Effect of storing your seed phrase in Gmail account

[Abdulzuruku01]

I witnessed an argument between two friends that even resulted in the police getting involved. One of them claimed that he had saved his pi seed phrase in his Gmail, and the other had logged into his Gmail account because he always have access to his phone and transferred all his pi coin. But I wondered if he could be his friend who stole his coin, because we all know that Gmail account is vulnerable to spam and scams.
I created this post because of newbies who intend to invest in bitcoin and may consider keeping their BTC seed phrase in their Gmail account.
Your seed phrase and other sensitive information, such as your personal identification, should not be stored in Gmail because gmail it is extremely vulnerable to theft. If your Gmail account is compromised, you could lose your assets. Phishing attacks are another reason why you should not keep your seed phrase in Gmail because scammers create fake login pages that can deceive you into disclosing your seed phrase, giving them complete access to your Bitcoin investments and even taking control over your Gmail account.

The key to accessing the assets in your wallets is your seed phrase, and if it is lost, you will not be able to access your funds. For this reason, you should choose a secure storage technique to store your phrase, and offline storage is the best option, like paper wallet, hardware wallet or metal wallets, in my opinion.
Hardware wallets: are physical devices designed to securely store your seed phrase and private keys.  ledger wallet and trezor wallet are one of the popular hardware wallets because they offer advanced security features and both wallets store your seed phrase offline, protecting it from hacking. They also support a wide range of cryptocurrency, including BTC and many others, and they have a user-friendly interface and have an easy setup process that newbies can get started easily.
A metal wallet: is a physical device made of metal that is also intended to safely store your Bitcoin seed phrase. It is built to prevent water damage to your seed phrase because it is waterproof and fireproof which also prevents your seed phrase from fire and theft.

Keeping your seed phrase in Gmail account is dangerous because it puts your assets at serious risk. Your Gmail account might be compromised, and no matter how careful you are, keeping it online would be considered unsafe.  To improve the security of your Bitcoin seed phrase, move it to an offline storage.

[MusaMohamed]

I created this post because of newbies who intend to invest in bitcoin and may consider keeping their BTC seed phrase in their Gmail account.

I don't know how many percent of newbies do this dangerous backup method but there are people, newbies and not newbies have this practice that needs to be avoided as most as possible.

With Bitcoin, it's your key, it's your coin and it's not your key, it's not your coin. By storing your wallet backups in gmail or generally online in any third party platform, you don't own your key, and your coins can be stolen anytime.

How to back up a seed phrase.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts.

[Hatchy]

Effect of storing your seed phrase in Gmail account

Storing your seed phrase online will only lead to loss. It's so sad that about 50% of the new cryptocurrency investors store their keys on Gmail or cloud storage putting them at great risk. As a cryptocurrency holder your top priority should be securing your funds. Some people think the chances of their Gmail being hacked are low, but they're wrong until they become victims.
We should remember that the main idea behind Bitcoin is to give users full control over their funds. And to achieve this you must keep your keys safe and offline away from cloud storages.

[Ambatman]

I witnessed an argument between two friends that even resulted in the police getting involved. One of them claimed that he had saved his pi seed phrase in his Gmail, and the other had logged into his Gmail account because he always have access to his phone and transferred all his pi coin. But I wondered if he could be his friend who stole his coin, because we all know that Gmail account is vulnerable to spam and scams.
I created this post because of newbies who intend to invest in bitcoin and may consider keeping their BTC seed phrase in their Gmail account.

Highly likely
How many people knows that he mined pi or kept the seedphrase on his gmail.

Gmail because gmail it is extremely vulnerable to theft

extremely vulnerable is a strong word since google has 2FA
I would say like any online storage it is susceptible to hacking
Phishing and authorized access .

Hardware wallets: are physical devices designed to securely store your seed phrase and private keys

Hardware wallet do not store the seedphrase itself but the private key
You the user is expected to store it separately.
An hardware wallet is more secured when it's airgapped.

A metal wallet: is a physical device made of metal that is also intended to safely store your Bitcoin seed phrase. It is built to prevent water damage to your seed phrase because it is waterproof and fireproof which also prevents your seed phrase from fire and theft.

