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

[Yatsan]

Never experienced losing it and wouldn't want to. When I first started in this industry, I know how to value money. I know what risk is present with projects and coins. Given all these, losing your Seed phrase is being negligent. If you value something, you would be caring too much for it and negligence is what you will want to avoid . Even with my physical wallet, I always check it before leaving a plaace whenever I am outside simply because I cannot afford losing any amount so what more with my seedphrase wherein all of my holdings are present? Again, if it is important then put value into it. And if you happened to made mistake before, be sure to learn from it and avoid doing the same thing. There are ways to keep it secured. There are instances such information is being stolen and would you allow it that your own careless actions would cost you that much? Without anyone forcing to get it from you?

This is just a realistic point of view of giving importance to what is important.

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.

I tend to use mnemonics and first letters are what is written on my notes. Then the whole words would be mispelled to other words and to other pages of my booklet, secured in vault. It should be something that the drunk version of you at least won't know.

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[Cryptomultiplier]

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 only had an experience having lost my seed phrases when I got a new phone and needed to restore my trust wallet. I was rather fortunate not to have stored a lot of BTC in it.
Then I didn't know the importance of keeping the seed safe, until I lost the access to the account.

Since then, whenever I am using a new wallet, even if am trying it out, I write it down, I save it on my notepad and I go back after some time to check if I can still access the wallet with the seed phrases I have carefully kept safe.

[WatChe]

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.

To me the best and cheapest way to store your seed is to write it down on paper and place it in your wardrobe. AFAIK all digital storage are vulnerable to hacks. The irony is that most of us don't take security of seeds and wallets seriously unless they are exposed to some sort of hacks in which the bear losses. 
Hardware wallet is no doubt a good option for people who can afford. In crypto, security of your asset lies in security of your wallet and that in turn depend on how safe your seed is.

[Adbitco]

I can't remember if I have ever lost my seed phrase or lost my private keys but I believe the best way to save your keys and seed phrase is to back it up where only you can have access to it. Please do not save the seed phrase and keys to your mobile devices such as laptop and phone that you always carry around to everywhere you are going since you can easily lost it. For example when your phone got stolen from you automatically you lost your key and seed phrase this applicable with your laptop as well so avoid moving with them.

[Myleschetty]

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 think most of the mistakes made by many Bitcoin holders who lose their wallets is not storing their seeds in a safe place and some don't back up their wallets. This is usually done by many early adopters of Bitcoin.
The reason I say this is because I lost Solana to such naive habits when they started SOL ICO. At that time, I earned about 200 SOL via airdrop, but never backed up my wallet.

[dothebeats]

My very first wallet with around 0.02 BTC in it was lost when I damaged my phone and the only backup I had was in a pen drive that was lost in a house clean up. I could potentially recover it if I have it stored somewhere but unfortunately there's just no way to recover from it. It wasn't much back in 2015 but that's already a couple hundred or thousand dollars now, and could be added to my stash for long term storage.

Pro tip: always have multiple back ups and don't end up like me.

[VinIVaderr]

I haven't lost any seed phrases. Download iancoleman.io/bip39 generate 3 words and add your favorite password.
I keep multiple copies of the webpage for offline use.

[Nheer]

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?

Basically every beginner seems to make one or two costly mistakes in their early days, the most of which results in financial loss. I also made a really careless mistake while storing my private key when I started out, i started using Trust Wallet so while backing up my seed phrase to my wallet i saw a warning message that warns against taking screenshots of the seed phrase and that screenshot cannot be taken so instead of writing down my seeds and saving them in a secure location i felt too lazy to go get a pen and paper to write it down, then i asked my friend to take pictures of the seed phrase using his phone and that i will get it later from him to safely save it. That was how i forgot about the seed phrase, after some time i tried to reach my friend but i couldn’t, den a few days later he reached out and said he lost his phone.

Despite this, I didn't remember about the seed phrase until a few weeks later when I had to access my wallet due to a phone issue that required a factory reset. At that point, I realised my friend had taken screenshots of the phrase and had misplaced his phone. I was so upset that I believed there must be a way to avoid it, but there was none, and that's how I lost all of my money. Everything is valuable to you as a beginner, therefore I hoped I could turn back time and fix my error.


My advice to beginners and everyone out there is to take their private keys and seed phrases seriously, they should never joke with handling it and always secure it in a safe place. The seed phrase is more important than your asset itself because without it there is no way of accessing your assets.

