Flood took my seedphrase

[philipma1957]

Recently i experienced flood in where i recide and it was in the weekend when i wasn't around. I have a fire proof lockers where i keep my valuables and important details which i normally lock and this locker my seedphrase written in a sheet of paper was inside. This is a place where no one can break into it and no other keys apart from my own key can open it but unfortunately as gentle as water is as done what i never expected.  Where i reside, i was born and brought up here and we never experience any form of flood but it is unfortunate that i cant recover my seedphrase that have been able to accumulate  0.004084 BTC. I dont want to blame myself for not having another location for my seedphrase but i tried my best as one that is new, i planed of making an alternative of keeping my seedphrase but i didnt want to rush not to make mistakes.

next time do this.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0H1C9C5VG/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?


put it in two places and

 on the cards with the seed use this

5x7

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CSJWPS75/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?

3x5

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0H977J3W8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?

[X-ray]

Don't you have access to the wallet and login through your password. I think that's the only option for you because if you didn't write down your seed phrase and you don't have access your your wallet, it means that your fund is gone.

Keeping your seed phrase in a fire proof locker wouldn't save you if you don't have the duplicate of your seed phrase in another location far from each other.

Yeah I hope OP didn't use amnesiac system to sign that requires entering seed phrase everytime, his wallet is still intact in his device if that isn't the case.

Having 1 backup is no go, write it down maybe 3 times and store it in each different locations.

Pen and paper is cheap and it's not that much of work.

Despite storing in a metal sheet I also write it down in paper and store it in several places.

But I hope OP can recover the bitcoins.

[laijsica]

Recently i experienced flood in where i recide and it was in the weekend when i wasn't around. I have a fire proof lockers where i keep my valuables and important details which i normally lock and this locker my seedphrase written in a sheet of paper was inside. This is a place where no one can break into it and no other keys apart from my own key can open it but unfortunately as gentle as water is as done what i never expected.  Where i reside, i was born and brought up here and we never experience any form of flood but it is unfortunate that i cant recover my seedphrase that have been able to accumulate  0.004084 BTC. I dont want to blame myself for not having another location for my seedphrase but i tried my best as one that is new, i planed of making an alternative of keeping my seedphrase but i didnt want to rush not to make mistakes.

It is very unfortunate that you have lost your wallet seed phrase and are trying to recover it. It is not reasonable to keep the seed phrase in any one place to prepare for such an emergency. The safe place you chose was correct but during such a flood you are not able to recover it but if you had it saved in more than one place then you would not have faced such an unexpected problem.

We should always be prepared for these special emergencies and it is important to keep cash on hand and the wallet seed phrase should be transferred to more than one safe place instead of keeping it in one place.

[tbct_mt2]

It is very unfortunate that you have lost your wallet seed phrase and are trying to recover it. It is not reasonable to keep the seed phrase in any one place to prepare for such an emergency. The safe place you chose was correct but during such a flood you are not able to recover it but if you had it saved in more than one place then you would not have faced such an unexpected problem.

We should always be prepared for these special emergencies and it is important to keep cash on hand and the wallet seed phrase should be transferred to more than one safe place instead of keeping it in one place.

Creating a wallet, making wallet backup, testing backup for recovery are all important steps to back up a wallet but it's not enough. To make sure that you won't lose all fund by a single failure of your device, one wallet backup, you must do make and save multiple wallet backups at different places.

How to back up a seed phrase.
Cryptocurrency security checklist.
The dos and don'ts of bitcoin key management.

The following article has important reminders about security and privacy.
Tips to avoid $5 wrench attacks.

On the flip side, you should recognize that if your backups are vulnerable to being seized by an attacker (who could then steal all the funds from having a single backup) then increasing your redundancy by having multiple backups will simultaneously decrease your robustness against loss to attackers. We'll want to keep this in mind as we think through potential backup schemes so that we can avoid introducing such a terrible trade-off.

[joniboini]

Its a lesson that paper is very fragile, metal is not.

If his story is to be believed in, wouldn't picking the right storage become another issue since a flood can wash them away "easily"? Although I'm not sure about the details since OP doesn't share more. It won't be a big problem if he still has access to their wallet as you mentioned (hard to imagine he's not bringing his phone or devices when he's away from home, for example, unless he stores his funds on a HW or something), or what kind of mistakes he's afraid to make that he hasn't make multiple backups in different places or prepare for emergency like flood considering it's quite common.

