the closest people is indispensable.

Keep in mind when you're share your seed phrase to closest people, you're taking a risk they will make a silly mistake to keep/save the seed phrase because their knowledge might be less than you.

Of course, I thought about that and I also had a solution for that. But they don't necessarily need as much knowledge as we do, as long as you let them know the importance of the seed phrase, they will store it like or better than you.

What I did was simply encrypt it in a secure box and save it on a laptop that I no longer use and as a backup I saved it in a secure file on Box.com. I think that this is quite safe, considering that it is encrypted, and I also put some of my assets on the exchange, so that even if I lose access to my wallet I still have backup funds on the exchange.

You're trusting your seed phrase over third party, I don't think it can be said as safe regardless it's encrypted or having password.

The chance you lose your funds is higher in online e.g. centralized exchange than in offline.

It seems like he's trying to diversify where his seed phrases are stored, but using centralized platforms is unwise. The risks of storing our seed phrase or bitcoins on a centralized platform have been discussed a lot on the forum. I don't think he missed it, he should change things as soon as possible.

[Lucius]

~snip~
->Writing and keeping it with you/your place: What if someone got the access in your absence of theft or any disaster?

If you want to protect yourself from thieves, then you need to further complicate the situation in case such a theft happens, and I would suggest that you do two things.

The first is that the seed is hidden in an unusual place, which means that it will not be in a drawer on a sheet of paper, in a box with Christmas decorations or in a safe (if you have one at all). So turn on your imagination and think outside the box.

If you don't like the first proposal, you can additionally protect seed by setting a passphrase, and you will keep it separate from the seed, of course even better without any indication that it is about something related to cryptocurrencies. Even if thieves steal your seed, without a passphrase they will not be able to generate your coin addresses, and you will be able to safely transfer your coins to a new wallet.

As for natural disasters, there's no point in writing about it again, you got a link to a thread where we discussed it.

[sokani]

What can be the best possible way, My favorite method is to using a metal keycard where I marked the phrase buy again it can be stolen

What your way?

The safest method is to write down your seed phrase on a piece of paper or metallic steel plate and keep it in multiple locations, so that if you lost your hardware wallet, phone or laptop to theft or natural disaster, you can still recover your asset.

One way to minimize physical theft is to try to keep your financials as lowkey as possible, most especially, crypto. For instance, don't flaunt on social media or to your IRL peers.

A guy got robbed at his home after he was bragging about his crypto wealth while drinking in a bar with his friends. They robbers came well prepared with their crypto wallet for him to transfer all his assets. He was lucky they didn't kill him because he didn't have up to the amount he claimed he had. We should learn to be very discreet with our investment to avoid attracting unnecessary attention to ourselves.

[Z-tight]

I already know that. I don't fully believe in centralized exchanges and therefore I only put my money on the most reputable exchanges and the value of my assets is also not much.

It is your keys, and you can store it however you like, but take note that no exchange is too big to fail, not even the ones you call reputable, most of them operate through fractional reserve scam, so even if they don't get hacked, your funds can still be lost if their investment, gambling or trade fails.

And also the seed phrase that I put on Box.com was pre-encrypted in text form, so if someone could crack it I think he would need a quantum computer for that.

It is not recommended to store your seed phrase online or in any cloud service, even if it is encrypted. You may think your encryption is strong enough, but you do not know how sophisticated the attacker could be to compromise your seed phrase.

My answer is clear enough. So I don't need to explain any more.

Yeah, i read this too. Your keys, your coins, and you can store it however you wish.

[_BlackStar]

The simple thing is to save your phrases offline regardless of any method you can. It is never recommended that you do anything out of the ordinary when it comes to securing your phrases - that would obviously be very risky if you had problems with them.

Apart from saving it offline - another best advice is to make several copies of the phrase. It is certainly advisable that you have a copy in case the phrases you have saved somewhere unexpectedly get lost for one reason or another. Then from that - don't save all your bitcoin in one wallet, that means having several different wallets if your amount of bitcoin is quite large.

[Agbe]

There are different ways your mnemonic seed phrase can be kept. You can see these ones to know more how to secure your seed phrase even in the time of fire outbreak, earthquake, hurricane, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5404433.0, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5389446.0 you can read those threads to see the ways seed phrase is secured.

[oktana]

In the quest to figure out the most suitable option, NEVER store them online. Everything online has a backend and you have no clue what goes on there.

What can be the best possible way, My favorite method is to using a metal keycard where I marked the phrase buy again it can be stolen

Someone can steal it only if you let them, I mean... Have you considered having up to 2 or even 3 metal keycards? Split your words across them and store them in different places (not in the same house). But then, what if 1 piece gets stolen and you do not have the complete words anymore? The solution is that you can get double of each piece (during creation) hence if one piece were to be stolen or misplaced, you can have its duplicate in another location.

[Lanatsa]

In the quest to figure out the most suitable option, NEVER store them online. Everything online has a backend and you have no clue what goes on there.

