finally memorized my private key :D

[Houseman]

I have several wallets, some cold, some hot, but one has the most amount of BTCs in it. Of course it's one of my cold ones and i decided a few weeks ago to memorize the private key. Today, i like to say i managed to do it.
Anyone else done this? It's not that hard, if you memorize them in chunks of 4 for a few weeks.

And if something not nice happens to you (which it won't by the way), how does your loved one(s) access the BTC.....

[smooth]

I was going to do that but since the key is so long, I can see me forgetting on or 2 characters, especially if I dont repeat it daily. I would never memorizing it as the only copy. Now memorizing it and having a paper copy, now thats doable, even for me, lol..

If you forget just one or two characters it is easy to brute force it.

[slaveforanunnak1]

I have several wallets, some cold, some hot, but one has the most amount of BTCs in it. Of course it's one of my cold ones and i decided a few weeks ago to memorize the private key. Today, i like to say i managed to do it.
Anyone else done this? It's not that hard, if you memorize them in chunks of 4 for a few weeks.

And if something not nice happens to you (which it won't by the way), how does your loved one(s) access the BTC.....

Hmmmmm valid question

[davida]

I have memorised my brain wallet... 12 words interlaced with my phone number and house address.

It sounds easy to get wrong or forget, but it really isn't.  I recite it every morning for over one month now.

My other idea was to tattoo the private key underneath my armpit which would get hidden by the hair when it grows back, or on my ass crack or somewhere random like that.  Obviously you'd need to trust the tattoo artist.

[jubalix]

and if you want to use another address....

a system to get to n addresses, is I feel better, but that's just me.

[davida]

and if you want to use another address....

a system to get to n addresses, is I feel better, but that's just me.

Agreed, that's the problem with memorising a private key over a seed... With my brain wallet I can simply add another digit to my pass-phrase and it becomes a whole new brain wallet.

[Mobius]

I think this is a very dangerous way to store your bitcoin and will likely give you a false sense of security. You may be able to memorize something today and remember it accurately next week or even next month, but I don't think you can likely remember a string of random numbers and letters that is this long over the long term. You may think that you have it but if even one unknown digit is off then you will have a very difficult time accessing your funds. I would argue that if you were to make one small mistake, you would attempt to figure out your mistake, but would become frustrated and start to lose confidence in more and more over time.

I think a better solution would be to make a brain wallet with some phrase that you can easily remember while adding in a string of random numbers/letters at the end. I would suggest using the first x digits of the coinbase transaction of a block number that you can easily remember. 

[Buffer Overflow]

I don't understand why people are implementing their own custom brainwallet ideas, it's just asking for trouble.

Just use armory. It's been designed for this sort of thing.

[oceans]

Pretty amazing that you managed to remember your key I have trouble memorizing way smaller numbers that these ones so I don't think there would ever be a chance I would memorize something this long. Way to go!

[Unbelive]

Well, congrats on remembering it, I think. I can honestly say that I won't be able to remember something like that. I can barely remember the birthday of my own mom, so how would I remember something like that?

Try it bud, this is what i did.
When I created my wallet from bitaddress I kept hitting "generate new wallet" until I saw a funny word at the start.

we all know they start with a 5. Here is an example address;

5NiNJA Lf9z gWQn ogid DA76 MzPL 6TsZ ZY36 hWXM ssSz NydY XYB9 KF
           1234 5678 9012 3456 7890 1234 5678 9012 1234 5678 9012 34
so memorizing NiNJA is easy. The rest I did like this:

Day1. After the shower, I wrote down 4 charachters on the palm of my hand. ( luckily i have a lot of meetings at work, so i get to look at my hand a lot. ) Lf9z
Day2. then i wrote the next four on my hand. gWQn
Day3. All eight. Lf9z gWQn
Day4. All eight. Lf9z gWQn
Day5. ogid
day6. DA76
day7. ogid DA76
day8. ogid DA76
day9. MzPL
day10 6TsZ
day11 MzPL 6TsZ
day12 MzPL 6TsZ
day13 ZY36
day14 hWXM
day15 ZY36 hWXM
day16 ZY36 hWXM
day17 ssSz
day18 NydY
day19 ssSz NydY
day20 ssSz NydY
day21 XYB9 KB
day22 XYB9 KB

then I tried to associate the end of one block of 8 to the beginning of the new block of 8 so i could get the order correctly, you know, kinda like TCP sequencing.
after that i could say about 90% of it. The other 10 % I just had to work on a bit to get it. (association with things)

I will def keep a paper copy somewhere. I've had several head injuries. ( thanks snowboarding)

But now you told everyone your private key. so is nto private anymore, but public. That means you memorized public key. You did not have to do that.

[beetcoin]

why would someone memorize a private key anyways? isn't it smarter to memorize your brain wallet or seed?

[cp1]

I think it'd be much more secure to memorize a 12 word seed.  Or to rewrite electrum/armory to use an 8 word seed and memorize that.

[beetcoin]

I think it'd be much more secure to memorize a 12 word seed.  Or to rewrite electrum/armory to use an 8 word seed and memorize that.

man, 8 word seed? how easy would it be to guess/crack? if i were to memorize a seed, i don't know if 8 words is enough to keep me comfortable.

[jonald_fyookball]

I think it'd be much more secure to memorize a 12 word seed.  Or to rewrite electrum/armory to use an 8 word seed and memorize that.

man, 8 word seed? how easy would it be to guess/crack? if i were to memorize a seed, i don't know if 8 words is enough to keep me comfortable.

8 word seed with 128 bits of entropy requies a 65,000 word dictionary, which
would be a huge dictionary, probably containing many technical and obscure words.

I don't think that would be easier than memorizing a 12 word seed of common words.

Example: 

Resemblance Nymphean Stuff Covetous Eerie Stalder Prosaist Jacobitism
 

[FunnyHat43]

This is quite the accomplishment. However I don't see the point if you have a paper backup anyway.

[escrow.dude]

I think it'd be much more secure to memorize a 12 word seed.  Or to rewrite electrum/armory to use an 8 word seed and memorize that.

man, 8 word seed? how easy would it be to guess/crack? if i were to memorize a seed, i don't know if 8 words is enough to keep me comfortable.

It doesn't make a difference if you memorize a seed or if you write it down and forget about it. The length of the seed determines how secure it is. Not if you memorize it. 

[ytlover]

thats pretty damn impressive dude!

[jaberwock]

I think it'd be much more secure to memorize a 12 word seed.  Or to rewrite electrum/armory to use an 8 word seed and memorize that.

In the sense of less probability to forget it, right?

Because in the security sense it is LESS secure.

[mnmShadyBTC]

I think it'd be much more secure to memorize a 12 word seed.  Or to rewrite electrum/armory to use an 8 word seed and memorize that.

In the sense of less probability to forget it, right?

Because in the security sense it is LESS secure.

There are already a number of wallet services that use a seed like this, and AFAIK there are few to no instances of funds being stolen because of a guessed seed. 

[The Goat Master]

I think it'd be much more secure to memorize a 12 word seed.  Or to rewrite electrum/armory to use an 8 word seed and memorize that.

man, 8 word seed? how easy would it be to guess/crack? if i were to memorize a seed, i don't know if 8 words is enough to keep me comfortable.

8 word seed with 128 bits of entropy requies a 65,000 word dictionary, which
would be a huge dictionary, probably containing many technical and obscure words.

I don't think that would be easier than memorizing a 12 word seed of common words.

Example: 

Resemblance Nymphean Stuff Covetous Eerie Stalder Prosaist Jacobitism
 

I'd only remember it if I knew the meaning of the words