What are the worst and best ways to keep your seed phrase safe? The key to unlocking and redeeming the cryptocurrency, which is an initial phrase, must be safe and secure.
Especially now that prices are low and crypto tourists have checked out, it might be time to clean up the crypto spring. Security begins with an initial phrase, sometimes called a recovery phrase.
There is no denying it: Bitcoin and the great crypto space are in the clutches of a bear market. Since Do Kwon’s Terra experiment went into smoke, a crypto infection has choked the most famous exchange, causing many advocates of self-sovereignty to chant, “Not your keys, not your coins.”
In fact, hardly a day goes by that another “trusted” crypto lender freezes customer withdrawals. From crypto lender in Singapore Fold to crypto exchange in Thailand with 200,000 clients Zipmex to world-famous exchange Celsius, many centralized lending platforms have suffered the same fate, ensuring catastrophic consequences for clients in 2022.
These circumstances serve as timely reminders to look after an individual’s keys and to ensure they are in a safe place. So, while prices are low and trust in central exchanges (places that claim to handle cryptocurrency) are also hitting rock bottom, there is no better time to increase the security of crypto assets.
Seed phrases save lives
The initial phrase, sometimes called the private key, is a list of 12 or 24 words that make up a mnemonic phrase. Figuratively speaking, a hardware wallet or cold wallet contains these keys that provide a convenient way to send or “sign” money.
If taken care of properly, the initial phrase can save lives, says Alex Gladstein, human rights activist and chief strategist at the Human Rights Foundation, often. For example, if a thief steals a hardware wallet and not a seed phrase, this is not a critical issue – the seed phrase can be used with a new wallet. If a bad government or entity forces you to flee, 12 or 24 words can be used anywhere in the world to access Bitcoin (BTC) or crypto money.
Goldbug and Bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff once mistook his initial statement, confusing it with his PIN code. This is the number one mistake to avoid. Now, here are some other examples of where a raw statement is not stored.
Unlock the secrets
The couple with Bitfinex billions in Bitcoin, who stored the seed phrase on their cloud storage account, gets first prize. As Cointelegraph reported, cybercriminals Heather Morgan and her husband, who specializes in cybersecurity, Ilya Lichtenstein, stored their initial statement in a cloud storage account. As such, the FBI only had to crack the iCloud password to gain access to over $4 billion in BTC at the time of reporting. The lesson here is not to store your initial statement leaving online. This means your Evernote notes, in an email draft or even in a low-engagement tweet:
Likewise, as Cointelegraph reported, one should never type an initial phrase into the phone. why? Because, as one Redditor realized, a smartphone text prediction can actually guess an initial phrase. While text prediction is sometimes useful for spell or spoof emojis, it is counterproductive when it comes to protecting one’s personal wealth.
Although the refrigerator seems convenient, it is also not the ideal place for “cold” cryptocurrency storage. One Bitcoin fan, “Fridge”, answered the question “Where is the strangest place to store a seed phrase?” Without clarifying whether the phrase seeds should be stored in or on top of the refrigerator. As it turns out, a non-fungible token fan (NFT) had already stored an initial statement in the fridge:
Cointelegraph Editor-in-Chief Christina Lucrezia Corner suggests that the worst place to store an initial phrase is in bad memory. Indeed, unlike dates of historical battles, car keys, or names of acquaintances from the paths of life, the initial phrase must be fully committed to memory.