Metal wallet is misleading
There's no such thing just metal back up for seedphrase
And it doesn't prevent theft.

A wallet is a tool that allows a person to store, send and receive their Bitcoins not for storing seedphrase.


In conclusion even some individuals that are not newbies use it
Because it's easy
Easy doesn't equal secure, most times its inverse.


In the end location matters in how your backup is secured.

[348Judah]

I witnessed an argument between two friends that even resulted in the police getting involved. One of them claimed that he had saved his pi seed phrase in his Gmail, and the other had logged into his Gmail account because he always have access to his phone and transferred all his pi coin. But I wondered if he could be his friend who stole his coin, because we all know that Gmail account is vulnerable to spam and scams.
I created this post because of newbies who intend to invest in bitcoin and may consider keeping their BTC seed phrase in their Gmail account.

Your seed phrase must maintain the restriction from a third party, from this context, a third party access to our seed phrase could be a friend, the use of Gmail in saving it or any exposure that renders another person or entity access to view our seeds phrase at the cause of storage, therefore, this must be maintained only by us and within our reach alone, the anything outside this context is totally not safe for us and the such could be a vulnerability to be used against us in stealing our crypto assets from us.

[Bryan jessy]

One of my course mate once told me to store one of my wallet seed phrase in Gmail, and I asked why he said is because it is safer and no one will have access to it except I link it. You can only be scam if you must have shared your Gmail account password to anyone or you told someone about your wallet the and device your seed phrase was stored, to me what matters is who you discuss about your crypto space with, you can not trust your friends with such information as it should be personal especially when your seed phrase is stored somewhere in your phone or laptop do not give anyone access to those devices for the sake of safety of your funds.

[Charles-Tim]

To improve the security of your Bitcoin seed phrase, move it to an offline storage.

Having a book and backup the seed phrase on one of the pages there is not bad at all. And having like 2 more copies in different locations. It is good against attackers because such books will not be suspicious.

Some people go for encryption method which are available offline like the PGP encryption.

[albon]

Phishing attacks are another reason why you should not keep your seed phrase in Gmail because scammers create fake login pages that can deceive you into disclosing your seed phrase, giving them complete access to your Bitcoin investments and even taking control over your Gmail account.

Phishing attacks and these fake pages that mimic the Gmail login page are among the easiest attacks to detect. However, any Trojan that infects the computer, often due to random downloads , cracked software, etc., can steal the keylogger, steal stored passwords and accounts, steal browser data, and by stealing Gmail and other accounts, they can access seed phrases saved inside them and other important data.

Therefore, we should not save seed phrases in any account, whether Gmail, Hotmail, or any other email provider, or save seed phrases in a chat on Messenger , Telegram, or Discord. Therefore, in general, anything connected to the Internet is vulnerableَ to hacking. Scammers cannot access seed phrases if the computer is not connected to the Internet. Therefore, it is possible, as the OP mentioned, to purchase a hardware wallet for cold storage is a great solution, important data can also be stored on a USB flash drive and used only on an isolated computer.

Also, to avoid phishing attacks, one must be extremely cautious when browsing social media, checking emails, or opening random messages from strangers.

[Bitcoin Smith]

Google accounts got least security, we can see hundreds of google accounts are hacked using complex phishing attacks, social engineering attacks or even with cookie stealers that will just give the login access without need of password. One should never assume cloud storage are secured and we are already used to secure the sensitive information like pictures there which is why our mind think that why not this one too.

But it is bad and it is not a place you can trust. Others said about offline storage but if you still want the online storage then encrypt the file before securing on cloud that gives a resistant to attacks even if the data is leaked.

[Dark.Look]

I witnessed an argument between two friends that even resulted in the police getting involved. One of them claimed that he had saved his pi seed phrase in his Gmail, and the other had logged into his Gmail account because he always have access to his phone and transferred all his pi coin. But I wondered if he could be his friend who stole his coin, because we all know that Gmail account is vulnerable to spam and scams.
I created this post because of newbies who intend to invest in bitcoin and may consider keeping their BTC seed phrase in their Gmail account.
Your seed phrase and other sensitive information, such as your personal identification, should not be stored in Gmail because gmail it is extremely vulnerable to theft. If your Gmail account is compromised, you could lose your assets. Phishing attacks are another reason why you should not keep your seed phrase in Gmail because scammers create fake login pages that can deceive you into disclosing your seed phrase, giving them complete access to your Bitcoin investments and even taking control over your Gmail account.

