What is the best way to store you seed for your cryptocurrency? Have a hardware wallet and I know people say write it down on paper and just put it in a drawer or hide it somewhere in your house or apartment. But if theft or fire, then it doesn't protect against that. I hear people say buy a safe and put it in your house... but a safe is one of the first things a thief would look for etc.



Other recommendations I heard is airgap computer but theft or fire still applies. What about storing seed in password manager like 1password or keepass? And making copies of those files in usb sticks? Of course, theft or fire wouldn't help here or even usb malfunctioning. Heard about cryptosteel but again theft doesn't protect that. But what about storing it in the cloud like apple or google drive or even dropbox? That way, it protects you against anything physical since you only have to remember your email/cloud password and password manager password? I heard lot of people got seed hacked and compromised when storing it in cloud and email but main denominator was they didn't encrypt it and even took picture of it. I do hear people say never store it digitally though. But this seems like good way if you travel a lot for example? Big issue with this is if you get malware or virus, then your seeds in your password manager and everything is essentially taken?



The other consideration that seem to be very good would be.. get multiple safe deposit boxes at different banks? So for your seed, you break it in half and put half the seeds in one safe deposit box at one bank... and one in another? But to make it even more secure, do it with another two safe deposit boxes in case something happens to one of the boxes? But I do hear stories of safe deposit boxes being empty or they get drilled without the customer's permission when they find out a bit later. But these are very rare cases right? Obviously it depends how much crypto you have but wouldn't it make sense to store it in a safe deposit box at different banks if you have say even mid 5 digits or so? Those people that have 6 figures or more... I got to assume many do this right? Seems like the most secure unless something I'm missing here? And yea irony of being your own bank but using a bank.

Put it in your brain

lolol

Put seed anywhere you like. Multiple copies so you don't lose it.
Add a fake word to seed
Remember the real word and its place
You are 100% unhackable. Because no one is going to do the work of trying combos of 11 + 1 words when they try the seed and it fails. They won't even know what it applies to. They'll give up and move on.

Plenty of other things you can do like this that don't involve expense and trouble and get you more practical usable real world security (i.e. lower odds of losing your money permanently) than the cuck solutions like safety deposit boxes or hardware encrypted password keepers.

Here are backup methods that are fireproof and corrosion proof:

https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/



Also this is available on Trezor Model T and is similar to what you described about splitting your keys: https://trezor.io/shamir/

It's called getting another notebook to write in, or copy/pasting into a new file and saving. Both are fireproof and corrosion proof.

Similar to the Shamir method:

Write words 1-8 and 17-24 on one sheet of paper.
Write words 1-16 on one sheet of paper.
Write words 9-24 on one sheet of paper.

Put one sheet in your sock drawer, one in your mum's underwear drawer at her house, and one in your car's glove box. (Or whatever.)

If one is lost or compromised, no one can gain access but you still can.

Remembering the seed is ridiculous.. that is 24 words. Anyone here actually does that? If it was 12 words, I can see possibly doing that... but still you could forget. I read about those metals and fireproof and corrosion proof. The issue is theft though. If someone finds that cryptosteel and has a clue what is it, then what? Unless you hide somewhere, where its almost impossible to find... then I could see that. Also I hear people mention put your seed in the backyard or something like that. That still doesn't feel good to me.



I heard of the Shamir method and it seems good. But I also heard there was a big negative thing with doing that... which I cannot remember what it was. Anyone know what that reason is? Also if you do that method... someone now only need 8 of your word seeds... which I heard still takes a long time to crack... but if they knew the word order of those other two parts of your seed... it still would be impossible for them to crack? I read it still takes them a lot of years but that doesn't seem to be that good.



So nobody has opinion on breaking it up in 2 or 3 pieces in different safe deposit boxes at different banks? I'm thinking doing that with 3 different safe deposit banks might be good idea with the Shamir method? But having 2 safe deposit boxes at 2 different banks probably still works fine? That method seems like the best way though since you don't really need to be concerned about theft or fire since bank safety boxes in banks rarely happen?

