Risk of import wallet seed to a new web wallet, to chase airdrop

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

I knew about this risk but forgot to create a topic to warn newbies.

Today I replied in a thread about Bitget wallet and remembered about that risk, this time I don't forget to create a warning thread for newbies.

If you want to join airdrop, create a new wallet. Move your funds from your current wallet to a new wallet, with value you want to join airdrop and on chain interactions.

Don't (never) import wallet mnemonic seed from your current wallet like Metamask wallet to a new web wallet like Bitget, Phantom, OKX. Some wallets have that import feature for you BUT NEVER choose Import.

If a new web wallet is bad, has back door, you can lose your money.

It does not take many time to create a new wallet with a new mnemonic seed. Don't be lazy and take big risk.

Read wallet reviews there
https://walletscrutiny.com

[Amphenomenon]

Yes aside from airdrop testing an entire new wallets especially closed source were the chance of back door is highly possible, create a new wallet after all setting up a new wallet is one of the most easy thing to do in crypto space.

Another reason why some may opt for importing their seed rather creating new wallet for this, is the fee charges for moving their coins to the other wallet which actually they ought to weigh if what they are going to earn from the airdrop is higher than fee or else just avoid it since prevention is better than sorry.

[Upgrade00]

This has been said many times over, but it doesn't hurt to mention again cause people still fal victims.

The risk to reward ratio in chasing airdrops is very lopsided. You risk your privacy and assets for the possibility of earning a good amount, but the reality is 99% of them go bust and never get to even have a value and lots of those were created specifically to scam you.

If you must, protect your wallet first.

[Husires]

Importing a mnemonic seed wallet between more than one wallet is a bad choice, as the more times a seed is present in an online wallet, the greater the chance of losing your coins. To claim Airdrop, you only need gas fees. You can create a wallet with enough gas fees and then you will be able to participate in all Airdrop with very low risks.

[Faisal2202]

I knew about this risk but forgot to create a topic to warn newbies.

Today I replied in a thread about Bitget wallet and remembered about that risk, this time I don't forget to create a warning thread for newbies.

Is something happened with the wallets you have mentioned? As I did not hear any news that either of these wallets (web wallets) have scammed people's money when they imported their wallets. Besides talking about bitget wallet airdrop, they are only giving 50 points to new wallets only, as those who will import will not get the early 50 BWB points as a bonus. As I did not received it. But when created new one, I received. I don't think the wallets you have mentioned are risky though there are other many wallets which seems to be risky to me, like the rainbow and rabby wallets, in which people have to import there seedphrases. I find those wallets a bit risky CMIIW.

Besides what I said, I can't agree more with you, because to complete airdrops, we should create a separate wallet, as using the main wallet in which you are storing your funds, either for trading or holding purpose, is so idiotic. Use a separate wallet, move some funds needed to join some airdrop, as only move those which are needed. Extra funds is a liability that we should not take.

[Hyphen(-)]

Don't (never) import wallet mnemonic seed from your current wallet like Metamask wallet to a new web wallet like Bitget, Phantom, OKX. Some wallets have that import feature for you BUT NEVER choose Import.

If a new web wallet is bad, has back door, you can lose your money.

It does not take many time to create a new wallet with a new mnemonic seed. Don't be lazy and take big risk.

Read wallet reviews there
https://walletscrutiny.com

This is indeed a good reminder for us all not just for newbies alone.

Creating new wallet is very simple and will not take much of our time,  in fact, it’s even easier than going to be exporting your private key from your previous wallet for importation. The best thing to is to send any amount you want to your new wallet, do not use your previous wallet that contain your assets for airdrop especially when they asked you to connect your wallet.

Airdrops are ways to advertise new coins, but atbb no the same time, scammers are using it to get access to your wallets and they can sweep all you have by hacking your wallet. Therefore, be wise.

[bitmover]

Don't (never) import wallet mnemonic seed from your current wallet like Metamask wallet to a new web wallet like Bitget, Phantom, OKX. Some wallets have that import feature for you BUT NEVER choose Import.

If a new web wallet is bad, has back door, you can lose your money.

I think this is a bit paranoid imo.

Metamask is not better than phantom or mew etc...

Every web wallet is basically the same, and those popular wallets do not have backdoors, this is very unlikely.

Anyway  nobody should hold more than a few dollars in any web wallet.

I have a wallet which I use the same seed in  metamask and another wallet in different devices. This is not a big deal imo.

[Zaguru12]

Is something happened with the wallets you have mentioned? As I did not hear any news that either of these wallets (web wallets) have scammed people's money when they imported their wallets. Besides talking about bitget wallet airdrop, they are only giving 50 points to new wallets only, as those who will import will not get the early 50 BWB points as a bonus. As I did not received it. But when created new one, I received. I don't think the wallets you have mentioned are risky though there are other many wallets which seems to be risky to me, like the rainbow and rabby wallets, in which people have to import there seedphrases. I find those wallets a bit risky CMIIW.

