In this case how do you keep your Bitcoin wallet safe?

[Way of a writer]

Imagine you are living a big family house because you have no choice and you got to invest some money in Bitcoin and store them in a hardware wallet, then you have a safe beside your bed where every can pass by how will you make sure no one goes near out?

A friend said he had to set up an alarm system in the locked safe so that he can be notified on phone when someone opens his safe where he kept his hardware wallet.

I don't know if this is a good idea but I will like people's opinion about this, if you are living in a crowdy house basically a family house how do you keep your Bitcoin wallet safe?

[Upgrade00]

In this situation being unassuming may be the best option. A hardware wallet in a safe is too conspicuous, attracting lots of attention and giving the impression that you hold a lot of bitcoin. You can keep a wallet software on your phone or desktop without anyone you live with having an idea. Also do not talk about bitcoin or investments.

If you must use a hardware wallet you can keep it in a bank vault for a charge.

You should be more careful with your backups as they grant direct access without the need for a password. You should store where they are written down outside that house if you have the means to and have an additional passphrase that is not written down with the recovery phrase. This helps for security and plausible deniability.

[Livingleged]

Imagine you are living a big family house because you have no choice and you got to invest some money in Bitcoin and store them in a hardware wallet, then you have a safe beside your bed where every can pass by how will you make sure no one goes near out?

A friend said he had to set up an alarm system in the locked safe so that he can be notified on phone when someone opens his safe where he kept his hardware wallet.

I don't know if this is a good idea but I will like people's opinion about this, if you are living in a crowdy house basically a family house how do you keep your Bitcoin wallet safe?

Some one just having access to your hardware wallet without knowing your seed phrase is as useless as holding an ATM card without knowing its pin, unless if you’re talk about how you should store your seed phrase when you’re in an extended family. And in this case this can be achieved in so many ways. You can just split the seed phrase in two or three different places such that even if your family member get access to them they might not be able to put them together or make any meaningful connection.

[snowpega]

Imagine you are living a big family house because you have no choice and you got to invest some money in Bitcoin and store them in a hardware wallet, then you have a safe beside your bed where every can pass by how will you make sure no one goes near out?

A friend said he had to set up an alarm system in the locked safe so that he can be notified on phone when someone opens his safe where he kept his hardware wallet.

I don't know if this is a good idea but I will like people's opinion about this, if you are living in a crowdy house basically a family house how do you keep your Bitcoin wallet safe?

So you mean a joint family system, right? I would like to ask a little question, as I also live in a joint family system. If you are afraid of such things, then first don't tell anybody that you are buying Bitcoin. In my case, in my whole family, only my father knows that I am holding an amount of Bitcoin, and after him, no one knows about it. And why i only told him about it because of some personal reasons. And likely, if you want to stay safe, then give priority to privacy first. And don't disclose much about it in front of a lot of people for your own best. This is my point of view, and you can relate your own scenario to it accordingly if it helps you. DYOR!

[Charles-Tim]

What that is most important is to protect your seed phrase. It will be good if you also use passphrase with it and store it in different locations from your seed phrase.

You can have some coins but of little amount on the wallet without seed phrase.

Be careful while using your hardware wallet because you may not know that someone is trying means to know your pin.

Although, I prefer wallet on an airgapped device instead, for privacy.

[famososMuertos]

A classic "friend of a friend" thread. This is a much-discussed topic on this forum, but asking for advice at this stage of Bitcoin's history, and perhaps where everyone is over 18, is redundant.

Anyway, it's one thing to ask for help getting hardware, or how to follow online security parameters, that's understandable, but asking for help hiding something, well, why not? But it's always a very personal matter. If you live near a river, it's not just about being clever at hiding it from humans; you also have to know how to protect it from Mother Nature.

[big-mops]

Having a hardware wallet isn't a good idea anymore. I'd probably ditch it, write down my seed phrase on a piece of paper, and enter it every time I log into any Sparrow Wallet.

[Jewan420]

A lock is useless unless you have the key, without the key, a lock cannot be used in any way. So where and how you keep your wallet is not important, you need to pay the most attention to keeping the seed phrase safe. Of course, do not keep the wallet in a place where it can be damaged or stolen. Even if it is stolen, your bitcoins will be safe if the seed phrase is protected, in which case you will only lose your wallet.

Your main focus to keep your bitcoins safe will be to store the seed phrase. Since the seed phrase can be easily written down on a small piece of paper or a small piece of metal, you can store the seed phrase safely even in a crowded house.

An airgapped device may be the best choice for your situation, or you can even use a software wallet that will be easy to keep safe on your mobile.

No matter what you do, storing the seed phrase is important. For extra security, you can use a passphrase that is separate from the seed phrase.

[lionheart78]

Imagine you are living a big family house because you have no choice and you got to invest some money in Bitcoin and store them in a hardware wallet, then you have a safe beside your bed where every can pass by how will you make sure no one goes near out?

A friend said he had to set up an alarm system in the locked safe so that he can be notified on phone when someone opens his safe where he kept his hardware wallet.

I don't know if this is a good idea but I will like people's opinion about this, if you are living in a crowdy house basically a family house how do you keep your Bitcoin wallet safe?

First if a person don't want their family to know about his Bitcoin investment, he must never tell a soul about it.  In a family, as long as the person do not openly tell any member of the family about his investments and activities, no one will know it.

Second, he should be very careful and keep his Bitcoin investment activities secret from his family. He must make sure that no one in the family ever sees him engaging with Bitcoin.  No one will ever be interested if they never knew about the person's Bitcoin engagement anyway.