None of you are thinking about this rationally. This is because (a) you can't think rationally and (b) because cuck/loser security experts are giving you bad advice that actually has higher much odds of losing your keys and hence your money. The advice they offer is the worst of all worlds:

- Most trouble
- Most stress/work
- Worst tail risk (bank deposit boxes can be subpoenaed, for example, hardware security can be found and you can forced to provide the password)
- Highest odds of losing your money

Anyone who listens to them is a ****ing moron. I'm going to do you a favor and give you gold standard first principles security advice for bitcoin that you cucks are probably too stupid to recognize.

Let's break this down to first principles. For security to be breached, a hacker has to:

1. Be looking for the item
2. Be able to search for your item using some search method that can identify it
3. Be able to recognize your item
4. Be able to access your item
5. Be able to break through the obfuscation/encryption to get your item in plain usable text

Your odds of being stolen from is the multiplication of those factors. All are as important as each other because they're a pure multiplication.

1. Be looking for your item
There are two classes of people who'll be looking for your item

a) People you know in real life, including highly malicious people if you have enough money
b) Hackers using non-individual-specific malware, scripts and vulnerabilities

You can't fix either of those in (1) except part of (a) by being discreet.

2. Be able to search for your item using some search method that can identify it

This is an important one and the easiest way to get risk down to zero. In terms of real life contacts, people you know will likely spot a hardware device, buying one leaves a trail with your address, a deposit box indicates something valuable to hide, leaving a list of 24 words somewhere.

A lot of the expert recommended methods actually make (2) close to a 0.9 or so value, which is very dumb.

In addition, malicious software/hackers will search for standard ways in which things are stored. Hacks and vulnerabilities will attack standard devices and standard encryptors. For example, there are resident in memory malware that will look for bitcoin addresses, private keys, and 12/24 chain word lists, and dump. Malware will dump out encryption keys from memory.

You can actually get (2) down to 0.0001 or less by doing a very simple thing: storing your key in a non-standard way that's not recognizable by either casual viewing or scripts.

And remember that these odds are multiplicative. So doing this very simple act gets you better loss odds than a hardware store, deposit boxes, and so on, which are much greater than 0.0001 in terms of tail loss odds.

How do you do this? Store it in a non-recognizable, non-searchable form somewhere obscure.

Your key needs to be like this guy:



Example: turn it into hex, right shift the numbers by 1, and put it in an unused binary file at location 2784 with a simple hex editor. There is no possible way to search for this item that any human mind will devise. Scripts and malware can't find it. (2) is near zero here.

There is actually nothing else you need to do. Your key is safer than any cuckspert security method ever devised. You can also do this in other files for multiple copies.

But because this is a proper first principles guide to security, I'll keep going:

3. Be able to recognize your item

This ties into (2) above and the suggestions above also get it to zero. Most of the expert suggestions suck donkey balls and actually give a value of near 1.0.

4. Be able to access your item

This is the idea behind separating keys or safe deposit boxes. But separating keys gives you maybe 0.001 on this item; it's a hard thing to get it to the kind of very low numbers you can easily get on (2) and (3). Safe deposit boxes aren't safe from seizure for example.

This is actually also something which works against you; the harder you make it for someone to access, the harder it is for you to access. Trying to maximize (4) is just a megacuck way of proceeding with security, especially since the 2, 3 and 5 get you much lower numbers, and the numbers are multiplicative.

Given that the lower you get (4) for someone else, the more likely it is that you'll lock yourself out, the real minimum value here is probably above 0.01. And it's adding to your own risk of locking yourself out, which is separate risk which is often far higher than the odds of being stolen from. It's just stupid to try to maximize this number too much.

5. Be able to break through the obfuscation/encryption to get your item in plain usable text

Again this another one that's hard to get below 0.01 or so. Encryption keys are often detected by malware and dumped out to a place for the malware to use. You might not even know you have malware. Common devices could have security flaws that allow a large scale hack. And it has the same problem as (4): you have to remember the password, possibly years from now. The odds of you forgetting it are >5%, which makes this a really stupid thing to add into the mix; FAR more people have lost coins due to forgetting passwords than they have being stolen from.