What can be the best possible way, My favorite method is to using a metal keycard where I marked the phrase buy again it can be stolen

Someone can steal it only if you let them, I mean... Have you considered having up to 2 or even 3 metal keycards? Split your words across them and store them in different places (not in the same house). But then, what if 1 piece gets stolen and you do not have the complete words anymore? The solution is that you can get double of each piece (during creation) hence if one piece were to be stolen or misplaced, you can have its duplicate in another location.

Im not really that confident on trying out to store up those metal plates on different houses or location unless if we do talk about on the same location literally on our house which it could be placed on different corners then it would be ideal but i do still able to see the risks on losing some parts which would really be bringing up some problems later on.Keeping it online is never been recommendable on which same as you said that we cant really be assuring on there's no happening in back end on which it could really be easily be accessed if they wanted to do so and this is something that wont really be a safe place since from the start.

I have already doubts on keeping my coins too on HW like Trezor or Ledger. We've seen some those breaches or leaks or exploits.
Doesnt matter on how reputable they are but still wont really be that enough for us to tell or say that they are 100% safe and secure.

[Sanitough]

fellow members,

As we all know keeping mnemonic phrase in a secure place is the first step of bitcoin journey. But there are few thing that comes in my mind:

->Writing and keeping it with you/your place: What if someone got the access in your absence of theft or any disaster?

One way to minimize physical theft is to try to keep your financials as lowkey as possible, most especially, crypto. For instance, don't flaunt on social media or to your IRL peers.

In case of cryptos, burglars typically don't assume you have it and they usually go for the general stuff like cash, gadgets, etc. That is why I'm convinced a lot of physical attacks to crypto users are targeted, which means perps got a hold of their victims activities/information first.

Yes. Physical theft is only encouraged if you are giving them the possible hints. So if you chose to live lowkey and live in private, I guess physical theft will be minimized. However, on part of your cryptos, if you want to protect your seed phrase from being stolen, then never save it online but chose offline. Store it in a secret place that you're the only knows that it exist. And I don't think thieves will run for a single piece of paper than those cash and jewelries that are displayed on your house.

[Kelvinid]

fellow members,

As we all know keeping mnemonic phrase in a secure place is the first step of bitcoin journey. But there are few thing that comes in my mind:

->Writing and keeping it with you/your place: What if someone got the access in your absence of theft or any disaster?
-> Obviously keep it online in email of any other way is risking your funds.

What can be the best possible way, My favorite method is to using a metal keycard where I marked the phrase buy again it can be stolen

What your way?
 
 
 

I simply wrote on a piece of paper, I'd keep it like nobody cared it was important as I put it in a place that is far from valuable items just to look like it was useless. I don't think it was the right idea to keep safe from disaster but that seems to be working for theft as they never suspected it.
But for me, no matter what we have to do when our wallet is used online, that is still possible to get hacked and steal our funds. We can't find 100% safe assurance, but at least we do something not easy for these thefts. 

[D ltr]

I don't want to make things difficult for myself, I save my seeds in 1 flash disk and 1 special book because I'm the type of person who is forgetful so I think a flash disk in a book is the right place to store my seeds.

[fuguebtc]

I don't want to make things difficult for myself, I save my seeds in 1 flash disk and 1 special book because I'm the type of person who is forgetful so I think a flash disk in a book is the right place to store my seeds.

So, have you ever thought about your flash drive being damaged because electronic devices are very susceptible to unexpected damage, even if you preserve them very carefully? And the fact that you only have 1 copy saved in the notebook and no other backups, have you also thought about losing it or other problems?

You should have 2 or 3 backups stored in different places, that will give more assurance to your seed phrase. Furthermore, you can also share it with your closest loved ones, don't let those bitcoins disappear with you without a relative to inherit if you encounter unexpected problems.

[Hyphen(-)]

I don't want to make things difficult for myself, I save my seeds in 1 flash disk and 1 special book because I'm the type of person who is forgetful so I think a flash disk in a book is the right place to store my seeds.

I don't trust flash drives, hard drives, or any external storage device of that nature because they can get damaged and the files inside will corrupt, including your seed phrase and other valuable documents you saved in there, but saving in a flash will be a bit better than leaving it online in an email or so because anything connected to the internet is very risky and can easily get hacked.

Writing your seed phrase down in a special book is more secure and preferable than using an external flash drive because it will be there and will not corrupt, but if someone has access to it, your coin is gone, because unlike flash drives, you cannot put a password in a book unless you use some encrypted words that only you can interpret, and you can also duplicate the papers because of natural disasters like fire outbreaks, water, and so on.

[Crypt0Gore]

The first thing is to make sure that you don't attract people by either telling them that you are holding large amount of crypto assets or showing off at the wrong place, people knows what to steal from you when they have vital.informtions about you.

Keep your head down, recovery seed can remain save if written down in a book, apart from natural disasters, many won't come looking because you don't look like someone who have investments in crypto.

I have been doing this for so many years already and it's always there, in my wardrobe, but because of natural disasters I crafted a steel in the shape of an ATM card size, like Credut card and carve the recovery words one by one on the steel using a sharp object and I keep this in a separate location, but both inside my room.

The best thing is to keep your crypto investment a secret to yourself, and don't take them around in your pocket because you can easily lose them this way, such things are safer in your house or your private space, either a room or whatever.