Review your backup wallet. Woman throws husband's USB drive with millions in BTC

[Forsyth Jones]

A recent news story reported that a woman took out the trash, including a USB drive containing hundreds of bitcoins (although the veracity of this news hasn't been confirmed). This made me want to start a topic about the importance and necessity of backup redundancy:

If you have one, you have none.

When creating your wallet, it's important to write down your seed phrase correctly and store it in a safe place, but you should make more copies. keep in mind that anyone who has your seed phrase can steal your funds. So I recommend using type of additional protection, such as a BIP39 passphrase. Keep in mind that this is an advanced feature and requires a basic understanding of wallets. I recommend reading this article for a clearer explanation of the passphrase and how it works: 10 Common FAQs Around Passphrases in Trezor Wallets

Although some people advise against it, I support encrypted digital backups. Wallets like Bitcoin Core, Sparrow and Electrum allow you to export a keystore containing the wallet's master private key, which is encrypted with your password at the time of encryption. However, always write down the seed phrase (Bitcoin Core doesn't have a seed phrase) as well.

Test your backups, whether through the seed phrase or encrypted backups, to ensure everything has been done correctly.

You can optionally encrypt the seed phrase (do this in an offline, air-gapped environment) using PGP, offline password managers (always offline and open source, like keepass), Veracrypt, Pipocrypt, 7zip, AES (Linux itself already has built-in support) etc. This way, you can make several copies in different locations since the file is password-protected (make sure to create a strong password). It's also essential to store the password securely.

There are several ways to encrypt your backup and other backup methods that provide plausible deniability.

I recommend reading this article, which covers some of the options suggested in this topic, including what to do/not do to have a secure backup: How to Back Up a Seed Phrase


Which of these backup methods is most efficient for your use case?

[Findingnemo]

Even if it's not confirmed news, some of them are capable of doing it, whether it's intentional or unintentional.

If we are talking about millions then we should hold necessary backup too, not just one as you said. One for ourselves and one in the place we can reach often and a few in most secured locations that should be accessed only if necessary.

[ABCbits]

A recent news story reported that a woman took out the trash, including a USB drive containing hundreds of bitcoins (although the veracity of this news hasn't been confirmed).

This news could be example of bad outcome of doing "Hide in plain sight".

This made me want to start a topic about the importance and necessity of backup redundancy:

If you have one, you have none.

It's good idiom/phrase. And talking about backup redundancy, some people even go as far as following 3-2-1 backup rule. Although following this rule could be costly and IMO not really applicable to backup Bitcoin wallet.

[rby]

Even if it's not confirmed news, some of them are capable of doing it, whether it's intentional or unintentional.

If we are talking about millions then we should hold necessary backup too, not just one as you said. One for ourselves and one in the place we can reach often and a few in most secured locations that should be accessed only if necessary.

This kind of news happens when a man doesn't allow his spouse know what he is into. A crypto wife will be very careful with handling computer components and she will also know what is seed phrase.  If this news is true, I will likely blame the hubby instead of the wife.

[Mia Chloe]

A recent news story reported that a woman took out the trash, including a USB drive containing hundreds of bitcoins (although the veracity of this news hasn't been confirmed).

To start with I'm not actually a fan of splitting your seed phrase into different words or bits to store in different places however what I actually do advice people to do is to have multiple backup options. Just like the statement ; "don't put all your eggs in one basket" I believe you should always have an alternative.

Even for those that make use of hardware wallets or cold cards to store their coins, I still suggest you have a paper wallet backup just incase something like this occurs.

[Hatchy]

This kind of news happens when a man doesn't allow his spouse know what he is into. A crypto wife will be very careful with handling computer components and she will also know what is seed phrase.  If this news is true, I will likely blame the hubby instead of the wife.

Though I'm not against telling them about your crypto holding, but then it's better to not say such. you can tell you own but it's better to hide it's seed away from their reach. Women can do crazy things when they get offended. The story might be that she didn't know what she was disposing off, or she knew and still went ahead with such act. Isy better to remain safe than being sorry.

[rby]

This kind of news happens when a man doesn't allow his spouse know what he is into. A crypto wife will be very careful with handling computer components and she will also know what is seed phrase.  If this news is true, I will likely blame the hubby instead of the wife.

Though I'm not against telling them about your crypto holding, but then it's better to not say such. you can tell you own but it's better to hide it's seed away from their reach. Women can do crazy things when they get offended. The story might be that she didn't know what she was disposing off, or she knew and still went ahead with such act. Isy better to remain safe than being sorry.

That's also true.  But secrecy also is not the solution.  Living with a partner with an absurd temperament is very risky. If she can deliberately dispose your source if income just because she is mad at you, means she can also kill you. If my partner can do unpredictable crazy things when she is mad, I will not be with her.

[target]

Which of these backup methods is most efficient for your use case?