So encryption is great, but it actually increases the odds of you losing your coins.

Cliff Notes

When you actually go through security by first principles, the best security method for bitcoin keys is simple obfuscation + making it unsearchable. You can add a little bit of normal level/non-cuck* (4) and (5) in but just a little bit.

*cuck would be for example having parts of your keys in separate locations or getting a security deposit box.

These are some excellent suggestions. Thanks for your insights.

Okay I didn't even consider the bank deposit box getting subpoenaed. That seem to be a very good reason then to not put your seed in the box then? But what people need to be concerned about this? Could the IRS for example subpoenaed your box without your notice if say you didn't even get any notice from them or something? I assume its only if that person doesn't respond to them or pay etc right? What about people like winklewoss twins or max keiser? Remember hearing winklewoss twins have their seeds in multiple safe deposit boxes throughout the US. So if they broke some SEC or whatever thing like that, aren't they in jeopardy if their seeds are in those boxes?



Well do you agree your seed should be in multiple locations then though? And by that, i mean the whole seed even broken in half each? Or doing that Shamir method would be fine? Like one at home, one at safe deposit box, one at either safe deposit box or with a close family member or relative/ So even if something happens to one location, you still have the other two locations. What about storing your coins in coinbase/gemini or something like agent xyz where they basically hold your coins and you don't need to worry about your seed?

Yes, do this. For the average retail investor, this is the safest and easiest storage method.

Mind you, this is a controversial position to take on this forum, and I fully expect to be ridiculed for it. After the Mt. Gox hack of 2014, crypto investors were wary of leaving their coins on exchanges. "Not your keys, not your coins" is a rallying cry that persists to this day. But if you have so many questions and so much anxiety about storing your seed safely, then you're probably better off leaving your coins on a reputable exchange.

Let's say you're investing in Bitcoin for the long term, how do you pass it down to your children upon your death? Are you going to trust lawyers with your seed code via a will?

LOL I haven’t been in much in a while. This was funny to me. Not saying he’s right, just having a laugh

One good thing that I’ll say is, if you are concerned about your keys, diversify your wallets. So in theory, ducking up doesn’t blow your whole stash.

I think the whole debate has to scale with both your net worth and fear of loss.

4/5 keys (needing 4 of 5, if one gets destroyed/lost you are still fine) I think are give or take the fanciest solution that should be deployed. You can put them anywhere: One with a family member, another with a close friend, a lawyer, one at home somewhere, a bank safe deposit box, etc. Make sure each key says where the other locations are so they know how to talk to each other in case of a death.

IMO, doing all the above on 6-figures is massive overkill and completely unnecessary. Meanwhile if you start sitting on 9-figures it becomes kind of obligatory to have some sort of system like that in place and not doing so becomes rather silly. Anywhere in between is rather subjective.

On the lower end of the equation, any of the simpler solutions you suggested would be more than fine. Intentionally messing with your key so that it is unreadable to others is also smart if they were to find it, really easy low level stuff.

Your biggest concern if you have 9 figures is people trying to beat it out of you. The Winklevoss twins may or may not have it safe deposit boxes, but it sure as hell makes sense to say they do, otherwise they're a kidnapping target, since bitcoin's security model is so broken/insecure at a fundamental level that the only thing you need to do to irrevocably own a billion in wealth is to know a small string of letters.

Reminds me of the Cullinan diamond (the largest in the world). When the British crown gave it to the master jeweler to cleave, it was sent via Navy ship to great press coverage and fanfare. In reality, the cleaver slipped it in his pocket and took the train and a ferry.

Yeah, the $5 wrench attack. But if you make it virtually impossible for a $5 wrench attack to work, then what?

If part of your seed is in a safe deposit box (es) that are even perhaps in two different countries around the world, and other parts of your 4/5 key are in equally hard parts to access, what is the would be attacker going to do, fly with you to your safe deposit boxes around the world demanding access?

