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

[sokani]

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.

The person does not need the seed phrase if he has access to the hardware device. All he needs to know is the passcode of the hardware device, and he will be able to steal the Bitcoin.

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.

Splitting the seed phrase into two or more parts is not a good advice. Instead, it is better to add a passphrase to it, make multiple copies and store them in different locations.

[KiaKia]

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.

It is still possible to use a hardware wallet, if passphrase is active on the hardware wallet it will show 0 balance and that's what OP needs in an environment where there is more people.

Even if someone gets limited access to the hardware wallet it's simply empty or OP should stay with hot wallets for a while in such environment, hot wallet remains an app on a smartphone so no one will know since your phone will always be on you.

With password and pin one should be good to go, I don't like living in such places where I don't have control over privacy, but situations is always not the same.

[Z-tight]

That's a very good question and it is something i've thought about before. It is even a bigger problem when you are not living with people you entirely trust, say sharing an apartment as a student or with people you don't really know, just to share the cost of the rent. If i am to be completely truthful, it is going to cause you a lot of headache and sleepless nights if you hold BTC in such conditions.

If you have your own room within the apartment, then you would simply store your seed phrase as normal, write it down and try to hide it within your room, a passphrase becomes very important under this condition. However, if you are going to be sharing a room with someone, then it has to be with someone you completely trust, for you to feel safe.

[Ronsbit]

It is not as easy living in a general or big family house of that nature because there would never be a sense of privacy because it is a general house and anything that is open can be accessed by anyone who come in contact with it. So OP safe box alone is enough to attract eyes to knowing what you really have inside it so it is nice you don't use any sensitive tools that could give them idea what you have stored inside your safe box.

But before that, do not allow anyone know you have anything to do with Bitcoin because the moment you do that, you already give them clues and they will be tempted to look into your safe box one day to see what you got inside there and that would put your investment at risk because if they see nothing not knowing it is stored in there, they might end up destroying your details unknown to them.

What I think you can do is to split your keys into two, half of it stored in an old phone with a good security features so that no one can easily be able to access it while the remaining half stored in your personal device you move about with so you don't have them all together at a particular place.

[OcTradism]

It is still possible to use a hardware wallet, if passphrase is active on the hardware wallet it will show 0 balance and that's what OP needs in an environment where there is more people.

Even if someone gets limited access to the hardware wallet it's simply empty or OP should stay with hot wallets for a while in such environment, hot wallet remains an app on a smartphone so no one will know since your phone will always be on you.

With password and pin one should be good to go, I don't like living in such places where I don't have control over privacy, but situations is always not the same.

OP can consider to set up a decoy wallet with very small balance so that if bad people access it, they will believe that they already stole everything from him.

The bitcoiner’s guide to physical security: what to do if you're attacked.
How to protect your bitcoin from $5 wrench attacks.
Can duress wallets stop physical attacks on your bitcoin?

In addition, if a wallet can be accessed by bad people in a family, let's consider about risk for wallet backups. Likely bad people will have access to both wallets and wallet backups, so in such unsafe family conditions, people will have to backup their wallet passphrase only by brain and memory.

[laspol65]

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?

Look, technology is now quite advanced, you can do it if you want, use your intelligence, otherwise you can do this work completely by any engineer, this can be done through GPS tracking. But if you can keep the hardware safe, and more than that, you have to keep the seed phrase of your wallet safe, the more secure your wallet seed phrase is, the safer your wallet is. So, wallet and wallet seed phrase are two very important things where your future depends,
so it is your responsibility to protect your future, protect it as best you can. I keep a lot of mine in the cupboard, and it is safer because I keep it inside the locker and the key to the locker is more secure.

[As-Soon-As]

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?

The more secure your hardware wall is, the more secure your wallet seed should be. Because since your wallet is a safe, the safe should be well secured. And it should be locked so that no ordinary person can open the safe, you should not tell an untrusted person that you have invested in Bitcoin. Then the privacy will increase even more.

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.

This idea is very good, if you have an alarm system, you can know at any time from anywhere whether it has been stolen by someone. Because not everyone in your family is the same, many may be jealous and may abandon you, so you can have an alarm system in case of taking precautions, it provides more security.

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?

Look, if you don't trust your family members, there's no need to tell them that you've invested in Bitcoin. You should invest in Bitcoin as secretly as possible, if your wife seems unfaithful to you, you can hide your Bitcoin investment from her too. There are various strategies that you can follow to only let your trusted people know, but you must keep your wallet and seed secret, it can only be shared with trusted people, and you should not share it with anyone else.