To prevent damage from exposure, we should always write our seed phrase on a metal surface rather than paper. We should also produce duplicates of the phrase and store them in different locations. Avoid saving it in a location that is easy for others to access or too deep for you to reach.

Writing down on a metal plate and adding extra phrases to make it impossible for anyone to use and make duplicate copies and keep in multiple locations is the best strategy to save your seeds.
While writing down on paper—which is readily damaged when exposed to certain conditions and saving your seeds online such as in your email—are, in my opinion, the worst ways to save seeds, and these two approaches are the most popular ways people store their seeds.

[Adams0001]

I can't remember if I have ever lost my seed phrase or lost my private keys but I believe the best way to save your keys and seed phrase is to back it up where only you can have access to it. Please do not save the seed phrase and keys to your mobile devices such as laptop and phone that you always carry around to everywhere you are going since you can easily lost it. For example when your phone got stolen from you automatically you lost your key and seed phrase this applicable with your laptop as well so avoid moving with them.

Same with me, I have not lost any of my seed phrase or private keys because I have learned from people who have lost their phrase and private key, so I keep my on very secure so I don't fall victim. I have learned different ways to secure your private key on the Internet, and the forums are just for you to be careful and don't let anyone know your secrets Is it only your love once, You can notify your wife or children so they will know where your property is if you are no longer there. You can store your seed phrase or privacy key In a paper and hide it in your room or box and hope that no one can attempt to touch it.

People that save their private key in their smart phones put their money at danger because if you lose your phone or it is stolen, you will be unable to access your wallet again, unlike an exchange where you can reset your password and gain access. And exchanges are not a good location to put your coins because anything can happen and they might crash, causing you to lose everything. Therefore, the ideal place to save your coins is in a wallet that no one can access except you, which is why you must keep your security very carefully.

[Pierre 2]

I think I lost 2-3 seed in my whole cryptocurrency career. One was caused by terrible browser extension type of wallet of altcoin which is sort of out of topic... Main 2 bitcoin wallet seed losses were caused by
1. hardware failure. Well I was using 10 year old laptop. It was secondary laptop so pretty safe to hold my seeds because I wasn't using it for online purposes at all. Its harddisk died. Probably fried.
2. This was caused by mismanagement by me. I lost paper I wrote numbers letters etc. Its all gone.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

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

If it's about bitcoin in particular, I would say that ive never made a mistake with my wallet seed since I got into crypto in 2016, all the bitcoin wallets I've used since then are still intact till today, non have been hacked, and non have I forgotten it's seed, I have a booklet were I wrote all the seed phrases of all the bitcoin wallets I've used, and still using, from the past to present, and if at any time, I decide to go back any wallet, I just up the seed and restore that wallet.

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

Well, based on my experience so far, I would say that the best way is to write them down On a piece of paper, and a book or jotter you and you alone have access to, and then keep it some where safe, though, if you ask me, I did say that this method is not a perfect one, but it does not, it's been working for me since 2016.

And, I think the waste way to store your seed is to store them online.

[NicNacCoin]

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?

As long as I have been on bitcoin forums and have never lost bitcoins to anyone from holding bitcoins I have never made the mistake of holding bitcoins. But my advice for every bitcoin holder is to keep your bitcoin wallet seed phrase very safe.  Keep the wallet seed phrase to keep your bitcoins in a safe place so that no one can steal them somehow. But the best way to keep the seed phrase of the wallet containing bitcoin safe is to write it down in a notebook. I write down the seed phrase of the wallet that holds my bitcoins in a notebook and keep that notebook in a place where no one but me can see it.

[Issa56]

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 never lost my private key before, but I have seen lots of people lose access to their private key before. Most of the people that I know who have lost their private key are the ones who once stored it on their mobile device, some of them lost their phones, and some of them lost their phones. The funniest part is that one of the people I know mistakenly deleted the private key where he stored it.
 
When storing a private key, it should be stored completely offline, where you know there is no internet connection, because if your private key is stored on the internet, hackers can easily have access to it. You can just carve your private key on iron steel and store it in multiple places where nobody will be able to see it.

[Peanutswar]

I didnt lose my seed because I have my backup and make sure there's secure storage in it, seed is the key to your wallet so once you forget this you already lose your money, I am using a hot wallet of course still there's a seed but we know there's no safe in the internet so i tried to have at least a hardware wallet to have a safe and secure, base on my experience i always make multiple copies of it which is all I know to make sure there's no chance i lose if there's a natural occurrence might happen still I have my money again don't forget where you put it or else you will lose it forever.