The key to accessing the assets in your wallets is your seed phrase, and if it is lost, you will not be able to access your funds. For this reason, you should choose a secure storage technique to store your phrase, and offline storage is the best option, like paper wallet, hardware wallet or metal wallets, in my opinion.
Hardware wallets: are physical devices designed to securely store your seed phrase and private keys.  ledger wallet and trezor wallet are one of the popular hardware wallets because they offer advanced security features and both wallets store your seed phrase offline, protecting it from hacking. They also support a wide range of cryptocurrency, including BTC and many others, and they have a user-friendly interface and have an easy setup process that newbies can get started easily.
A metal wallet: is a physical device made of metal that is also intended to safely store your Bitcoin seed phrase. It is built to prevent water damage to your seed phrase because it is waterproof and fireproof which also prevents your seed phrase from fire and theft.

Keeping your seed phrase in Gmail account is dangerous because it puts your assets at serious risk. Your Gmail account might be compromised, and no matter how careful you are, keeping it online would be considered unsafe.  To improve the security of your Bitcoin seed phrase, move it to an offline storage.

To me that's clear. Gmail is owned bur\t good and if you keep the words on gmail you gave you key to google. We know google won't steal your money 
But still google account be vulnerable to many accounts and if they know nothing bout hacking Google accounts they can try brute force. This will put your in danger. The best you can do is to keep your coins in a physical paper.

[Outhue]

Metal wallet is misleading
There's no such thing just metal back up for seedphrase
And it doesn't prevent theft.

A wallet is a tool that allows a person to store, send and receive their Bitcoins not for storing seedphrase.


In conclusion even some individuals that are not newbies use it
Because it's easy
Easy doesn't equal secure, most times its inverse.


In the end location matters in how your backup is secured.

Metal wallet is misleading but we understand what he is trying to say, the best ways of keeping recovery seed is carving the words on a metal or stainless steel and keeper it safe, this is a good option against natural disasters.

I like writing my recovery seeds in a book but I have once lost a book to a leaking roof once, I was not around for a week and a heavy rain came, the book was so soaked that the words are not more revealing, the ink was washed away after I dried the book.

If I had use stainless steel, water won't be able to mess the words up, I was just lucky that I wasn't storing a lot of assets on that wallet yet.

[Lucius]

OP, you wrote a lot, but there is no dilemma or debate around your question - storing sensitive information online in any way is wrong and poses a great risk. People who don't even understand the basics of computer security and the benefits that come from the idea of ​​"be your own bank", unfortunately won't see the difference between storing their seed in an e-mail, in a centralized exchange or a hardware wallet.

Speaking of hardware wallets, you say the following:

Hardware wallets: are physical devices designed to securely store your seed phrase and private keys.  ledger wallet and trezor wallet are one of the popular hardware wallets because they offer advanced security features and both wallets store your seed phrase offline, protecting it from hacking. They also support a wide range of cryptocurrency, including BTC and many others, and they have a user-friendly interface and have an easy setup process that newbies can get started easily.
~snip~

It is true that these HW generate the seed exclusively on the device itself, but where the user will save it is a completely different story. In addition, both manufacturers have their flaws and shortcomings (vulnerabilities depending on the model), and this is especially pronounced when it comes to Ledger, which has the possibility of sharing the user's seed with third parties. The only question is whether they have access to all seeds through their firmware or is it as they claim only in case the user decides to use the recovery option.

In case someone owns cryptocurrencies of higher value, anything but an air-gapped wallet is a risk.

[dzungmobile]

Hardware wallets: are physical devices designed to securely store your seed phrase and private keys.  ledger wallet and trezor wallet are one of the popular hardware wallets because they offer advanced security features and both wallets store your seed phrase offline, protecting it from hacking. They also support a wide range of cryptocurrency, including BTC and many others, and they have a user-friendly interface and have an easy setup process that newbies can get started easily.
~snip~

Ledger is not a good hardware wallet with several data breaches that harm their reputation. Things became worse after they released Ledger Recover product for users to split wallet seed to three parts and can use this service for wallet recovery.