[Lontor]

OP you won't be needing the recovery seed until you want to import into another wallet,  so before the flood you have a hardware wallet or a hot wallet? And if the flood destroys the seeds you still have the devices right?

So you can still move the coins or edit your recovery and write it down again, I don't believe you lost anything unless you deleted it uninstall your wallet after you wrote down the recovery seed.

If this story actually happens for real then get a steel next time and use nail or sharp object to write your seed on the steel, water won't be able to destroy it again.

[hmbdofficial]

OP you won't be needing the recovery seed until you want to import into another wallet,  so before the flood you have a hardware wallet or a hot wallet? And if the flood destroys the seeds you still have the devices right?

My though exactly he could still access the wallet except if he’s claiming that the Hardware wallet was also destroyed by the flood which I’m guessing that what he’s going to need to import the wallet into another device and the seed phase will actually be needed.

If this story actually happens for real then get a steel next time and use nail or sharp object to write your seed on the steel, water won't be able to destroy it again.

I don’t think that getting a metal object alone could save one seed phrase in a flood scenario, most especially if the flood is severe. I’m thinking of possible best way to curb seed phrase backup in term of flood but the only thing I see to be the best practice is having the backup in different locations i doubt flood will cover different locations you save your backup.

[Jerrycrypto2024]

OP you won't be needing the recovery seed until you want to import into another wallet,  so before the flood you have a hardware wallet or a hot wallet? And if the flood destroys the seeds you still have the devices right?

So you can still move the coins or edit your recovery and write it down again, I don't believe you lost anything unless you deleted it uninstall your wallet after you wrote down the recovery seed.

If this story actually happens for real then get a steel next time and use nail or sharp object to write your seed on the steel, water won't be able to destroy it again.

Well I will agree to some length bit still wonder if many don't secure their seed phrase or key by just keeping it in only one place or documents if it's written, such risk is not worth taken for me diversifying by having it two or three places possibly different locations but ensure its well secured because I know too well an African person hardly domicile only one place some have house in village as well reside in the city all this has way of keeping your key phrase safe if through the person want to safe gaurde. All this depends on individual and how it handle things natural disasters can happen at any time and may not take place all locations such can secure your investment without passing much stress of recovery if one throughly uses good safety measures.

[terrific]

Its a lesson that paper is very fragile, metal is not.

If his story is to be believed in, wouldn't picking the right storage become another issue since a flood can wash them away "easily"? Although I'm not sure about the details since OP doesn't share more. It won't be a big problem if he still has access to their wallet as you mentioned (hard to imagine he's not bringing his phone or devices when he's away from home, for example, unless he stores his funds on a HW or something), or what kind of mistakes he's afraid to make that he hasn't make multiple backups in different places or prepare for emergency like flood considering it's quite common.

I think he just want to leave it on that safe and don't want to bring some backups wherever he goes.
And he's afraid that someone might know that he's got with his backup keys and so he don't want to bring one with him.
But like what every holder thinks of, aside from the home backup they have. It's also possible that somewhere they bring a back up with them everywhere they go but it's not easily identified when it's seen.

[Somegory]

OP you won't be needing the recovery seed until you want to import into another wallet,  so before the flood you have a hardware wallet or a hot wallet? And if the flood destroys the seeds you still have the devices right?

My though exactly he could still access the wallet except if he’s claiming that the Hardware wallet was also destroyed by the flood which I’m guessing that what he’s going to need to import the wallet into another device and the seed phase will actually be needed.

If this story actually happens for real then get a steel next time and use nail or sharp object to write your seed on the steel, water won't be able to destroy it again.

I don’t think that getting a metal object alone could save one seed phrase in a flood scenario, most especially if the flood is severe. I’m thinking of possible best way to curb seed phrase backup in term of flood but the only thing I see to be the best practice is having the backup in different locations i doubt flood will cover different locations you save your backup.

You all talking about different locations like someone who have more than one house, the different location that's making sense here is to keep one in House A and keep another in House B.

Many people don't even have two houses, locations that you are talking about is still under one roof and what would the flood do?the exact result will unfold again, there is no point having all your seeds in different locations in the same house.

