Flood took my seedphrase

[Itz-prisigold]

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.

I actually do agree with you about memorizing our seed phrases, it’s really a good idea to memorize your seed phrase, but I won’t still rely on that alone. We cannot only rely on memorizing things because unexpected things can happen at anytime. A person might be involve in an accident and sustain a serious head injury and end up experiencing memory loss later in life. Also, as we get older we might eventually start to forget something’s that was once familiar to us.

So for this reason I think that it's still necessary to have a secure physical backup. While knowing the words by heart is an added security, but it shouldn’t replace a good backup.

[New Judgement]

When storing your seed phrase, you should be prepared for anything. Like me where I kept my seed phrase where Fire and Water can’t destroy it at a time. I store one in a safe box where I live, inside the box I put the paper in a waterproof nylon plastic inside a metallic box. Unless the flood leveled the house and everything float down the drain that is when I can lose that one. I also have a backup phrase that I stored in my old house. Both places where I stored phrase can’t be damaged at same time. This is a lesson for you, when you start investing again make sure you store your seed phrase in a water tight container, to avoid similar thing occurring in the future.

[Obim34]

~snip

Lesson to learn, your explanation showed you didn't plan well enough for a crisis. Your profile says you are still a newbie and shouldn't have known exactly the best way to secure your seed phrase. You have to deal with the losses, which we consider part of the lost coins that won't be moved again.

The best you can do, is to learn from your mistakes. Flooding takes about 2-3 days before damaging properties, If you stay in the location, those are the properties you should focus on recovering before damage happens, you cannot be careless about what holds your fortune.

[Peanutswar]

Do you still have the device, or is it damaged? Because you can still recover the amount on it if you have the device and then transfer into another wallet basically even just a hot wallet at least to save the funds, if you ever lose both, I consider that a loss, because we know at the first place that this piece of words, or paper that can store our coins I guess thats the time you need to learn how to have a multiple backups at least to avoid it happens again. Sorry for that bud.

[Lucius]

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.

I also wrote something similar, considering I checked the flood situation in Nigeria, so I find it strange that he protected himself from fire and completely ignored water. However, I can assume that the OP may live in a part of the country where there really were no floods (or major floods) and that he was convinced that something like that could not happen.

My advice is to always assume that the worst can happen, even if it is very unlikely.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

I also wrote something similar, considering I checked the flood situation in Nigeria, so I find it strange that he protected himself from fire and completely ignored water. However, I can assume that the OP may live in a part of the country where there really were no floods (or major floods) and that he was convinced that something like that could not happen.

My advice is to always assume that the worst can happen, even if it is very unlikely.

There are reminders about "prepare wallet backups for the worst case so that you won't lose all in such situation" but most people only ignore such important reminders.

Maybe there are times and situations when I will lose everything but if it is what I can not control, I accept it, but for things I can do, I will try to do my best with recommendations I got from educational resources on how to back up wallets.

Beirut explosion - Lesson to learn from this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion

[SamReomo]

Op you took proper steps to protect your seed phrase but floods are not in our control and due to which you lost your seed phrase. Natural disasters can be harmful for our lives and for our seed phrases and we can't do anything in such scenario.

When we live in places that are close to a river, a dam, or an ocean then we should always use different approaches to the save our seed phrases. Since the amount you lost wasn't that high but again, and I believe such unfortunate events are out of our control as humans.

[L E G E N D A R Y]

Well that’s one of the most painful lessons anyone can ever learn as a bitcoiner, because even when they take their security very seriously, unexpected events can still come up at anytime and mess up things, and that’s why people need to prepare themselves for every possible danger, including natural disasters. The issue of phrase security have always been one of the biggest problems as far as Bitcoin security is concerned, and that’s why it’s advised to always imagine the worst possible scenarios even before they happen, this isn’t because you’re expecting the worst to happen, but simply because you never know when or how it might occur. I’ll say it’s careless to only leave your seed phrase in one single location, because if there were alternatives, then I’m sure you just might have escaped this unfortunate situation.