Many Bitcoin experts warn about this method and since then, many people no longer considered Ledger hardware wallet as good as Trezor hardware wallet.

[Odogwu-Blockchain]

Phishing attacks are another reason why you should not keep your seed phrase in Gmail because scammers create fake login pages that can deceive you into disclosing your seed phrase, giving them complete access to your Bitcoin investments and even taking control over your Gmail account.

This only happen when you are chatting with an unknown client, a seller or a buyer or someone via your Gmail account maybe for a business negotiations where you are been sent a link to view the product while the link redirects back to your Gmail login page saying "time out"
The new redirected login page is exactly the cloned Gmail page to steal your Gmail password.

If you are sure about the page of a wallet to insert your seedphrase, why go to fake page to insert your seeds, it's something that causes you getting access to the fake page, maybe through negotiations elsewhere gets you expose to such page like I explained above.

[mindrust]

That was probably one of the most stupid thing a crypto hodler could do. First of all, even if the google employees don’t harm you, some other person might hack into your account and steal your funds. You might even forget to log-out from your gmail account and lose your phone/computer. That would be disastrous.

Get a piece of paper, write down your seed words and have some self awareness. That’s about it. Then unless you are incredibly unlucky, nothing bad will happen to you.

[suzanne5223]

I witnessed an argument between two friends that even resulted in the police getting involved. One of them claimed that he had saved his pi seed phrase in his Gmail, and the other had logged into his Gmail account because he always have access to his phone and transferred all his pi coin. But I wondered if he could be his friend who stole his coin, because we all know that Gmail account is vulnerable to spam and scams.

The person who has access to the wallet seed phrase could be anyone since the person was naive enough to save his/her wallet's private information online.
This is not the problem of Gmail's vulnerability to spam and scams. It is the vulnerability that always happens to every crypto private wallet information safe in an online device, and the same thing happens to Cloud storage.
I hope others reading will learn from the mistake of the person in the subject.

[Coyster]

If you are sure about the page of a wallet to insert your seedphrase, why go to fake page to insert your seeds, it's something that causes you getting access to the fake page, maybe through negotiations elsewhere gets you expose to such page like I explained above.

It is difficult to understand what you are trying to explain here, but that aside i just want to point out that it is extremely risky to enter your seed phrase in any online device. It does not matter if the device is yours, there are people who have different devices and they don't mind importing their wallet into any of those devices at anytime, that is very risky, because you never know when your device is housing a malware which is just waiting to steal from you.

[JoyMarsha]

I don't know how some newbies reason. You know that someone else(your friend) can make use of your phone at any time they please. You still went ahead to store your seed phrase in your Gmail account, believing it is all saved there.

It is when you don't know the value of what you have or the importance of what you have, that you can have it stored anywhere without putting much consideration to its safety, whether it can be tampered with or not by anyone.

Someone who has something dear to them, wouldn't make the mistake of risking it where it can be tempered. They will have it stored where it can't be tempered. The guy should have himself blamed for his mistake. Learn a lesson from this, never to store seed phrase on phones or online

[Saint-loup]

Well, if you can't store it safely elsewhere, because you live in an accommodation with your family or other people, you can store it into a gmail account but only if you use a seed with a passphrase I would say. And of course, you shouldn't put your passphrase in your mailbox. But a passphrase is usually more easy to store because nobody could suspect it to be related to a crypto wallet unlike a seed.

[The Cryptovator]

It's hard for me to believe that someone who has knowledge about a non-custodial wallet would store his seed phrase in Gmail storage. We create a non-custodial wallet to secure our funds, so why should we store the wallet seed in an insecure place? Storing a seed phrase online, including Gmail, doesn't make a difference when using a custodial wallet. Rather, it's riskier than web wallets.

That's the reason, actually, we need to gain more knowledge about Bitcoin and wallets. Even a hardware wallet won't secure our funds unless we secure our seed ourselves. However, I hope we can learn from this story and be more careful about our funds.