Now I need someone to tell us what to do in this situation then, don't just keep saying different locations it's not making any sense in this discussion.

[Y3shot]

We should always be prepared for these special emergencies and it is important to keep cash on hand and the wallet seed phrase should be transferred to more than one safe place instead of keeping it in one place.

That's true, we need to think critically when protecting our seed phrase because anything can happen at a time we never even expected. There is a need to consider where and how to keep your written seed phrase because floods, fires, and building collapses can happen, and if it is placed in a way that does not consider these three, it can be affected. There is a metal sheet method of protecting the seed phrase; this can prevent fire accidents and floods, at least it is safer than writing it on paper.

[Shinpako09]

OP you won't be needing the recovery seed until you want to import into another wallet,  so before the flood you have a hardware wallet or a hot wallet? And if the flood destroys the seeds you still have the devices right?

So you can still move the coins or edit your recovery and write it down again, I don't believe you lost anything unless you deleted it uninstall your wallet after you wrote down the recovery seed.

If this story actually happens for real then get a steel next time and use nail or sharp object to write your seed on the steel, water won't be able to destroy it again.

But since OP seems down, I think he really uninstalled his wallet. I also think it's his only wallet or maybe his main. He should have memorized it if it's just his wallet. 24 words aren't hard to keep in mind, especially if you practice a few times daily. It doesn't take so much time either. It's even more secure from fire, water, or thieves. Unless you have a hard time memorizing, but still, that's just 24 words. It shouldn't be that hard with daily practice.

For OP, I'm sorry to hear that, but if you really don't know your seed phrase and have no way to access it, then your money is lost, that's it.

[Fuso.hp]

The thought you immediately thought was correct. You should have saved a hard copy of your seedphrase in a locker and also saved a soft copy in a safe place. If you only have one copy, then any accident can happen to that one copy and you can lose it in any accident like what happened in your case. Since you lost your seedphrases due to fire, I think you will not be able to get this seedphrase back, so you will not be able to recover the amount of BTC that was in your wallet. But be careful from now on, keep your seedphrases safely stored in multiple places so that if one is lost, you can access your wallet through the other.

[Ishicryptic]

There is always a lesson to learn from most of the threads in this forum and for this one the lesson is that you shouldn't rely only on one location to hide your seed phrase, nowhere is completely safe from disasters, because a disaster hasn't happened where you wrote down your seed phrase doesn't mean that it cannot happen. If natural disasters like flood and earthquake doesn't happen man made disaster like fire outbreak can also happen so no matter how secured a single location is you should also find atleast one more location to hide your seed phrase. We as Bitcoin holders must be security conscious, your Bitcoin device can be lost or compromised at anytime and if you cannot account for your seed phrase all your Bitcoin is gone forever which will be heartbreaking.

[knowngunman]

Even though I don't believe OP's story, I think you just can't be too careful in these things, unless you're a very meticulous person. You can even have two locations where you saved your seed phrase and they both come to ruin. I think engraving on a metal sheet is safer, especially if you have a lot of coins. Also, having one at home and another in the office is better. But the risk is that proliferation of seed words could make them fall into the wrong hands.

Considering that he's from Nigeria, the story might be true because this month alone, there have been a report of about four flooding incidents that happened between last week and this week. The only strange thing in Op story is he said they have never experienced flood in that area before which make it hard to predict. In my community, flood happened almost every year so we normally consider it possibility when storing anything. Even metal engraved can not save you in this situation because flood normally move things away completely to different locations and mostly buried them on the ground.

[Emitdama]

Recently i experienced flood in where i recide and it was in the weekend when i wasn't around. I have a fire proof lockers where i keep my valuables and important details which i normally lock and this locker my seedphrase written in a sheet of paper was inside. This is a place where no one can break into it and no other keys apart from my own key can open it but unfortunately as gentle as water is as done what i never expected.  Where i reside, i was born and brought up here and we never experience any form of flood but it is unfortunate that i cant recover my seedphrase that have been able to accumulate  0.004084 BTC. I dont want to blame myself for not having another location for my seedphrase but i tried my best as one that is new, i planed of making an alternative of keeping my seedphrase but i didnt want to rush not to make mistakes.