[arwin100]

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

There's one time that I'm so sleepy but need to fill up something to participate on a airdrop but unfortunately instead of putting my address in the sheet I accidentally put my private key and next to that someone stole my asset stored on that wallet and luckily I don't have big balances stored at that time so damage has not so big and I really learn a lot of lesson for that mistake I made.

For advice never do anything especially if its important if you are sleepy since everything goes bad once you are not fully aware on what you are doing.

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

Best way store it outside/offline to avoid getting penetrated or commit mistakes for handling it. Worst is to save it on apps or any online platform since risk is so high there.

[Adbitco]

I can't remember if I have ever lost my seed phrase or lost my private keys but I believe the best way to save your keys and seed phrase is to back it up where only you can have access to it. Please do not save the seed phrase and keys to your mobile devices such as laptop and phone that you always carry around to everywhere you are going since you can easily lost it. For example when your phone got stolen from you automatically you lost your key and seed phrase this applicable with your laptop as well so avoid moving with them.

Same with me, I have not lost any of my seed phrase or private keys because I have learned from people who have lost their phrase and private key, so I keep my on very secure so I don't fall victim. I have learned different ways to secure your private key on the Internet, and the forums are just for you to be careful and don't let anyone know your secrets Is it only your love once, You can notify your wife or children so they will know where your property is if you are no longer there. You can store your seed phrase or privacy key In a paper and hide it in your room or box and hope that no one can attempt to touch it.

One thing that people don't always learn from past mistake maybe sometimes they would want to experience it themselves before they apply safety to their wallets, when they understand security very well I think it would be hard for someone to say he lost or misplaced he sees phrase or private key. Security is the most important in cryptocurrency investment and holding whomever that knows what their keys hold to them they wouldn't be careless with their keys.

[Samlucky O]

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:

Your hiding place is in indeed a great place of hiding or keeping seed phrase. To be sincere I love it. There is no how on earth somebody would know about it. You know I try sudjesting something similar to this your pass phrase coding to another thing that is far from others understand the secret behind it. But I was told in my local board that inscribing or self moderating my pass phrase could be a great risk to me expecially when I forgot it. Because there is nothing to help me out. Except you still have the original seed kept in a secret place also incase of emergency.

[Julien_Olynpic]

Some time ago I had a case where I lost a certain amount of money because I didn't save the sids or private key. It was in a mobile app on my phone. Mobile apps can be very convenient and many of them require you to save your sids and private keys. But it's usually a matter of the user's own thoughtlessness. You tell yourself that you will do a back up tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but you keep forgetting to do it. Sooner or later there comes a situation when you think you have saved your sid or private key, but you haven't. I too thought that my sid was saved and just deleted the app when I didn't need it. But it turned out that there were funds in that wallet that I lost access to irrevocably. Something like 1000 dollars. It wasn't fatal, but it was very unpleasant at the time.

[Minor Miner]

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?

As long as I have been on bitcoin forums and have never lost bitcoins to anyone from holding bitcoins I have never made the mistake of holding bitcoins. But my advice for every bitcoin holder is to keep your bitcoin wallet seed phrase very safe.  Keep the wallet seed phrase to keep your bitcoins in a safe place so that no one can steal them somehow. But the best way to keep the seed phrase of the wallet containing bitcoin safe is to write it down in a notebook. I write down the seed phrase of the wallet that holds my bitcoins in a notebook and keep that notebook in a place where no one but me can see it.

But you just write them down in a notebook and have no other backups? The method of writing the seed phrase in a notebook is considered the most popular, but I think we need to have 1 or 2 backup copies instead of just 1 main copy. Notebooks and paper are both very perishable, have you ever thought about the fact that if they get burned or wet, you will lose access to your property? So, I think no matter what method we use to store our seed phrase, we should have at least 1 to 2 backup copies and store them in different places.

[bayu7adi]

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?

Not a seed, but a private key. This is purely because I don't know much about data security and privacy.
Using a Windows VPS to import private keys is the worst idea. It happened when I didn't know the best way to secure my wallet, I deliberately imported the private key that I used in the altcoin wallet application.

About a week after I turned off my VPS and deleted the instance, it turned out that all balance of my wallet had been completely drained. I can't confirm where the disaster came from, but my biggest suspicion is that I imported pk to VPS. Leaving private keys hanging around online, was the worst thing I've ever done.