How would you dispose of a steel plate seed backup?

[hatshepsut93]

This thread sparked a question in my head. Imagine that you are in a situation where you need to dispose of you wallet seed backup, but it is etched on a steel plate - how would you do it? The easiest answer is likely acid, but not everyone has access to it, and depending on the steel plate, it might be even highly resistant to corrosion. Another option is to damage it mechanically - in many of these steel plate products you are supposed to etch the words, so it should be possible to erase them or render unrecognizable. But it's likely hard to do thoroughly and traces of the words could remain.

Any more ideas?

[1714620899]

1714620899

[1714620899]

1714620899

[1714620899]

1714620899

[1714620899]

1714620899

[Zaguru12]

The simplest option is transferring the coins on that wallet seed phrase to a new wallet, this way even if the seed phrase is detected it will be useless to the person in its possession.

The two options mentioned by you are the most practical ones and would be effective. I will go with the second option of mechanical damage that’s using a chisel to put in many random holes in the steel to make it unreadable for any one.

[Smartvirus]

The simplest option is transferring the coins on that wallet seed phrase to a new wallet, this way even if the seed phrase is detected it will be useless to the person in its possession.

The point exactly, I need not to stress myself and waste yet another penny or effort in buying some chemical or metal work material to destroy whatever have been ached on the steel plate. I’ll just create a brown new non custodian wallet, get my keys properly backed up in a way to get my peace of mind and transfer the coins into the new wallet.

I’d not see no way anyone would be taking my coins after I have successfully transferred them to a new wallet. Perhaps I might even get the metal sold off as scrap metal for the scrap guys.
We’ve got these easily means to navigate and I’ll use it good in this context.

[hatshepsut93]

The simplest option is transferring the coins on that wallet seed phrase to a new wallet, this way even if the seed phrase is detected it will be useless to the person in its possession.

It's not totally useless because it contains your transaction history and you might want it not fall into other's hands. Also there could be situations where it's not an option - you want to destroy just a backup, not the wallet. Imagine you have two backups, one at your current location and another at a remote and safe location. Let's say you are moving from your current location to some new one where you wouldn't keep your steel backup with you because the new place is not safe enough. So you'd want to destroy the backup at your current location, while still relying on the backup at your other safe location.

[Zaguru12]

It's not totally useless because it contains your transaction history and you might want it not fall into other's hands. Also there could be situations where it's not an option - you want to destroy just a backup, not the wallet.

Yeah I get your point but transactions from an address can still be gotten from explorers excepts that the person needs my address(es) to do so. Also why will someone destroy something which is branded as the best way of keeping a seed phrase back up? To move to another backup? which will be that?

[btc78]

Well it would depend on the type of steel you used whether it’s stainless or not.

But I think both types could easily be melted and when I mean easily melted I mean 3,000 degrees. That melted steel could again be used by other factories. I think you can even get paid for that. However you might feel suspicious of the workers melting your steel plate. You’d just have to wish that the workers don’t care or don’t know about whatever it is that is etched on it.

[adaseb]

I don’t know why everyone is suggesting complicated means to destroy the steel plate. Acid is expensive and hard to come by and how will you melt it at 3000C in your home?

All you need to do is take a drill and make a few holes in it and you are done. If the drill breaks it means you got a cheap bit. Buy one of those $5 bits and it will drill thru steel like butter pretty much.

You also don’t need to drill all the way, just enough to destroy what is written on the main surface.

[KiaKia]

This thread sparked a question in my head. Imagine that you are in a situation where you need to dispose of you wallet seed backup, but it is etched on a steel plate - how would you do it? The easiest answer is likely acid, but not everyone has access to it, and depending on the steel plate, it might be even highly resistant to corrosion. Another option is to damage it mechanically - in many of these steel plate products you are supposed to etch the words, so it should be possible to erase them or render unrecognizable. But it's likely hard to do thoroughly and traces of the words could remain.

Any more ideas?

I will do nothing, I do not have to erase or destroy the steel, since I will have move all my funds out of the wallet into a new one, the world is free to have the old recovery seed, I will gladly throw it in a bin, if anyone come across it and they import the seed they will find out that its empty.

Haven't you watch some videos on YouTube where they demonstrate how to create a crypto wallet? They always display the seed, because its for learning purposes only, if you like, go and import the seed, it will be empty anyway.

Why destroy something that's empty? Why spend money on Acid just to destroy a plate that has nothing inside? Abandoned the old steel and throw it out through the window, get a new stainless steel and do your backup.

[bobbybkk]

I don’t know why everyone is suggesting complicated means to destroy the steel plate. Acid is expensive and hard to come by and how will you melt it at 3000C in your home?