If your key is fully accessible during a physical wrench attack, that's a weakness in your own personal security. And you have to decide if that matters to you based on your own net worth, values, security, etc.

A visible pain point is high value ransom targets. Daughters, sons, spouses, family, friends, whatever. I've actually been very concerned about a rise in high value ransom over the coming years and wondered if there will be a newly created market printed off of that or not. In the past, ransom wasn't particularly efficient because there was no way for the ransomer to get rewarded. But now there is.

I am aware of that Mount Gox hack. But isn't that still much different than now with coinbase/gemini though because of how things have changed now though. But i do see it shows coinbase insures you up to a certain amount, but is that your fiat balance only? So any crypto balance doesn't count?

What do you mean

4/5 keys (needing 4 of 5, if one gets destroyed/lost you are still fine)? Not sure I understand what you mean by keys here. Do you you breaking the seed into multiple parts and calling them keys? Or you mean each of them get the entire seed?


If a seed is say 12 words, well breaking it in half is fine but i heard that is much easier to brute force though? But if you have a hardware wallet seed is 24 words. Now breaking it in half, I heard that is still very safe since brute forcing 12 words is almost impossible.



You say doing all that is absolutely unnecessary if you have 6 figures but what if your net worth besides your crypto is basically low 5 figures or even less? Or those people who essentially went all in on crypto and just have enough funds in their bank account so to speak. To them, well that 6 figures in crypto could literally be their life savings. Then for those type of people, what would be the best suggestion?



What about just the general, break the 24 word seed into two parts... and putting those two seeds into 2 different safe deposit boxes at the bank? Would you say that is probably the safest thing to do? So you have a copy in those two banks. And i heard theft and fire is extremely rare in safe deposit boxes at banks... though reading some articles online and checking youtube to show regular people saying their box got drilled or things taken without their knowledge. But the main issue here is as long as you don't keep your entire seed in one box, then its perfectly safe? Then also keep a copy at your house or apartment just in case? Because if you only keep a copy of your seed at your apartment/house, if you got a fire, well, it would be destroyed. With theft..unless the thief knows what it is or accessed your wallet already with seed... and say you had still had your hardware wallet, you immediately send your coins to another address like on coinbase?



But the person who said well the government could seize your deposit box and multiple bank accounts, that seems to be something I never thought of and a huge negative of a safe deposit box. But if you are a regular person which most people are, that isn't a concern for any right? But has there been any stories of people who stored their seed in safe deposit boxes and then got your crypto taken though? Thing is all someone has to do is look at the seed, they don't even need to steal it etc. But if you it in two different boxes at different banks... seems to be safe so you don't need to worry about fire/theft.

Did you read my post above? That is a 2/3 key similar to the 4/5 key you are now asking for confirmation on.

And I don't see why you are still asking about splitting the 24 words in half, when the 2/3 key is a better solution.

You can set up keys any which way you want. 1/1 means a single key exists. 3/3 means there are 3 keys, all of which are needed.

4/5 means that yes, 4 must come together. You have to break your seed into multiple fragments to accomplish this, there's many tools to accomplish this online. IMO, 2/3 is a bit weak because if two parties collude, it's game over for you. It's also far easier for a seriously determined attacker to go to 2 locations than 4.


This will not be the weak point in your security. Do whatever you want here.


You're making a bad argument. Someone's net worth could be $10. It's irrelevant. What matters is to what means a determined attacker will go after you. Sure, an attacker could go after a 6-figure guy, but why do that when there's an equally valid target worth orders of magnitude more?

You need to rationalize how much time/energy you are willing to sink into the endeavor. You could spend 1k hours putting together a nearly unbreakable strategy to secure your $25k crypto net worth, but IMO, you'd be better off just flipping burgers for more crypto at that rate in terms of overall life EV.

Mostly just realize that this is a personal decision... you're turning what I said into an unnecessarily complex task. You do you.


I think the safest thing to do is that seed copies are held in places/people that are as independent from each other as possible. If you give them to all family members, but they all turn on you, that's not good. Same goes for all USA based security deposit boxes if the US government turns on you.