[Miles2006]

I wonder if storing the seed phrase in a different location and using different equipment will actually result to this loss, just my honest opinion because natural disaster like flood can actually damage a lot.
Documenting private information on a piece of paper alone is not enough, though this is not the issue not minding how many times we preach about storing our private key in a reserved area obviously anything can happen at any time, if the wallet is already logged in any device then op can withdraw the funds out quickly.

[savetheFORUM]

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 about what happened, it’s really sad to hear a story like this, after struggling to invest, it’s annoying to end up losing everything again. Also you should know that your environment is prone to flood disaster, you are suppose to be prepared for it, at least you are suppose to back up your seed phrase in different locations, if anything happens to then you will be able to access the other ones which you have. You were procrastinating and that’s the reason why you didn’t back up your seed phrase in other places, we should know that delay is always dangerous. I just hope you will be able to recover back, this loss shouldn’t stop you from starting your investment journey again, and this loss should serve as a lesson to you.

Yes, these type of stories are so sad, it is very bad for the individual, but this is the way humans are more improved than animals, because we have the ability to learn from these and be better next time. Both that person and any other person who reads this will not make this "mistake"; it wasn't really a mistake because how can you predict a flood, but at the end of the day it ended badly, and now that we know that this could be done, you are going to put it somewhere else as well; this would make sure that you are not going to be hurt again if anything like this happens.

You could literally just put it somewhere different. Nobody says go put it on Google Drive; sure that is risky, but at least not a single location.

[Jasmyne]

Is there any local news of this kind in your country?

Yes, there was news about flooding in most part of the country Nigeria but the surprising thinh was that some of the affected victims complained that since they have been in that environment they haven't experienced flood but this years own came unexpected and most of them lost their properties because they were at work when the flood came.

I don't know the particular state the op is from in Nigeria but the news was all over the place and the affected victims were pleading for the government to help them so that they can have places to lay their head. My state was also affected but not everywhere but I saw how some people couldn't have access to drive out because the height would cover their cars. People lost properties no doubt and the flood took the lives of people too.

[Sunshine1525]

Am so sorry for your loss, i know how painful it could be to lose something you were very protective over, if you didn't make much efforts to protect it, you would've been blaming yourselves but you carefully stored it in a fireproof safe but nature was unfair and your house got flooded, what a sad story.

Your story has taught me that i should consider all form of natural disasters and also a backup storage for my seed phrase. If it was on a metal plate, you would've still recovered it but it's not your fault cause maybe you didn't expect the flood to be too bad this time around.

[PrivacyG]

Storage of seed phrase should be a full subject in schools and every crypto orientated classroom.

In Cryptocurrency oriented class rooms probably, but it is an exaggerated expectation that we should see such lessons in schools.  People barely know what a Cryptocurrency is, most of them do not at all.  If they are interested, most of them are strictly for the revenue.  This may be an extremely important Asset to me and a pretty large part of our community, but it is really not as important to most people.

[macson]

It's so hard for me to believe the stories of newbies these days. But let's just say it's true.

My question is, don't you have a wallet installed on your device? Assuming you're a newbie, you shouldn't have uninstalled your wallet right after backing up its seed phrase. If you still have access to that wallet, then you should be able to transfer the funds. Is that wallet also flooded and inaccessible? Or did you forget where you put it because you were busy saving yourself from the flood?

[Asuspawer09]

Sorry for that, mate, you did well saving that Bitcoin, even though it was gone, but I guess there was nothing you could do anymore at this point since without the seedphrase you could not access your Bitcoin anymore, Let it be a good lesson, you already did it once so for sure you could do it again anyway, and good thing is you could do it better this time, no need to lose hope at this time since you are still here and you are not quitting yet.

I guess it's a good thing to always keep a lot of backup copies of your seed phrase, I might have to take your lesson since I only have my seedphrase on my notebook, and another backup on my desktop, plus another one on my flashdrive, It wasn't something that could survive a fire if that happened, so keeping your seed phrase in a fireproof cabinet is a good thing. Maybe use a metal plate to engrave your seedphrase I've seen chip ones online, then always keep a copy, one physical and mostly soft copy just to make sure.