I think OP is just warning about the potential dangers of having to import one’s seed phrase on this wallets, I will say the dangers aren’t different from the warning of importing seed phrase into any online wallet. The only difference is that should the exchanges of this web wallet be compromised then there is possibility of exploiting the wallet itself. Moreover the wallets listed by OP are closed source wallet except Phantom wallet and as such we don’t know what they do to our seed phrase.

My advice is never use your main wallet on online wallet and even the airdrop wallets shouldn’t be left connected to the DApps after interacting with them.

[Nwada001]

Importing a mnemonic seed wallet between more than one wallet is a bad choice, as the more times a seed is present in an online wallet, the greater the chance of losing your coins. To claim Airdrop, you only need gas fees. You can create a wallet with enough gas fees and then you will be able to participate in all Airdrop with very low risks.

Creating a wallet with enough gas fee—what do you mean, or do you mean creating a new wallet and depositing enough gas fee into it? 
 
Personally, with the kind of experience I have had with airdrops, they are not worth my time, but if I must do any airdrop, I prefer each airdrop to one new wallet; it's safer that way, and I don't even connect any web wallets that have other wallets connected to them, like having multiple wallets connected to one metamask extension.
 
It's best if I create a new wallet on a new browser, then fund the address with enough gas or tokens to claim the airdrop, and that's all.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Is something happened with the wallets you have mentioned? As I did not hear any news that either of these wallets (web wallets) have scammed people's money when they imported their wallets.

I did not say anything bad already happened with those wallets.

It's my reminder that don't import your mnemonic seed from one wallet provider to another wallet provider because it's risky practice.

In Bitcoin wallets, we have options Sweep Private key and is recommended because of risk of import seed to different wallet softwares.

I think this is a bit paranoid imo.

I don't think so.

Metamask is not better than phantom or mew etc...

I did not say what wallets are better than others. I only say that be more careful with new wallet brands because they can have flaws in code and can be exploited. I have more reasons to trust long existing wallets than brandnew wallets.

[Alone055]

Not only for airdrops, but a lot of people make the mistake of connecting their main wallet to a lot of new and untrustworthy websites just to check them out without realizing that they are risking their funds if they have any in the wallet they are connecting.

So everyone needs to understand that whenever a website asks you to connect your wallet with it, make sure that you either use a new wallet or an existing wallet that doesn't have any balance in it because the industry is full of scams and frauds and you never know when you get scammed out of your crypto and as soon as you approve a connection to your wallet, all your crypto is gone.

So all decentralized wallet users need to be vigilant and use these things with care to avoid unnecessary losses.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Some of us will be having our wallet with us without any issues, the moment we begin to start with the chase after airdrops set in the beginning of introducing threat to the security of that our same wallet, the hunt after this free offer is what makes so many fall into the pit of their attack and they never realized that, web  wallet itself has many disadvantages and risk for someone to use and if we connect our wallet to any link related to claiming any of these offers on airdrops could lead to any form of attack they aimed at us.

[Baki202]

This has been said many times over, but it doesn't hurt to mention again cause people still fal victims.

The risk to reward ratio in chasing airdrops is very lopsided. You risk your privacy and assets for the possibility of earning a good amount, but the reality is 99% of them go bust and never get to even have a value and lots of those were created specifically to scam you.

If you must, protect your wallet first.

when it comes to money, we can hardly control our human behavior, and that is why people keep falling victim because they fail to control their human behavior of not getting satisfied, With the way people are been warned, the first thing I was warned of was to keep my seed phrase safe, and I have held up with that rule and that has kept my assets safe. The dangers of losing your seed phrase are equal to losing your assets, and if not for carelessness, I wonder how someone would disclose their seed phrase to another website. That is just crazy, and those websites are usually well-developed it look convincing, Some things are just too good to be true, The best thing is to avoid them, no matter how good they look, because I don't know how any website will be requesting your seed phrase even when your downloading wallets know exactly which type of wallet you want to download before downloading and uploading your seed phrase on them. and all those airdrops I see them as shit I don't even bother checking them out. Security should come first.

[Faisal2202]

I did not say anything bad already happened with those wallets.

It's my reminder that don't import your mnemonic seed from one wallet provider to another wallet provider because it's risky practice.

In Bitcoin wallets, we have options Sweep Private key and is recommended because of risk of import seed to different wallet softwares.

Ok Ok I thought there had been some incidents. Well, that's a good reminder we should really not import the wallets that have funds in them like funds in big amounts. Besides I was not aware of the sweep private key option, but you said it is for Bitcoin wallets, but I don't think if it's for BTC wallets then it is of any use to the airdrop hunters. As there are no airdrops that need such a wallet. But still thanks for mentioning this feature I just looked into it and its a good thing to eliminate the risk of giving away your seed phrase. As it gives us some hope if we will react fast enough.