Sorry to hear about your loss, OP, and this is another lesson for us to always keep multiple backups of our seed phrases in different locations because we never know what might happen. Natural disasters are a part of our world, and they could come unexpectedly sometimes, which is why we should always be prepared for such things and make sure that we either have enough protection for our important stuff such as seed phrases, or at least have multiple backups in different places, even better if it can be done in different cities so that if something happens in one city, the backup in the other city should still be available for you to use in such situations.

Another good idea would be to use metal for it. Engrave your seed phrase in the metal and then keep it in the safe, in that case, unless the safe itself gets washed away in a flood or something, it wouldn't be wasted even if water gets inside the safe. One can also dig a hole in the land and bury the seed phrase in it that is written on the metal, it should be kept inside something so that it can stay safe under there, and then it will at least be safe from such natural disaster. Just make sure that it is buried deep enough so that it doesn't come out after a flood or something, and once the water is out, you can dig it out.

[Synchronice]

Recently i experienced flood in where i recide and it was in the weekend when i wasn't around. I have a fire proof lockers where i keep my valuables and important details which i normally lock and this locker my seedphrase written in a sheet of paper was inside. This is a place where no one can break into it and no other keys apart from my own key can open it but unfortunately as gentle as water is as done what i never expected.  Where i reside, i was born and brought up here and we never experience any form of flood but it is unfortunate that i cant recover my seedphrase that have been able to accumulate  0.004084 BTC. I dont want to blame myself for not having another location for my seedphrase but i tried my best as one that is new, i planed of making an alternative of keeping my seedphrase but i didnt want to rush not to make mistakes.

I always say that doesn't matter where and how you store your seed phrases, you should try and memorize it. It's not necessary to create 24 words seed phrase because 12 words are more than enough for creating a secure Bitcoin wallet. I prefer to memorize my seeds in a way that they are already sealed in my brain and I don't keep a backup, so I have no vulnerabilities other than my brain but since there are too many people who save a physical backup of their seed phrases, I still recommend them to memorize seeds, so, in extreme situations, they might recover their Bitcoins.

[Cityhunter34]

Recently i experienced flood in where i recide and it was in the weekend when i wasn't around. I have a fire proof lockers where i keep my valuables and important details which i normally lock and this locker my seedphrase written in a sheet of paper was inside. This is a place where no one can break into it and no other keys apart from my own key can open it but unfortunately as gentle as water is as done what i never expected.  Where i reside, i was born and brought up here and we never experience any form of flood but it is unfortunate that i cant recover my seedphrase that have been able to accumulate  0.004084 BTC. I dont want to blame myself for not having another location for my seedphrase but i tried my best as one that is new, i planed of making an alternative of keeping my seedphrase but i didnt want to rush not to make mistakes.

I absolutely understand how you feel, but you can never kill yourself because you have tried enough to keep our investments details safe. But to the fact that nobody can easily predict what will happen in the next minute, that is exactly why it happened. At least you have learned from it, and I think you will definitely make more provision next time, because just like they normally say, "not where you expect is where you will fall", because at first you were even preventing fire without knowing that flood was around the corner.

It's actually a heartbreaking, but just keep pushing.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

You all talking about different locations like someone who have more than one house, the different location that's making sense here is to keep one in House A and keep another in House B.

At least, it is a principle to do even inside one house, if you are more careful, you can store your wallet backups at different places. You don't need to have two or more houses for storing your wallet backups to different locations or places. The purpose is the same, it is to avoid losing your wallet backups and fund in that wallet if something damages your wallet backups at one location/ place.

Many people don't even have two houses, locations that you are talking about is still under one roof and what would the flood do?the exact result will unfold again, there is no point having all your seeds in different locations in the same house.

Now I need someone to tell us what to do in this situation then, don't just keep saying different locations it's not making any sense in this discussion.

Your post does not make sense.
You simply don't understand about purpose of this practice and the reminder which I explain above.

[iBaba]

~~~

This is really unfortunate and I can imagine how painful it would be to lose access to your bitcoin in such a way, I know it would be difficult for you to ever think that a natural disaster can take away your seed phrase. Your experience is a good reminder that keeping a seed phrase in a secured place is not enough, having a proper backup in another place is very important. But please try not to be so down about this too much, you were trying to keep things safe and I hope you find a way to recover your funds.

So it is very important to have more than one secured backup in different locations, self custody comes with responsibility and experiences like this remind us that we should really take backup planning serious and fast before anything happens