[Eldestyoung]

That’s really unfortunate, especially considering that you took precautions by keeping your seed phrase in a fireproof locker, this is a good reminder that protecting a seed phrase isn’t just about preventing theft or fire, environmental damage can also put it at risk. I think having another securely stored backup in a separate place is worth considering. Sometimes the risks we don’t expect are the ones that ruin us.
Sorry about your loss.

[shinratensei_]

I wonder if storing the seed phrase in a different location and using different equipment will actually result to this loss, just my honest opinion because natural disaster like flood can actually damage a lot.
Documenting private information on a piece of paper alone is not enough, though this is not the issue not minding how many times we preach about storing our private key in a reserved area obviously anything can happen at any time, if the wallet is already logged in any device then op can withdraw the funds out quickly.

Storing in different location works, the problem is people thought different location is just different part of the house, for absolute security it should really be a different location and preferable place that is quite far apart enough for a disaster to not devastate both places. If OP simply store the seed phrase in different part of his home and when it's get flooded the redundancy would make no difference which is why when security experts usually talk about backup and redundancy and what they mean by different location, it's not between kitchen and living room. Further more I think simply writing the seed phrase down to a paper is not enough, we should think about material durability if we really want to secure it.

[OcTradism]

Storing in different location works, the problem is people thought different location is just different part of the house, for absolute security it should really be a different location and preferable place that is quite far apart enough for a disaster to not devastate both places. If OP simply store the seed phrase in different part of his home and when it's get flooded the redundancy would make no difference which is why when security experts usually talk about backup and redundancy and what they mean by different location, it's not between kitchen and living room. Further more I think simply writing the seed phrase down to a paper is not enough, we should think about material durability if we really want to secure it.

Making multiple wallet backups is good, storing wallet backups at different places is good, but only if you can store your wallet backups safely from the other people. It's the first important thing you must do with your wallets and wallet backups. Because if you lose your wallets or wallet backups to other people, you will certainly lose your bitcoin.

Then, you will have to keep your wallet backups safely from incidents like fire, water, flood, earthquake, explosion and so on. Surely with these threats, you will not be able to avoid them or control them, just try to diversify risk and do as best backup storage as you can.

[Barikui1]

Is there any local news of this kind in your country?

Yes, there was news about flooding in most part of the country Nigeria but the surprising thinh was that some of the affected victims complained that since they have been in that environment they haven't experienced flood but this years own came unexpected and most of them lost their properties because they were at work when the flood came.

In some locations, it was heard like a rumor that flood is coming, that it has already reached a nearby village, that people should evacuate, but most of these residents thought that it was the normal flood that do not go higher than three feet, that's why many people where caught in it because the flood went as high as 6-7ft in most locations in the niger delta region of Nigeria.

Why the flood was even more dangerous was that it came with dangerous creatures alongside it, especially the reptiles, so it was really costly to those that experienced it because they lost their business, homes and other valuables because of it.
 0.004084 BTC may not be too much for many people here, but in some poverty ravaged region, it's quite a lot of money, so I feel the pain of the op because he never saw this coming while storing his seed phrase.

[GeorgeJohn]

I wonder if storing the seed phrase in a different location and using different equipment will actually result to this loss, just my honest opinion because natural disaster like flood can actually damage a lot.
Documenting private information on a piece of paper alone is not enough, though this is not the issue not minding how many times we preach about storing our private key in a reserved area obviously anything can happen at any time, if the wallet is already logged in any device then op can withdraw the funds out quickly.

The essence of storing seed phrase in a hidden place, is because of safety, because if it gets expose all your coins can be withdrawn by unknown person...We should be talking about another way to modify how we store seed phrase instead of writing it on a paper because of flood...The question is that, should we have backup of storing the seed phrase for safety measures? Or should we crest the seed phrase on a metal or plastic and steel and store after writing it on a paper...because I think cresting it on plastic or metal will save us from flood destroying it in our storage...