The worst places to keep your crypto wallet seed phrase

Under the mattress, in the seams of a piece of luggage or even rolled into a cigar, what are the worst and best ways for keeping a seed phrase safe? The key to unlocking and recovering cryptocurrency, a seed phrase, should be secured and safe. 

Especially now that prices are low and the crypto tourists have checked out, it might be time for a crypto security spring clean. Security starts with a seed phrase, sometimes called a recovery phrase.

There’s no denying it: Bitcoin and the crypto space writ large are in the clutches of a bear market. Since Do Kwon’s Terra experiment went up in smoke, a crypto contagion has choked the most reputable of exchanges, causing many self-sovereignty advocates to chant, “not your keys, not your coins.”

Indeed, hardly a day goes by that another “trusted” crypto lender freezes customer withdrawals. From Singapore’s crypto lender Vauld to Thailand’s crypto exchange with 200,000 customers, Zipmex, to the world-renowned Celsius exchange, many centralized lending platforms have suffered similar fates, ensuring heartbreaking consequences for customers in 2022.

These circumstances are timely reminders to look after one’s own keys and to ensure they are in a safe place. So, while prices are low and trust in centralized exchanges (places that claim to look after crypto), also hits rock bottom, there is no better time to up the security of one’s crypto assets.

Seed phrases save lives

A seed phrase, sometimes called a private key, is a list of 12 or 24 words forming a mnemonic phrase. Metaphorically speaking, a hardware wallet, or cold wallet, contains these keys providing a convenient way of sending, or “signing” funds. 

If looked after properly, a seed phrase can save lives, as Alex Gladstein, a human rights activist and chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, often states. For example, if a burglar steals a hardware wallet but not the seed phrase, it’s no critical issue — the seed phrase can be used with a new wallet. If a government or bad actor forces you to flee, the 12 or 24 words can be used anywhere in the world to access Bitcoin (BTC) or crypto funds.

Goldbug and Bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff once bungled his seed phrase, confusing it for his pin code. That’s the first mistake to avoid. Now, here are some other examples of where not to store a seed phrase.

Open secrets

The couple in possession of the Bitfinex billions in Bitcoin, who stored their seed phrase on their cloud storage…