Place your seeds with the most trusted independent sources and access points that make sense in your life. Preferably a situation where collusion is nearly impossible. Also, always consider the government a possible agent that can collude against you.

The government will only ever work against you, never with you, even if unlikely, always keep that in mind.


It's non-zero. This depends on a variety of factors and values that are unique to you.

It's also not just governments, there's no reason a bank itself or thief couldn't break into these things from time to time.

This may be one reason banks are going to start offering crypto custodial services. The custodial account becomes part of your estate, or you may be able to designate a beneficiary directly through the bank.

If your country has approved a BTC ETF, you can invest in BTC through your brokerage account and leave that account to your heirs.

Coinbase has a mechanism for acquiring control of a deceased family member's account:
https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbas...inbase-account

If you don't want to deal with a bank, brokerage, or exchange, then yes, you'll have to devise some method of transferring control of your crypto wallet to your heirs, and whatever method you choose for transferring your private keys/seed phrase will entail the same risks as simply storing your private keys/seed phrase—with the added risk that you're probably going to have to trust someone, whether that someone is your lawyer, the executor of your estate, or one of your heirs.

Here's an interesting article on the topic: https://qz.com/1432471/what-happens-...after-you-die/.

Thanks for answering and thank you for the information.

One more quesiton: If i'm of the belief that none of these cryptocurrencies are actual currencies but instead crypto-assets then why should i own a cryptowallet to store my crypto as apposed to buying an ETF from the bank or investment firm and letting them store it for me?

It would seem to me that the whole idea of storing crypto in your wallet is in the belief that these are actual currencies which will be used sometime in the future and fully decentralized away from the control of governments and central banks.

If Bitcoin for example is being marketed as digital gold and not a currency then what would possess me to store it myself into a cryptowallet where i potentially could lose my seedcode and therefore lose my asset vs letting a firm keep it on my behalf?

How about a decoy seed in a safe deposit box? That way if you ever get subpoenaed you can fight it, and when they get to the box and it doesn't work just say you don't know why it isn't working, that's where you always kept it.....

You make some good points.

I myself ascribe to the 4-year-cycle narrative. I think Bitcoin and other cryptos are in the midst of a quadrennial bull run, which will likely end in 5 or 6 months (give or take a month or 2). So my goal is to sell ~75% of my portfolio in stages as we approach the peak. These sales will be taxable events. Now if I had BTC in my IRA in the form of a BTC ETF, I could exchange that asset for an S&P 500 index fund before the coming peak, park my money there for a year, and then dollar cost average back into a BTC ETF throughout 2023-2024 in anticipation of the 2025 bull cycle. None of those exchanges would be taxable events for me. So just from a tax perspective, I'm better off not holding my BTC directly.

I should add that I'm not a BTC maximalist who thinks that BTC will replace fiat currencies. I believe that the future financial system will include fiat currencies, decentralized cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH, and corporate cryptocurrencies like Facebook's Libra. Decentralized finance will flourish, perhaps especially in countries where a majority of the population is unbanked, but traditional banks and brokerage houses will survive. (Streaming video services haven't stopped people from going to the movies or buying DVDs for their personal collections.) Banks and brokerage firms—and the SEC—are going to have to figure out a way to complement and work with cryptocurrencies.

I agree that cryptocurrencies are not yet useful for daily transactions (not for me anyway). Maybe someday when the price of BTC stabilizes, I will want to use it to buy groceries. But by then I will have a Coinbase debit card or a BlockFi credit card. I'll pull that out at the cash register instead of my Chase debit card or Wells Fargo credit card. I'm hoping, too, that we'll eventually get legislation passed in the U.S. stipulating that any purchase or transfer of $200 or less using crypto is not a taxable event. That should accelerate adoption considerably.

You can do this. You can even put in your real seed with some dummy amount of coins with the real coins behind a password protected 25th seed word that only you know.

There's a lot of options.

This is what gets people down to the "I lost my crypto in a tragic boating accident" trope. Ultimately, it's impossible for the government or any body to prove that you have or don't have coins if you are remotely smart about it.