[Rabata]

What I think you can do is to split your keys into two, half of it stored in an old phone with a good security features so that no one can easily be able to access it while the remaining half stored in your personal device you move about with so you don't have them all together at a particular place.

If there is a joint family, there may be security issues. For this reason, the user must be more careful. I think that it is never a good idea to keep the seed phrase on two devices, especially one in an old device and one in your own device. At any time, a phone may have a problem or may be lost for some reason, which may later pose a threat to your assets. When it comes to keeping the seed, it should not be kept on a computer, phone or cloud, as this increases the risk. If someone writes it on a paper and makes several copies of it and keeps them in different places, it will be the safest. If someone keeps his assets in a hardware wallet, he must first ensure the security of that seed. He should not give anyone any information that he has Bitcoin, and he should never share the information about the wallet he has with others. In any case, it is best to give priority to the security of Bitcoin first.

[MisFoxie]

What I think you can do is to split your keys into two, half of it stored in an old phone with a good security features so that no one can easily be able to access it while the remaining half stored in your personal device you move about with so you don't have them all together at a particular place.

If you keep the seed phrase divided in half on two devices if somehow one device gets damaged then what will you do? You won't be able to recover the wallet anymore because you only have half of the seed phrase. What will happen if both of your phones get hacked and the seed phrase data gets stolen?

The most surprising thing I can't understand is that HW is protected by PIN and there is some mechanism for which no one will ever be able to brute force it very easily. If we can secure the seed phrase I don't think anyone in the family just can bruteforce it.

[henmark]

That's a very good question and it is something i've thought about before. It is even a bigger problem when you are not living with people you entirely trust, say sharing an apartment as a student or with people you don't really know, just to share the cost of the rent. If i am to be completely truthful, it is going cause you a lot of headache and sleepless nights if you hold BTC in such conditions.

If you have your own room within the apartment, then you would simply store your seed phrase as normal, write it down and try to hide it within your room, a passphrase becomes very important under this condition. However, if you are going to be sharing a room with someone, then it has to be with someone you completely trust, for you to feel safe.

A locker space in a bank would be a much better alternative than using any storage or space at a place where you live with others, even if it's among people you might generally trust, but as the times are going nowadays, I wouldn't trust anyone with finances and financial holdings. I know that some might say that even a locker space is not completely safe because bank staff can access anything within a locker since they will also have keys to it, but if we are to use a passphrase and then just keep our seed phrase there, we would feel safer than keeping that information within a room where others live with you.

I also believe that if you document everything when you are purchasing a locker space in a bank, find a way to have some proof that you had kept your seed phrase within the locker, then in case something happens, you can sue to bank and take it to the court for stealing your bitcoins, and they won't have a way out other than paying you for it or maybe even a higher amount. It's not that simple, I know, but I think it is better than trusting stranger, because in that case, you won't have any proof if someone has stolen it.

By the way, the suing thing would only work if there are laws for cryptocurrencies within the country, otherwise, the court might not even entertain your case.

[AgriTrack]

1. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5593205.msg67143338#msg67143338

If there is a joint family, there may be security issues. For this reason, the user must be more careful. I think that it is never a good idea to keep the seed phrase on two devices, especially one in an old device and one in your own device. At any time, a phone may have a problem or may be lost for some reason, which may later pose a threat to your assets. When it comes to keeping the seed, it should not be kept on a computer, phone or cloud, as this increases the risk. If someone writes it on a paper and makes several copies of it and keeps them in different places, it will be the safest. If someone keeps his assets in a hardware wallet, he must first ensure the security of that seed. He should not give anyone any information that he has Bitcoin, and he should never share the information about the wallet he has with others. In any case, it is best to give priority to the security of Bitcoin first.

I wonder why none of you guys are talking about using a passphrase when using a hardware wallet, which is basically the best way to keep your assets safe because even if someone manages to find your seed phrase and tries to steal your cryptocurrencies, they won't be able to access them because they wouldn't know the passphrase, which means that even if they access the general wallet, which shouldn't have your assets, because you have saved your assets in the wallet with the passphrase.

With the recent coldcard attack that we all have seen, people could possibly save their assets from getting stolen if they had used a passphrase in their wallet instead of storing their assets in the simple 24-word seed phrase wallet, but they didn't do it, which is why the attackers easily stole the funds as soon as they got the 24-word seed phrases from the users because of a bug in the wallet during seed generation.