I use to take a picture of the seed phrase as i create the wallet. I know its not safe but then its something I do years ago. Now I just have to write it down because somebody out there might recognize seeds incase I lose my phone.

But then hiding these sticky note somewhere where no one ever knows is the hardest. I just slip it on the uninteresting books I have on the shelves. I doubt anyone would be reading these days because people are more incline on youtube.

[Findingnemo]

But then hiding these sticky note somewhere where no one ever knows is the hardest. I just slip it on the uninteresting books I have on the shelves. I doubt anyone would be reading these days because people are more incline on youtube.

Writing the seed words in paper alone as our only back up holds high risk because the written words can fade away over the time, depending on the type of ink used to write them, and I would suggest go for better ways to securing the seeds if you hold funds that you consider a decent amount. It can be steel engrave and you can just wear it everyday and no one will ever notice and there are also similar secure seed storage methods proposed by community members.

[Forsyth Jones]

To start with I'm not actually a fan of splitting your seed phrase into different words or bits to store in different places however what I actually do advice people to do is to have multiple backup options. Just like the statement ; "don't put all your eggs in one basket" I believe you should always have an alternative.

Even for those that make use of hardware wallets or cold cards to store their coins, I still suggest you have a paper wallet backup just incase something like this occurs.

Splitting a mnemonic phrase is never recommended by cryptography experts. If you want to split a seed phrase, the ideal is to use SLIP-39 (shamir backup), a protocol that allows you to generate a seed phrase with a secure sharing scheme, requiring a minimum number of parts (n of m) to restore the complete wallet.

Regardless of the backup method chosen, the backup of the annotated seed phrase offline should never be discarded.

[bitmover]

But then hiding these sticky note somewhere where no one ever knows is the hardest. I just slip it on the uninteresting books I have on the shelves. I doubt anyone would be reading these days because people are more incline on youtube.

Writing the seed words in paper alone as our only back up holds high risk because the written words can fade away over the time, depending on the type of ink used to write them, and I would suggest go for better ways to securing the seeds if you hold funds that you consider a decent amount. It can be steel engrave and you can just wear it everyday and no one will ever notice and there are also similar secure seed storage methods proposed by community members.

You can just write the seed in two separate places, use some plastics, pen, etc and the chances of fading both over time is very very low....

I agree that this chance exists, but there are many old papers around with some notes for decades or even more than a hundred years...

[Mia Chloe]

Splitting a mnemonic phrase is never recommended by cryptography experts. If you want to split a seed phrase, the ideal is to use SLIP-39 (shamir backup), a protocol that allows you to generate a seed phrase with a secure sharing scheme, requiring a minimum number of parts (n of m) to restore the complete wallet.
Regardless of the backup method chosen, the backup of the annotated seed phrase offline should never be discarded.

I think I've come across something similar to what you just said but I still don't fully understand how the whole SLIP-39 seed works. Plus back in the day I still remember that ELECTRUM seeds  were considered better than the regular BIP- 39 seeds because of their word list and entropy too.

Based on something like this too I am quite curious how the entropy of the SLIP-39 mechanism is compared to both the standard Electrum seed and the BIP- 39 seeds.

[joniboini]

If she can deliberately dispose your source if income just because she is mad at you, means she can also kill you. If my partner can do unpredictable crazy things when she is mad, I will not be with her.

This is clearly not the case described in the article though. The wife was doing a cleaning routine, and she thought the USB was something from her school that she no longer used, so she threw it away. There's no way to judge the mental health of the wife/husband from the article above.

I also think this is an example of a bad hiding-in-plain-sight strategy. Maybe the husband doesn't have to tell her it contains crypto, just that this USB is important for his work or something similar. Well, hopefully, they will learn from this and improve their backup strategy for the future.

[Ambatman]

I think I've come across something similar to what you just said but I still don't fully understand how the whole SLIP-39 seed works. Plus back in the day I still remember that ELECTRUM seeds  were considered better than the regular BIP- 39 seeds because of their word list and entropy too.

I never knew BIP 39 seeds of electrum had better entropy. To my understanding
They are all 128 bits for a twelve word seedphrase and boast same entropy likewise SLIP 39(20 words here) .
The only difference is in application
SLIP strength is on distributed security making it harder to steal, electrum just boost flexibility and little less complex.

I doubt anyone would be reading these days because people are more incline on youtube.

Paper method of securing seedphrase is quite one of the best and cheapest when dealing with theft by humans
But one of the worse against disasters.

we should hold necessary backup too, not just one as you said. One for ourselves and one in the place we can reach often and a few in most secured locations that should be accessed only if necessary.

The issue of multiple backups location is that it increases the likelihood of the seedphrase getting exposed.

[hugeblack]

Let's say you threw a USB drive in the trash and whoever finds it is lucky to find it working.
The file will be encrypted or at least contain a PIN (even the worst wallets offer this feature). Therefore, the only thing to be concerned about is keeping your wallet seed in a place where others can access it, and this is where a passphrase comes in handy.