To any Bitcoin holder who lost their seed: How did you lose it?

[boty]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you have for others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

I never made such a mistake like this and I can't imagine losing my seed phrase.

Best advice would be, make a lot of back ups of your private keys, I recommend writing it down on a piece of paper and hide it somewhere safe where you're the only one who knows it (make sure of that). You could also store it in a data storage like a hard drive but make sure again that that drive is for your seed phrase only. Don't use it regularly to avoid being corrupted or getting a virus.

Yes, it would be better to write on paper and we keep it in a place that other people can't know and we can easily remember it and if we keep it well I'm sure we won't lose the private key, because if we don't keep it well of course It will be very frustrating when you have a balance in your wallet and no longer have access to it, so we have to really take care of it so we don't experience things like losing our private keys.

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[Marykeller]

I haven't and I won't because right from my start in crypto, I had the belief that seed phrase are meant to be kept in a secure place and that reason alone makes me always cautious of where to keep it to avoid losing it because losing it denies me access to my crypto holdings.

All the best and worst places to keep seed phrase have been mentioned but to add to that, never disclose to anyone the amount of crypto assets you have in your portfolio because times are evil, and nobody is to be trusted again

[famososMuertos]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you have for others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

It is intrinsic to your post, because I must write my experiences of the good, bad or my techniques for someone who is just starting out in the forum, it is to give ideas to the hunter...

Well, a little sarcasm there in that previous paragraph, but it is reality, there are thousands of ideas explained, there are various guides written in this forum.

So, it may be that you are looking for one that is not known.  

#TBT

[milewilda]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you have for others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

I did have lost some PK or phrase but not on my Bitcoin wallet but rather into some altcoins that i do have in the past on which into those ICO days on where it did really leave out
that kind of huge regret considering that i have seen some of my coins did make out some pump but since i had forgotten those wallet PK's then i do end up on losing those valuable
coins which i didnt even expect for it to make those huge pumps. This is why it would really be that best that you should really be mindful about on saving up everything even
not on your Bitcoin PK or SP but also in other wallets as well or which you do seem that does have that potential.

Once you do lost it all then there's no turning back and you would really be that basically be losing all of those funds that you do have into that wallet.
Never make out such negligence on which it would really be causing for you to miss up those golden opportunity on making money due to high profits or increase.

[Asuspawer09]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you have for others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

The seed that I lost was just because I forgot about it, I lost the seed basically I dont know where I put the files and I just dont know what the file name is, I mean there are a lot of computers that i used already so i dont know if its there or what I just didn't put too much attention to it since I just dont know back in the years if Bitcoin is going to be a big deal or the wallet is important.

There are also some cases where I lose Bitcoin many times because of custodial exchanger and wallet, there are times when my Bitcoin got locked up on a local wallet that I'm using they just freeze my wallet because I have some issues on my KYC I guess, and at the same time they where having some issues since they think that my money came from illegal transactions since it was from some other address something like that.

For sure putting your Bitcoin in a custodial wallet is probably one of my biggest mistakes since I lose a fair amount of money on that, as well as not putting too much attention on how I manage my wallet and password.

In my opinion, the best way is just to have a file on your seed put it on your drive then have a backup on a flash drive, then have another backup on something like a notebook so that you have a hard copy of that as well in case.

[goldkingcoiner]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you have for others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

Well to be honest there is no "best way" to store a seed. Your seed phrase will never be 100% safe. You can only lessen the probability of losing your coins in one way or another. It depends on how committed you are to your own security. Or you can outsource that responsibility but you would end up sacrificing your privacy and coin custody. I would not recommend doing that.

For me, the worst way to store a seed is on commonly used devices which have/had access to the internet. your phone, on a USB, on a laptop or desktop computer. Especially storing it online, like in a cloud. or even offline, on some text document. Equally dangerous ways to store your seed phrase.

I have not lost any seeds because I am very careful.

[Faisal2202]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you have for others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

I have not lose any seed phrase till now and I am grateful to Allah for that, I wish not to be in any condition like this. But if I have to guess the reasons that would cause people to lose seed phrases, then there are many that come to my mind. For example, one of my local community members did not save the seed phrase of a wallet (that was meta mask so it was basically not about BTC) he thought he would save it later but due to the auto-update feature of Firefox I think the extension got reset and now he has no key anymore to restore it. But he got lucky somehow. He has made a thread if you want to read the whole story.