All you need to do is take a drill and make a few holes in it and you are done. If the drill breaks it means you got a cheap bit. Buy one of those $5 bits and it will drill thru steel like butter pretty much.

You also don’t need to drill all the way, just enough to destroy what is written on the main surface.

Another option is to go to the next car repair and borrow an angle grinder for 5 minutes to clear the metal surface of your steel plate or pay a mechanic a couple of bucks to do it for you..

[wxa7115]

This thread sparked a question in my head. Imagine that you are in a situation where you need to dispose of you wallet seed backup, but it is etched on a steel plate - how would you do it? The easiest answer is likely acid, but not everyone has access to it, and depending on the steel plate, it might be even highly resistant to corrosion. Another option is to damage it mechanically - in many of these steel plate products you are supposed to etch the words, so it should be possible to erase them or render unrecognizable. But it's likely hard to do thoroughly and traces of the words could remain.

Any more ideas?

To damage it mechanically seems like the best choice, using acid which can melt your steel plate is probably a dangerous option for those that do not know what they are doing, and melting it with heat seems just as impractical as using acid.

However anyone should have around their home a way to damage that backup to the point no one could recover any information from it, the only issue is that this could take some time, and if you were in a hurry to destroy it you may not be able to do it in time.

[m2017]

This thread sparked a question in my head. Imagine that you are in a situation where you need to dispose of you wallet seed backup, but it is etched on a steel plate - how would you do it? The easiest answer is likely acid, but not everyone has access to it, and depending on the steel plate, it might be even highly resistant to corrosion. Another option is to damage it mechanically - in many of these steel plate products you are supposed to etch the words, so it should be possible to erase them or render unrecognizable. But it's likely hard to do thoroughly and traces of the words could remain.

Any more ideas?

To destroy all traces, a steel plate with seedphrases must be thrown into molten metal like the model T-800 , after emptying the contents of the wallet by sending it to another.

The simplest option is transferring the coins on that wallet seed phrase to a new wallet, this way even if the seed phrase is detected it will be useless to the person in its possession.

This is the simplest and most reasonable method, but not effective if you want to break the connection with the previous seed-phrase. That is, it will be better if you physically destroy the steel plate.

The two options mentioned by you are the most practical ones and would be effective. I will go with the second option of mechanical damage that’s using a chisel to put in many random holes in the steel to make it unreadable for any one.

Take any available power tool (angle grinder, drill and so on - grind and drill sections of plates with seed phrases words) and use it to destroy the text, shredding it and making it impossible to reassemble the text like a puzzle. For the paranoid, I can suggest scattering the crushed parts in different locations.

All this can be done with hand tools if you want to enjoy the duration of the process.

[7juju]

I don’t know why everyone is suggesting complicated means to destroy the steel plate. Acid is expensive and hard to come by and how will you melt it at 3000C in your home?

All you need to do is take a drill and make a few holes in it and you are done. If the drill breaks it means you got a cheap bit. Buy one of those $5 bits and it will drill thru steel like butter pretty much.

You also don’t need to drill all the way, just enough to destroy what is written on the main surface.

Another option is to go to the next car repair and borrow an angle grinder for 5 minutes to clear the metal surface of your steel plate or pay a mechanic a couple of bucks to do it for you..

Cutting the steel plates into different smaller sizes won't be a bad idea. You can cut it with a cutting machine and and mixed the cut steel plates with cement and sand in a construction site where they are doing floor or pillar casting.

[kryptqnick]

My first thought is melting, but apparently its melting point is just too high for it to be easy to do. That would require special equipment, and can of course also be dangerous to the one doing it because of dealing with molten metal. Since the info is on the plate, grinding is another option, but that also requires special equipment. It looks like it's not something easy to do because steel is made to last. I agree with Zaguru12 that the best option is to transfer the coins and thus get a new seed phrase. And then the old one can go to metal recycling or whatever without any concerns. But I've seen the op's response on why it can still be a bad idea. Well, then one needs to buy an industrial torch or a grinder, then.

[hd49728]

This thread sparked a question in my head. Imagine that you are in a situation where you need to dispose of you wallet seed backup, but it is etched on a steel plate - how would you do it? The easiest answer is likely acid, but not everyone has access to it, and depending on the steel plate, it might be even highly resistant to corrosion. Another option is to damage it mechanically - in many of these steel plate products you are supposed to etch the words, so it should be possible to erase them or render unrecognizable. But it's likely hard to do thoroughly and traces of the words could remain.

Any more ideas?

If it is your wallet, and you no longer want to use it, nothing is serious.

You can migrate your fund in that wallet to a new wallet. Then abandon that wallet, just throw it away somewhere nobody can know that wallet belongs to you. It will relate to other practices previously like whether you publicly posted your wallet addresses and your identity information.

