3 Best Ways to Backup Your Seed Phrase and Sleep Well

Today, I will show you how to back up your seed phrase.

Your seed phrase is the key to your crypto kingdom, so it’s critical to protect it appropriately. Once it leaks - and once is enough - you lose your crypto forever. By backing up your seed phrase in a secure way, you can sleep well.

Unfortunately, many people need to do a better job backing up their seed phrase.

Most people don’t understand what might happen if they don’t back up their seed phrase correctly.

Others struggle to make actionable progress because:

• They’re not willing to put in the time required.

• They’re confused about which backup method is suitable for them.

• They fall prey to the optimism bias - “Sure, some people lose their seed phrase, but that won't happen to me.”

• They consider current portfolio value, not future, and don't think it’s worth protecting.

This email is an opportunity for you to make it right once and for all. I’ll show you the three best methods of backing up your seed phrase, what each method protects you from, and help you decide which you should choose.

So let’s get down to it:

Option 1: Paper backup

Paper backup is the best way to back up a seed phrase for 99% of people.

Here’s why: Paper backup is easy to understand, cheap, and quick to execute. Even your grandma could do it.

Paper backup protects you from:

• All kinds of digital hacking

• Never making your backup because it’s too complex or time-consuming.

• Being unable to recover your backup because you split it, encrypted it 40 times with five passwords, and uploaded it to 20 different cloud providers (meaning you overextended your technical capabilities).

What paper backup does not protect you from:

• Floods

• Fire

• Theft

• Insects

• Misplacement

• Tampering

Here are ways you can upgrade your paper backup to address these weaknesses:

• Make multiple copies and store them in different locations - this adds protection against floods, fire, and insects.

• Laminate your paper backup - this adds protection against floods and most insects.

• Put it in a tamper-proof bag - this adds protection against tampering.

• Store your paper backup in a fire-resistant safe, which protects against fire, misplacement, and theft.

That’s it! That’s where 99% of you should stop reading and do your paper backup. Do a basic version of your paper backup first, then add additional layers of protection step by step.

For those of you willing to go the extra mile due to paranoia or you enjoy DIY projects, here are some options for you (proceed when you have done your paper backup and want to upgrade!):

Option 2: Metal backup

Metal is naturally resistant to water, acid, and fire - considering you choose the correct type of metal. Even though you can make a paper backup resistant to fire and water, some people prefer the toughness and durability of metal.

However, metal isn’t perfect. It’s more expensive than paper and more complex and time-consuming to create your backup. Plus, if you purchase a metal backup solution online, you potentially expose your personal information and identity as someone storing cryptocurrency.

So here's the fastest, cheapest, most anonymous way of creating a metal backup that'll provide the same results as the overpriced solutions available online:

Source: https://safu.ninja/

• https://safu.ninja/ - It’s an original version of this backup method.

• https://coldsteelx.com/ - It’s a more polished, elegant, and compact version for inspiration.

If you'd prefer to choose your backup method yourself instead of following my recommendations, here is a table testing and comparing 70+ metal backup products (safu.ninja included).

Of course, you can upgrade your metal backup similarly to the paper one - put it in a tamper-proof bag, store it in a safe, make copies, and keep it in geographically distinct locations. You can even cement it in a wall or bury it 🪦.

PS. Avoid metal backups with too many loose pieces, or else you can end up with an unrecoverable mess like this:

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

Option 3: QR codes

Ok, this one is extreme - it’s only for people who know enough about programming, cryptography, and hardware to be dangerous. For the rest of us, it’s for entertainment.

You create a specifically designed backup device that’s air-gapped (meaning it has no connectivity like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.), just like many of the hardware wallets.

It gets your seed phrase, generates Shamir secret shares, encrypts them, generates QR codes from these encrypted shares, and prints them for you.

You then have several QR codes printed on different pieces of paper. You need N of these to recover the seed phrase (for example, 3 out of 7 - you configure this when generating).

This means you can hold on to 2 of them and give out the remaining 5 to trusted family members or friends. You don’t have to trust any of them entirely because one QR code is not enough to recover your seed phrase.

If you need to recover your hardware wallet, it’s enough to contact one of your five trustees and combine their QR code with the two you possess.

Note this is different and significantly more secure than just splitting your seed phrase.

The idea comes from Sun Knudsen:

Here are step-by-step instructions on how to create a backup device like this: https://sunknudsen.com/privacy-guides/how-to-create-encrypted-paper-backup

So, there you have it! Paper, metal, and QR code. Which backup method do you use? What pitfalls have you managed to avoid? Reply to this email, and let me know.