He restored that wallet by using the hierarchal mechanism of metamask, which was a lucky thing for him. Talking about the worst way, it would be using some service from a platform ensuring you 100% recovery, because most of these platforms are fake and they in the end will ask you for a recovery phrase and sometimes, these platforms succeed in recovering the wallet but don't give you the access to it until you give them some big reward because they force you to give them.

[The Cryptovator]

Personally, I never lost my Bitcoin wallet seed phrase, but I heard a couple of stories. When Bitcoin was very cheap, a few people were too lazy to secure their seed phrase, and that's how they lost it. But lately, people are very careful to secure their wallets when the price of bitcoin is too high. I don't think people are lazy now to store their seed in a secure place, especially those who have a basic idea about Bitcoin. I always advise you to use a hardware wallet to secure your funds. And it should be an open-source wallet. Secure your seed phrase in multiple safe places. So there are no chances to lose your all seed phrase at all.

[criptoevangelista]

I wrote it on paper in a handwriting that only I understand, like a code, and stored it well hidden in my house.

Some time ago I created a topic on the Brazil local board about hiding places, take a look there:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5476806.0


These hiding places were what I liked most:

[Baki202]

Personally, I never lost my Bitcoin wallet seed phrase, but I heard a couple of stories. When Bitcoin was very cheap, a few people were too lazy to secure their seed phrase, and that's how they lost it. But lately, people are very careful to secure their wallets when the price of bitcoin is too high. I don't think people are lazy now to store their seed in a secure place, especially those who have a basic idea about Bitcoin. I always advise you to use a hardware wallet to secure your funds. And it should be an open-source wallet. Secure your seed phrase in multiple safe places. So there are no chances to lose your all seed phrase at all.

I've seen others claim they lost their seed phrase, so I took my seed phrase safety seriously because losing it when I have money won't be good at all, and I know how it feels to lose money. And is that genuinely bought? Bitcoin would have accumulated a large amount of it. And now that bitcoin has gained significant value, people will be disappointed since it will be as if they have lost their chance to make more money in life for those who are already wealthy. And people are now looking for more measures to keep there wallet safe and I don't blame them at all it involves money. So everyone have to take this advise seriously. And everyone has become wiser and will value their bitcoin at all cost. And the suggestion given show that their are even easier ways to now keep your assets safe.

[Hyphen(-)]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you give others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

This mistake I have ever made about my seed phrase is saving the image of the seed phrase and my private key in my email address.

I will never advise anyone to do something such because it is straightforward to hack and you will easily lose your funds since if someone gets access to your email either by using your phone that contains the mail logged in or by compromising the mail they can easily empty your wallet; all these are very easy to do, that is why I see several threads about the effect of using email to save your private key or seed phrase, I changed to another method of saving which is by written down in a book that I can never forget or left so as to remember whenever I am in need of them.

[gunhell16]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you have for others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

I've never had the experience of losing or forgetting a seed phrase, but I've seen other communities here who lost their seed phrase because they couldn't remember where they saved it. The other is because the PC desktop or laptop was hacked and they didn't save it on any USB flash drives.

Others are also careless; they don't think that the seed phrase is like a car key without which the car won't start. There must be a duplicate, so the same goes for the seed phrase; there must always be a backup.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Others are also careless; they don't think that the seed phrase is like a car key without which the car won't start. There must be a duplicate, so the same goes for the seed phrase; there must always be a backup.

In general, for long-time Internet users, losing passwords, and especially information that has financial content, would be extremely stupid in our time. Those who previously used digital wallets, before Bitcoin, had to save passwords or other keys. For those who constantly communicate on forums, their accounts are probably precious, so surely everyone knows the value of saving their information outside the devices they use. Probably everyone has heard the words “virus”, “stealer” and even “hacker”.
From the very first steps, beginners are encouraged to save their seed phrase when creating a wallet, and those who do not listen to recommendations but are too confident will lose and repeat the lessons that the Internet teaches them.

[lombok]

I have never experienced losing a Cryptocurrency wallet seed or phrase, I hope that doesn't happen either. Maybe this has become my habit, I always write every password, seed, phrase from email, crypto wallet, Trezor, ledger, even exchange and Google authentication manually in a special book and store it in a cupboard and back it up in RAR form on a flash disk. Sometimes I also save some in my special email address. And I am very grateful that after several years I will access it and it is still running smoothly and without any problems. Actually, there are many ways to store seeds/passwords/phrases and it depends on us which way is comfortable and safe for us to store them. I suggest not backing up in just one form, make several alternative backups so that if something undesirable happens we still have other backups.

