Seeds Bitcoin

[Becassine]

Hello,

I had read a comic strip where the heroine had lost her seeds and was looking everywhere for the recovery sheet, which made me smile I must say because it's happened to me before ... Yes, not everyone is super methodical (especially when you don't have many sats, are in mental overload or for other reasons). In the comic strip, the author says that it's happened to a lot of us, but what about you? Have you ever looked for your recovery words, or even your wallet, everywhere?

(I had the link to this book for those interested, but it's only in french I think)

[1714653265]

1714653265

[Ever-young]

My bitcoin wallet I have not lost access to any of them before, as I take full responsibility for their security even when I have not loaded the wallet with any bitcoin. 
 
But up till date, I still have one particular wallet that contains one or two altcoins, one of which is doing well recently. I just can't find out where the private key of that wallet is. I know it's somewhere, but I still can't remember the exact place I kept it. This is a result of not taking what's in it very seriously, which makes me not have multiple places. I backed it up aside from my mobile device back then, and the note book I am still looking for is still there.

[NeuroticFish]

I don't know if it counts, it has happened for me with an altcoin (Monero), many years ago. I've put the seed words somewhere safe (heh, not sure why, since the amount were not that much) and after a couple of months I've forgot where that was.
I've found it eventually, but I don't remember if that was in the same day or not.

The more interesting part is that I still own a small amount and, since I don't actually use them and I don't have them in an active wallet, the risk to get in the same situation again is actually quite real.

But with Bitcoin? Nope!

[Cricktor]

At the time I created my first wallet that's based on mnemonic recovery words, I knew about the importance of those recovery words and I made sure to have them written in a specific notebook which I always know where it is. (Redundant safe copies are another topic.)

What I once couldn't reconstruct because I didn't write it down properly with enough clues or hints or in full is an optional mnemonic passphrase I used for an active Testnet wallet (an Electrum Testnet wallet with some Testnet bitcoins in it). When I checked weeks later if I'm able to recover this wallet, I realized that I couldn't because I chose an optional mnemonic passphrase that I couldn't fully remember even with the clues and hints I wrote down. This is how you shoot yourself in the foot...

Fortunately it was only a recovery test procedure that miserably failed without the actual wallet being lost. So, I had to transfer all the Testnet coins into a new Testnet Electrum wallet with an optional mnemonic passphrase that I now explicitly wrote down in full (of course, not together with the mnemonic recovery words of that wallet).
Lesson learned...

[Becassine]

At the time I created my first wallet that's based on mnemonic recovery words, I knew about the importance of those recovery words and I made sure to have them written in a specific notebook which I always know where it is. (Redundant safe copies are another topic.)

What I once couldn't reconstruct because I didn't write it down properly with enough clues or hints or in full is an optional mnemonic passphrase I used for an active Testnet wallet (an Electrum Testnet wallet with some Testnet bitcoins in it). When I checked weeks later if I'm able to recover this wallet, I realized that I couldn't because I chose an optional mnemonic passphrase that I couldn't fully remember even with the clues and hints I wrote down. This is how you shoot yourself in the foot...

Fortunately it was only a recovery test procedure that miserably failed without the actual wallet being lost. So, I had to transfer all the Testnet coins into a new Testnet Electrum wallet with an optional mnemonic passphrase that I now explicitly wrote down in full (of course, not together with the mnemonic recovery words of that wallet).
Lesson learned...

That's why I hesitate to use a passphrase because I'm not very organized...

[Plaguedeath]

Never, or maybe not yet.

I usually try to check my seed phrase at least a week to make sure if I won't lost it, of course this isn't healthy and kind of wasting time because I didn't get anything except to fulfill my desires.

Make sure to back up your seed phrase to few ways, so in case you forget with the first one, you still remember the other places.

[Cricktor]

That's why I hesitate to use a passphrase because I'm not very organized...

We less organized people have to work harder and stick to rules and procedures to avoid messing up important stuff. We have to acknowledge that we're less organized and that we must do something against it or at least to mitigate it. It's no help to surrender to a less organized nature, no excuses...

[JeromeTash]

It has never happened to me with Bitcoin but back them when Ethlend launched (now known as AAVE). They had a partnership EIDOO wallet and would go ahead to airdrop EIDOO wallet users with the Ethlend tokens. I created the EIDOO wallet and lousily backed up the seeds, I even forgot about the Ethlend tokens in there until a few years later when DeFi became a thing. AAVE token went to an all-time high and the tokens I had in the wallet increased to somewhere around $300 - $400. The mobile phone that I had installed in the wallet was long dead. I looked for the seeds in vain until I just gave up 

[Catenaccio]

Have you ever looked for your recovery words, or even your wallet, everywhere?

If you back up your wallet, your wallet seed, you must store it in places you clearly know and remember. Look for it everywhere, sounds very strange action, because you are owner of the wallet and its back up. It sounds weird if you are carelessly enough to throw it away randomly in any place, and at the end when you need to look for it, you don't know where you store it.

It's bad practice that causes loss of your wallet, backup and bitcoins.
How to back up a seed phrase?

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Hello,

I had read a comic strip where the heroine had lost her seeds and was looking everywhere for the recovery sheet, which made me smile I must say because it's happened to me before ... Yes, not everyone is super methodical (especially when you don't have many sats, are in mental overload or for other reasons). In the comic strip, the author says that it's happened to a lot of us, but what about you? Have you ever looked for your recovery words, or even your wallet, everywhere?

(I had the link to this book for those interested, but it's only in french I think)

It has happened to me before and i don't think i was able to get hold of myself for the day before i finally realized the means i used in storing the wallet, honestly what will be the first panic on one is the amount of sats you're holding on this same wallet which you know yourself that its not something you can afford to loose, that is why it is very important for us to make use of two means in saving our wallet keys for safety purpose.