You can complicate it more by destroy that steel back up but I don't think it is too important and vital for you.

Problems appear only if you still use that wallet for storing your bitcoins but throw the backup away.

Complicate your life, you can read some tests from Jameson Lopp.
https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1poBdHCVrd5eErAWySjSBoKh2f_6VCHsy3ForvL8JCRE/edit#gid=197446072

Stress test https://blog.lopp.net/metal-bitcoin-seed-storage-stress-test/
He has Heat tests and Corrosion tests too.

[kentrolla]

As suggested earlier the best way is to create a new wallet and transfer the funds there because regardless how we damper if it's not done correctly then there are possibilities of retrieving the seed phrases will be high if it's not erased beyond recognition. Because things like using some chemical or melting is something everyone will it have access hence transferring to new wallet is the easiest way around.

[Iranus]

I don’t know why everyone is suggesting complicated means to destroy the steel plate. Acid is expensive and hard to come by and how will you melt it at 3000C in your home?

All you need to do is take a drill and make a few holes in it and you are done. If the drill breaks it means you got a cheap bit. Buy one of those $5 bits and it will drill thru steel like butter pretty much.

You also don’t need to drill all the way, just enough to destroy what is written on the main surface.

A drill or a pair of metal cutting pliers can easily ruin the seed phrase written on that steel plate. I find that protecting them is really a very difficult task while destroying them is not a difficult problem. Also, if we can engrave words on the steel plate, why don't we try changing some of the words on it? That way, if someone picks up those steel plates they won't have our real seed phrase.

We come up with thousands of ways to keep our seed phrases as safe as possible, and now we find ways to destroy them, which is interesting  .

[Moreno233]

I don’t know why everyone is suggesting complicated means to destroy the steel plate. Acid is expensive and hard to come by and how will you melt it at 3000C in your home?

All you need to do is take a drill and make a few holes in it and you are done. If the drill breaks it means you got a cheap bit. Buy one of those $5 bits and it will drill thru steel like butter pretty much.

You also don’t need to drill all the way, just enough to destroy what is written on the main surface.

This may be a good option but it depends on if you have the machine tools to accomplish this. If you don't have the tools, then there will be the problem of trusting the person that will get this done. If the person is dubious, on the process of getting this done, your keys can be memorized and your funds put in danger. I will still go with the option of @Zaguru12.

The simplest option is transferring the coins on that wallet seed phrase to a new wallet, this way even if the seed phrase is detected it will be useless to the person in its possession.

The steel plate can just be kept at home since steel itself is something of value and there will be no worry if anyone lay hands on it or not because the funds have been moved to another wallet.

 

[Stepstowealth]

Any more ideas?

You can choose to make the steel unrecognisable by mechanical action or further render any inscriptions on it useless by making more inscriptions on the steel if mechanical action to disfigure the steel plate does not work, so that even if it comes the way of someone, they will not be able to make any meaning of it.

The simplest option is transferring the coins on that wallet seed phrase to a new wallet, this way even if the seed phrase is detected it will be useless to the person in its possession.

This is smart.

[dkbit98]

Any more ideas?

You can make it worthless by moving all coins to newly generated seed phrase, but if you want to totally destroy all evidence of transactions than you need to use extreme high temperatures.
Stainless steel melting point is around 1500°C (or 2800°F), so maybe use propane blowtorch (3600 °F), or throw it away in some metal melting factory like the one from Terminator2 movie  
Another way if you don't have all those option available, is to stamp over X, # or similar characters over all letters and make it unreadable.
I am not sure what acid is reacting with stainless steel so I would not recommend that method.

[Cryptomultiplier]

This thread sparked a question in my head. Imagine that you are in a situation where you need to dispose of you wallet seed backup, but it is etched on a steel plate - how would you do it? The easiest answer is likely acid, but not everyone has access to it, and depending on the steel plate, it might be even highly resistant to corrosion. Another option is to damage it mechanically - in many of these steel plate products you are supposed to etch the words, so it should be possible to erase them or render unrecognizable. But it's likely hard to do thoroughly and traces of the words could remain.

Any more ideas?

I read a similar topic here, although it was talking about same steel plates and how it could be navigated through airport security checkpoint scanners and not be discovered. Reasons being it could be captured by someone who knows what it means and thus could be a lead to a hack.
Although, I doubt it would lead to more extreme thoughts, to dispose a seed plate backup shouldn't be much work if you were the one who did the etching in the first place.

The tools you used are already present and am sure by altering the letters of the alphabet, or  by adding just a few etched alphabets to the ones already on there would alter the real pronunciation or spellings of the seed phrases, rendering it meaningless to someone who sees it as a special and customized designer product. Adding crossed lines to the etched words could also alter it making it meaningless too.