[Pandji02]

Sad to see stories how people lost their seed phrases. I hope I will never face this problem, I'm simply having it on a two copies of paper in a different places.

[kryptqnick]

That's a nice thread because it gives an idea of how losing a seed usually happens, and also shows that, thankfully, the majority of people here have never lost their seeds.
I can say that I haven't lost any BTC, so I haven't lost access to my money, but I think I have lost my seed once or twice because of forgetting where to find it. But I was using a wallet with a password, so I could still access my funds, and then just create a new wallet and write everything down this time. Maybe I just got lucky, but I generally consider myself a fairly responsible and careful person.

[boyptc]

Sad to see stories how people lost their seed phrases. I hope I will never face this problem, I'm simply having it on a two copies of paper in a different places.

Most likely those that have joined the forum won't be experiencing what has happened to the old investors that have shared their stories.

It's giving the reminder on how we should keep our seeds very well and don't be confident with remembering them and only have one set of copy. It's important to always have a back up.

And that's why you'd see many people here telling that it has never happened to them because of how people have shared their stories before not just on this thread.

[southerngentuk]

Writing them down in a book works wonders, but like a trusty sidekick, it's good to have a backup. Splitting the phrase across multiple locations, offline and hidden like buried loot, is a genius move. Remember, secrecy is your shield against prying eyes and digital vultures.

Screenshots are a big no-no, clouds are even worse – think of them like leaky sieves for your crypto. Hardware wallets? You're preaching to the choir! They're like Fort Knox for your digital gold, way sturdier than any software wallet.

[dezoel]

What mistakes did you make, and what advice do you have for others to be careful?

What are the best and worst ways of storing a seed in your opinion?

One of the things I'll never forget about my journey to crypto, was when there was a system issue and all my seed phrases were saved there on the computer. I was a newbie to crypto and I was making money because of signature campaigns and white paper translations. My computer was suddenly reformatted and all the files were lost. I was so complacent that time, that I had to hide all the seed phrases of my accounts in 1 device only, I didn't have any back up copy and that time I didn't have hard wallet so what happened was that everything I worked on was gone.

Ouch mate, that's sad to hear. But that should have taught you an expensive lesson. And I hope you are now doing the right thing. It would be great if you state the current practice you are doing now with your keys and cryptos. When I was a newbie in crypto, I also didn't back up my first wallet or the keys inside it, but luckily I didn't stumbled any problem up until the time I gained more experience and start creating my very own back up.

The only memorable fail that I made was when sending a crypto. It was XRP. And we know it requires a tag right? This is where I messed up. Not only once but a couple of times. Damn. But eventually, I mastered it.

[coolcoinz]

I haven't lost mine, but I know a guy who did, but it was in the old days, probably 2013. The deal was, he mined bitcoin at work. He worked as a security guard and he'd bring his computer to work in 2012 when you'd mine using FPGAs. Those were a little stacked towers of mining chips that were a bit faster than GPUs but still slower than ASICs. He kept everything on a single hard drive with no backups, but bitcoin wasn't worth much. He was making some money every month, but it wasn't a lot. I won't tell you the exact numbers but it was less than $100 a month and he'd sell bitcoin every few month.

Then he got bored with it and kept some of the unsold coins on his computer and in 2013 someone broke in to his place and stole his whole computer. They cleaned out the place. Stole his TV, computer, console, basically everything that had value and was light enough to be carried out. It was right before bitcoin went above $100 in that big Spring rally and the thieves never knew what they were stealing because the money was still on that address a year later. They probably wiped the drive so that the new buyer wouldn't know who the stuff used to belong to. I bet some kids bought it and played games on it not knowing that it was stolen.

This wasn't a lot of bitcoin, less than 2BTC, but it would be worth at least $60k today.

Why he did not have a backup? Because that was dust that he mined to have money for beer and smokes. 1 bitcoin was worth $10, so he wouldn't care if he lost $15 or something like that. Today you can get that much money if you get someone to register on a bitcoin exchange with your referral.

How to best protect yourself? Get at least 1 backup and hold it in a different place. If you have a garden, buy a watertight capsule, engrave the seed on a piece of metal or plastic and bury it somewhere where it will be easy to find for you, like right next to a tree. If all else fails, even when your house burns down you'll always have that backup that will never get destroyed