So besides creating new wallets instead of importing old ones, what do you suggest? I mean let's say we have 1 wallet that we need to use for the airdrop and have to import it on another platform's wallet what do you suggest we should do? As creating a new wallet there and sending funds there is a little expensive in this scenario so its better for all of us that we should use new wallets each time, or if using a wallet where we need funds to pay the tx fee we use that wallet which has some funds only.

[tabas]

That's important not to use your main wallet for joining such airdrops. And if they're asking for wallet seed importation or the app they have or website is forcing you to connect the wallet then please don't be to obedient with them. Always use a fresh wallet and as much as possible with new seed for you not to touch your existing funds if you've got it either with metamask or any other wallet that you're using for such. Because you don't even know if that project is going to be something good in the future and yet, you're selling everything you've got to them and the chance of being phished or hacked is high.

[Husires]

Importing a mnemonic seed wallet between more than one wallet is a bad choice, as the more times a seed is present in an online wallet, the greater the chance of losing your coins. To claim Airdrop, you only need gas fees. You can create a wallet with enough gas fees and then you will be able to participate in all Airdrop with very low risks.

Creating a wallet with enough gas fee—what do you mean, or do you mean creating a new wallet and depositing enough gas fee into it? 

Create a new wallet and deposit enough for the gas fees, i.e. about $5-10. Even if it is stolen, it is not a big loss compared to losing your assets.
Some airdrops have a good value, but you must be very selective in choosing the airdrop, and even if it makes you a 10% profit, that is good.

[Coyster]

Having an offline wallet is very crucial, if you wallet is offline the keys will be completely far away from the internet and it becomes impossible to fall victim to this type of scam.

With majority of your funds offline, you can now have an online wallet and as many "burner" wallets as possible, these you would use for airdrops or connecting to untrusted websites, because you do not really have anything to lose in them. People who deal with airdrops, DeFi and even altcoins generally, take a lot of risk with things like these and staking too and fake projects as well, thus they lose quite a lot of money in the process.

[Z_MBFM]

Yes import wallet seed for participate on Airdrop is always very risky because scammers can sometimes publish Airdrop with the lure of attractive rewards and if someone tries to import their wallet with key or seed phrase then their wallet can be hacked. so to join Airdrop, you should always use a new wallet or use a wallet that does not have an amount of tokens or coins deposited in the wallet, which can cause us a lot of loss if we lose it.  So we should always be careful. then it is possible to keep the wallet safe. Without wallet safe our entire crypto assets are at risk

[Faisal2202]

I think OP is just warning about the potential dangers of having to import one’s seed phrase on this wallets, I will say the dangers aren’t different from the warning of importing seed phrase into any online wallet. The only difference is that should the exchanges of this web wallet be compromised then there is possibility of exploiting the wallet itself. Moreover the wallets listed by OP are closed source wallet except Phantom wallet and as such we don’t know what they do to our seed phrase.

My advice is never use your main wallet on online wallet and even the airdrop wallets shouldn’t be left connected to the DApps after interacting with them.

You are right our wallets should not be left connected to any sites, if our work is down with that site, we should disconnect our wallet. And yeah you are right, OP's concerns want to warn us as a reminder that we should not import our main wallet or a wallet's seedphrase which we use for holding purposes, on wallets that we made to use for airdrops.

Besides its an extra security, and OP has given a good alternative to it already but that's for only BTC, I can assume alts wallets must have that feature as well. But the main and easy point that we all should have in our mind is, big amounts, or main funds should not be stored on a wallet that we are using for airdrop purpose. Our main wallet, holding wallet should be placed aside and airdrop wallet should be a new one with no or less funds in it.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Besides I was not aware of the sweep private key option, but you said it is for Bitcoin wallets, but I don't think if it's for BTC wallets then it is of any use to the airdrop hunters. As there are no airdrops that need such a wallet.

If you can not sweep, you can simply do two separated steps: Create a new wallet (not import current wallet seed); Move part of your fund to a new wallet. Then you can do airdrop's proactive and predictive tasks without fear that you will lose all fund in your main wallet.

Moving fund between two wallets with altcoin blockchains is not too expensive, except you do it on Ethereum blockchain. It worth to pay like few cent or even $1 to save your main fund like $500, $1000 or even bigger.

That's important not to use your main wallet for joining such airdrops.

Thanks to be straight and to the point.

Use main wallet for airdrop is very risky and import your main wallet's mnemonic seed from old wallet brands like Metamask, Myetherwallet to new wallet brands will increase your risk. We can not conclude what wallets are better and more secure than others. With new wallet brands, we have very little information about their quality and security.