[Dizciple]

Look, if you don't trust your family members, there's no need to tell them that you've invested in Bitcoin. You should invest in Bitcoin as secretly as possible, if your wife seems unfaithful to you, you can hide your Bitcoin investment from her too. There are various strategies that you can follow to only let your trusted people know, but you must keep your wallet and seed secret, it can only be shared with trusted people, and you should not share it with anyone else.

When there's no trust between couples it's better they divorce than for them to do any other thing and start pretending like everything is alright at home. When a man can't trust his wife to tell her that he's investing into Bitcoin then that union should be scattered. You shouldn't be hiding anything from your spouse because you guys are supposed to build a life together and grow old as well. Who's to handle your wallets when you die if not for your wife and she takes good care of the children to help them share your wealth that you go from investing in Bitcoin when you die. Everybody is going to die someday and it's better you leave something for your family to have an easy life when you arent there anymore to provide for them. I don't like when husband's hide things from their wife as it beings doubts into the marriage and the children grow up with that way of thinking.

[aoluain]

That's a very good question and it is something i've thought about before. It is even a bigger problem when you are not living with people you entirely trust, say sharing an apartment as a student or with people you don't really know, just to share the cost of the rent. If i am to be completely truthful, it is going cause you a lot of headache and sleepless nights if you hold BTC in such conditions.

If you have your own room within the apartment, then you would simply store your seed phrase as normal, write it down and try to hide it within your room, a passphrase becomes very important under this condition. However, if you are going to be sharing a room with someone, then it has to be with someone you completely trust, for you to feel safe.

A locker space in a bank would be a much better alternative

For me that idea is the same as storing your Bitcoin online on a centralised exchange, "not
your keys, not your Bitcoin". So in that scenario you are actually giving your keys/wallet to
someone else to keep safe. Not a great Idea.

In terms of the OP suggestion of keeping them in a safe in more or less easy access and
or plain sight is a bad idea IMO. A safe in easy access is just crying out to be breached.

Somewhere inaccessible is better, somewhere totally out of sight.

[leonair]

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?

In this situation, you should not tell anyone in your family about your Bitcoin investment. And keep your hardware wallet safe enough, but one thing is that you will need a pin to access it. And your pin will not be able to activate the device. So there is no chance to transfer Bitcoin in that case. However, since the device is like a pen drive, if someone removes it, if you cannot find it later, you will lose the Bitcoins. However, in this situation, you can store your Recovery Seed phrase online, although it is risky. If you have a Recovery Seed phrase, even if you lose your hardware wallet, you can buy a new wallet and import your wallet there. These are the only solutions

[Mr Reporter]

That's a very good question and it is something i've thought about before. It is even a bigger problem when you are not living with people you entirely trust, say sharing an apartment as a student or with people you don't really know, just to share the cost of the rent. If i am to be completely truthful, it is going cause you a lot of headache and sleepless nights if you hold BTC in such conditions.

If you have your own room within the apartment, then you would simply store your seed phrase as normal, write it down and try to hide it within your room, a passphrase becomes very important under this condition. However, if you are going to be sharing a room with someone, then it has to be with someone you completely trust, for you to feel safe.

I think you are making some good points, I would say I have watched people get the self-custody security things mixed up for a while and this part you talk about is a really a good one for people to consider, in fact sharing a life experience that happened to a friend in the forum who got rubbed because he was always discussing bitcoin in huge amounts any time he was received his signature campaign payment for the week. And one funny part is that people from the other apartment could hear them…so on this day he was coming back from work in his car and at some supermarket he stopped to get a cool drink and the next thing was a man pointing a short gun at him asking him to tell him, his wallet seed phase…Most people worry about hackers online, but when you live in a shared apartment or hostel, the real risk is the person next to you. One wrong roommate and your seed phrase is gone.

[Sonia_123]

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?

You will have to protect your wallet safe from hem depending on their understanding and how smart the family members are to be able to understand things, if they are not too smart, then you work on their mentality also for the owners that are too smart.

There are various types of safe, if I can dismantle it, I will dis mantle it and store it with a coded write up beneath the upper layer and recouple it without the knowledge of any one and make sure it is not moveable by sticking it to a particular spot that will not be easy for anyone to move should Incase it is handy, so that I will be rest assured of the safety even when am out of the house.