[PX-Z]

I owned different wallets already, several hardware wallets, hot wallets, cold wallets but never had experience of losing those important thing (seeds, passwords, email, etc) for recovery. Plus i placed those things in only one area only so i didn't find it somewhere else if ever i needed it.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Have you ever looked for your recovery words, or even your wallet, everywhere?

As far as I can remember, this has never happened to me, and it is unlikely that it could happen, because I realized a long time ago that you should always be serious about such things. However, I know that there are people who constantly lose things, and when someone behaves irresponsibly in life, it is not surprising that he will lose a piece of paper on which he wrote some words.

It's not easy to be your own bank, and everyone should clear some things up with themselves before investing in cryptocurrencies. Be serious and responsible in life and there is a high probability that you will not lose anything important - and even if you happen to lose or forget one backup, the second or third backup you made will save you - you know that one backup is not enough?

[Marvelman]

Oh man, lost recovery phrases.  Been there myself back in the day when I first got into crypto.  I was like a kid in a candy store, downloading every wallet under the sun not thinking twice about keeping track of all those darn seed phrases.  Napkins, sticky notes random notebooks - I had passphrases scattered all over!

These days I'm much more organized with a dedicated crypto notebook locked up safe and sound.  but I definitely remember those early days of frantically searching under couch cushions and digging through drawers hoping to miraculously uncover a lost passphrase. and  Talk about stressful! Now I just gently remind my friends getting started with crypto: take good care of those seed phrases! Write em down clearly and store 'em properly on day one.

[Findingnemo]

I can remember two instances.

One with my Electrum wallet that I used for small storage on my Android, I had the backup seeds but somehow I didn't remember where I kept and it came to acknowledge just before factory resetting my Android for spare service like battery or something, luckily that account still logged in and I rewrote the seed words from the app itself.

Another one is related to a shitcoin, the name of the project I can't find and it happened in the ICO era, the $10 worth of tokens went to moon-like 20x or 50x but I was never able to find the seeds and its forever lost.

[Stalker22]

what about you? Have you ever looked for your recovery words, or even your wallet, everywhere?

Never had this happen to me with Bitcoin, but I have owned a bunch of different wallets for altcoins over the years.  Some of those altcoins just didnt pan out or I lost interest, so there were a few wallets I just deleted and have no way to recover now.  Not real smart, I know you should never totally lose access to a wallet but I wanted a clean break from some failed projects.  I honestly couldnt even tell you where those old seed phrases are now.  It is not best practice, but when an altcoin goes belly up or I just have no use for it anymore, I dont want the reminder sitting around.  Who knows, maybe some of them will randomly shoot up in value one day and Ill be kicking myself but I doubt it.  Most likely those wallets are gone for good along with those shitcoins.  Like I said, not recommending it, but it is what it is.

[Potato Chips]

Admittedly, I can be the forgetful type that's why I have multiple backups -- this is also useful in case one gets destroyed for whatever reason.

I also try to regularly refresh my memory of their locations similar to what I do with a few passwords and PINS I have to remember lol. So far I have never lost track of my seeds though this do not include the empty wallets -- tbh I only have vague idea about the empties lol.

[dkbit98]

I created a bunch of seed words for testing purposes and once I had to search for them to test and see if there are any leftover coins.
Some people say you should never throw away your old seed phrases, you never know when you may need them again, maybe to prove ownership of coins someday.

[EL MOHA]

I owned different wallets already, several hardware wallets, hot wallets, cold wallets but never had experience of losing those important thing (seeds, passwords, email, etc) for recovery. Plus i placed those things in only one area only so i didn't find it somewhere else if ever i needed it.

This is actually a good way of saving things because this way you know where the precious stuff is and this narrow down your search whenever you need to search for it. But my problem with this method of one place storage of different wallet seed phrase is the single point of failure it offers to me. Although you can be a very carefree or say private person that know one can be know maybe you have coins or not but still shit happens, should any one get hodl of that paper or know of that place, the whole Wallets are exposed, most especially when he doesn’t needs to look for the individual wallets used to generate the seed except of the wallets that customize their seed seed like electrum if not one wallet will just be used to recover those seeds, i still think multiple palace of storage for each seed phrase is better

[2Pizza410000BTC]

Hello,

I had read a comic strip where the heroine had lost her seeds and was looking everywhere for the recovery sheet, which made me smile I must say because it's happened to me before ... Yes, not everyone is super methodical (especially when you don't have many sats, are in mental overload or for other reasons). In the comic strip, the author says that it's happened to a lot of us, but what about you? Have you ever looked for your recovery words, or even your wallet, everywhere?

(I had the link to this book for those interested, but it's only in french I think)

I've never lost my bitcoin wallet seed phrase since I've been connected here. Many may have lost their wallet's seed phrase due to not keeping it safe and many may have had it stolen or lost somehow even after keeping it safe. But if everyone can keep his wallet seed phrase very safe with his own precautions then surely his wallet will be safe. But I have kept my wallet seed phrase very safe for my future precautions I hope I can be very safe in the future.

[Upgrade00]

I have never been a situation where I was not aware of where my seedphrase was at a particular time, for any of my wallets. This is because of how much emphasis was placed on it from the sources I gained exposure to crypto through. I learnt early on that how you secure a $10 wallet is exactly the same with how you secure a $10,000 one, cause it's the principles you build that help to keep you secure.

The closest I've had to panic in relation to my seedphrase was a point I was flustered and mistyped a word. I didn't find the "next" option on electrum and panicked a lot.