[knuckey]

Imagine you are living a big family house because you have no choice and you got to invest some money in Bitcoin and store them in a hardware wallet, then you have a safe beside your bed where every can pass by how will you make sure no one goes near out?

A friend said he had to set up an alarm system in the locked safe so that he can be notified on phone when someone opens his safe where he kept his hardware wallet.

I don't know if this is a good idea but I will like people's opinion about this, if you are living in a crowdy house basically a family house how do you keep your Bitcoin wallet safe?

It sounds good to install an alarm, but it is still too dangerous, because the electronic device will not be fully functional and requires regular maintenance to work normally, I would not keep it in a safe, I would keep it underground and bury it safely

[salad daging]

Do not be too conspicuous that you have a lot of assets, let alone live with a large family that is crowded, it is better not to show you have assets then others will not suspect.
Even if your friend wants to do that, then buy a large safe with strong security, in that area install CCTV to be able to monitor you at all times, I think it will be safe even though you will feel anxious.
the important thing is that you believe in your own extended family, that from them no one will steal or run away the safe.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Imagine you are living a big family house because you have no choice and you got to invest some money in Bitcoin and store them in a hardware wallet, then you have a safe beside your bed where every can pass by how will you make sure no one goes near out?

You know better the exact condition of your household and if you are experienced enough on different storage medium, you will know that it is more important to secure your device first and also avoid any one again interference using it as well as where you keep your private keys as well as seed phrase, this shows that you will always be in possession of anything that has to do with your wallet without living it behind, but if what you have as your asset is what much more than the risk you can't to lose staying together in a household, I would rather prefer or suggest you rent an apartment for privacy.

[Proty]

The alarm system is a good idea because is a way of providing additional security, especially in a situation where we are not living alone. However the attention should not just be on protecting the hardware  wallet because the most important thing is the seed phrase. Once someone lays there hands on it protecting the hardware wallet becomes useless because they can use another device to access the bitcoin in our wallet. The best thing is for the hardware wallet and the seed phrase not to be kept in the same place like beside the bed. Also it will be good not to tell anyone about were we are hiding our seed phrase or hard wallet because the less people know about it the more secured it will be. Without someone having access to our seed phrase it will difficult for them to have control of our bitcoin .

[promise444c5]

Put a password and a passphrase, that’s usually enough so far it’s hidden. The other part you need to worry about is the backups (seed and passphrase).. 

Those are  much more important than the hardware wallet itself.. I will suggest just bidding it in your wardrobe, you don’t need some kind of crazy sound alarm, doesn’t do much incase of theft either .

You can get a small safe instead that can be password instead,  if you still can’t stop scratching your head over it..

[sunsilk]

I won't put anything on that safe because that plays in the mind of people in the house that something important is there.

And when the time that someone snatches a moment to see what's inside of it and tried to get it, they'd see nothing.

It's better to play mind games and fooling people and putting it on somewhere casual that no one would think of might be the better idea.

[Donk1]

It's funny because your friend is probably making it obvious that there is something there by putting his hardware wallet in a safe, which would draw attention. But to me it's not a bad thing if that's how he wishes to keep the hardware because in an organized family, they are probably supposed to know what privacy is. But I would say he should keep it somewhere that wouldn't draw attention. However if someone was to find it in the house by mistake and doesn't know what it is then that's perhaps another huge risk because even if they don't know it exists, it doesn't stop the curiosity. Either way, it would be risky at home, so he should find somewhere else, like the bank to keep it for max security. That's all...

[Ceemv22]

if you are living in a crowdy house basically a family house how do you keep your Bitcoin wallet safe?

most of the advice here is 'hide it better' or 'tell fewer people' which is fine but doesnt actually solve the underlying problem, a single device + single seed phrase means whoever finds both has everything no matter how well hidden

for a shared house situation id look at a multisig setup. instead of one seed phrase controlling everything you split signing authority across mutliple keys/devices, kept in different physical locations. someone fiding your hardware wallet in the safe goes exactly nothing usable on its own cuz it alone cant authorize a transaction

[Stalker22]

Having a hardware wallet isn't a good idea anymore. I'd probably ditch it, write down my seed phrase on a piece of paper, and enter it every time I log into any Sparrow Wallet.

Typing your seed phrase into a computer every time you use Sparrow wallet?  That is a terrible idea.  It exposes your secret phrase to keyloggers and malware, making your funds trivial to steal. Paper only protects your seed phrase offline; the moment you type it onto an internet-connected device, your security drops to zero.

[Don Saga]

Some one just having access to your hardware wallet without knowing your seed phrase is as useless as holding an ATM card without knowing its pin

This is so true and it's quite a logical approach to situations like this. Some people would think that a hardware wallet is an open book that gives access to the wallet but that's quite unrelated. For someone who has their hardware wallet stolen, would not panic because it's not accessible without the seed phrase.

There is no need to raise alarm with constant and tight check on the hardware wallet like their life depends on it. In a family house, its best to keep it a box that wouod be hard to reach unless when its use is needed, instead of an open place easily accessible to anybody.

[Woodie]

I won't put anything on that safe because that plays in the mind of people in the house that something important is there.

And when the time that someone snatches a moment to see what's inside of it and tried to get it, they'd see nothing.

It's better to play mind games and fooling people and putting it on somewhere casual that no one would think of might be the better idea.

I like your thinking and raised some valid points too!!

First off hardware wallets are no longer the safe haven we all thought they were and maybe hiding the private key or passphrase in plain sight should be the way to go...all those extra measures of alarms and all that just attract unnecessary attention which would certainly motivate someone to look into what you are protecting.

Maybe consider sharing the secret with the beta half to avoid having all this burden,if you trust nobody perhaps an implant would be considered if we want to go to the extremes.