[SPIDERMAN008]

That's a very good question and it is something i've thought about before. It is even a bigger problem when you are not living with people you entirely trust, say sharing an apartment as a student or with people you don't really know, just to share the cost of the rent. If i am to be completely truthful, it is going cause you a lot of headache and sleepless nights if you hold BTC in such conditions.

If you have your own room within the apartment, then you would simply store your seed phrase as normal, write it down and try to hide it within your room, a passphrase becomes very important under this condition. However, if you are going to be sharing a room with someone, then it has to be with someone you completely trust, for you to feel safe.

I think you are making some good points, I would say I have watched people get the self-custody security things mixed up for a while and this part you talk about is a really a good one for people to consider, in fact sharing a life experience that happened to a friend in the forum who got rubbed because he was always discussing bitcoin in huge amounts any time he was received his signature campaign payment for the week. And one funny part is that people from the other apartment could hear them…so on this day he was coming back from work in his car and at some supermarket he stopped to get a cool drink and the next thing was a man pointing a short gun at him asking him to tell him, his wallet seed phase…Most people worry about hackers online, but when you live in a shared apartment or hostel, the real risk is the person next to you. One wrong roommate and your seed phrase is gone.

So those who are holding Bitcoin should understand that just hiding the seed phrase will not solve the problem. If a person has Bitcoin, it is better to keep it  secret for security reasons so that no one around them suspects it. These problems are more likely to occur in shared apartments. If you are a victim of a situation and have to live in such a shared apartment, you should not let the people around you or your relatives know that you have Bitcoin. If necessary, deliberately maintain a low lifestyle so that no suspicion thinking come to other mind . And in a shared apartment, you only hide the seed phrase privately, but since you will not be in the room all the time. You have to go out regularly, whether for work or for some other need. At that moment, someone else can easily get access to your room. Then they may find out your seed phrase . But if they are not informed about the fact that you have Bitcoin, they will not decide to find out the seed phrase. Depending on the situation, a Bitcoin holder should consciously maintain security and hold Bitcoin.

[Chinesebaby]

I think you are making some good points, I would say I have watched people get the self-custody security things mixed up for a while and this part you talk about is a really a good one for people to consider, in fact sharing a life experience that happened to a friend in the forum who got rubbed because he was always discussing bitcoin in huge amounts any time he was received his signature campaign payment for the week. And one funny part is that people from the other apartment could hear them…so on this day he was coming back from work in his car and at some supermarket he stopped to get a cool drink and the next thing was a man pointing a short gun at him asking him to tell him, his wallet seed phase…Most people worry about hackers online, but when you live in a shared apartment or hostel, the real risk is the person next to you. One wrong roommate and your seed phrase is gone.

And what just happened to this your friend is a more reason why sometimes people need to live a secretive lifestyle, whereby even your roommates or next door neighbor don't need to know or have an idea about your financial status in life. And also a more reason why it's also good people have a backup Bitcoin wallet that will not be stored on their mobile phone, as you will only download the app online when you have a serious and important need for money and delete it back, so that in a case of a gun point situation, then you will only be able to reveal the password or seed phrase of the one you have on your phone while the other will be saved. It most importantly, knowing the kind of people you are surrounded with is very important for your safety.

[Z-tight]

Somewhere inaccessible is better, somewhere totally out of sight.

That is the obvious option, but these recommendations are only based on the conditions that the op talked about. If all conditions were right, then yeah, the best way to store your seed words is in a place that's only known to you, but when you don't live alone, how do you find such a place?

Most people worry about hackers online, but when you live in a shared apartment or hostel, the real risk is the person next to you. One wrong roommate and your seed phrase is gone.

True, and students would be mostly affected by this, because many of them live in shared apartments. I'd recommend that if you live in such conditions, you can try and do everything possble to ensure your roommate doesn't know you own BTC, even though that's hard to achieve. Some people may attempt to obcure their seed words before hiding it, but i'd not recommend that, as you can lock yourself out of your funds in the process.

[Fordsmith]

I think the alarm is a bit overkill. It can tell you if someone opens the safe, but the more important thing is making sure they can't get your seed phrase.

If I were living in a crowded family house, I'd keep the hardware wallet somewhere secure and keep the seed backup somewhere separate. I also wouldn't tell people where I keep it or even that I have one.

You don't really need a high-tech security system. Just make sure the seed phrase is properly protected.