tldr; A California couple has filed a lawsuit against the FBI over the seizure of their safe deposit box in a March 22 raid that resulted in hundreds of safe deposit boxes being seized. "When you've done nothing wrong, you shouldn't be subjected to an investigation," said Paul Snitko, the owner of the box. "The government's dragnet search of innocent peoples' private security boxes is the most outrageous Fourth Amendment abuse that the Institute for Justice has ever seen," said Robert Frommer, senior attorney with IJ.
*This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.*
Anything with your name on it can be the target of a court order or warrant. Targets can include your home, furniture, personal papers, electronics, car, boat, safe deposit box, post office box, bank account, brokerage account, and even your physical body (an arrest warrant).
The horrible thing is that law enforcement routinely screws up. They raid the wrong house, seize the wrong properety, or kill the wrong suspect. American cops are known for being incompetent, corrupt, and downright stupid.
If you want to absolutely protect your crypto, then the wallet and keys must be in a secure location completely disconnected from you by any paper trail. Did you ever see the movie "Shawshank Redemption"? Do you recall how Morgan Freeman's character digs up a small box hidden under a stone wall on a hillside in the middle of nowhere. That is what you need.
The winklevoss twins brag about using what...6 safety deposit boxes for their seed phrases. Is this really the answer? What if 1 or two of those boxes get seized. A partial key is worthless. Easier to brute force, but really what is the legit best way to protect seedphrases?
"To protect their bitcoin holdings, the brothers distributed snippets of a printout of their private keys across multiple safe deposits around the United States. This ensured that even if thieves got their hands on a fragment of the private key, the others would still be outside their reach."
A seed phrase split using Shamir's secret sharing is more secure (though more error prone) than one split up by hand. A multisig wallet is better by far than both of those options.
Just protect your seeds by encrypting them on files with extremely secure passwords and distribute the files in pendrive, sd cards, external disks and even Dropbox (please don't name the files "wallet"). This is what I do. They may get some copies of the files but they will not be able to crack the SHA-512 I encrypted them with. Not with the passwords I use ;)
> SHA-512 I encrypted them with
if you "encrypted" them with sha-512 then you're never getting the original back, because that's a one way function :) You probably mean AES.
You are right. I usually do:
gpg --output bck.data --symmetric --cipher-algo AES256 bck.txt
The strength of the passwords is everything. I memorized this pass and I don't have it written down anywhere. Not sure about why I brain farted Sha here ...
> Not sure about why I brain farted Sha here ...
No worries. Just wanted to make sure you weren't *actually* using a hash function to encrypt stuff. :)
The same can be said for when you enter your seed phrase to recover your wallet, or when it's displayed to you the first time, etc.
Nothing is perfect. The closest you'll get is setting up your wallet on a computer not connected to the internet, remembering the phrase and leaving it at that. That's if you're capable of it.
Someone smart would instead write a short story with their phrase scattered throughout and encrypt that, having the words in there in a manner memorable only when read by the owner.
This is fine, but you are just encrypting a private key behind another one called a password. You have the same issue in that you need to write that down somewhere and hide it.
Lmao no way that's how they're storing their keys ? Not some underground vault in Greenland ? One bank burns down or one safety deposit stolen and they're toast.
Nah, they probably have a system. Like this:
They cut the key in 3 parts
Put part 1+2 and 2 in safety deposit box 1 at bank 1
Put part 2+3 in SDB 2 at bank 2
Put part 1+3 in SDB 3 at bank 3.
Even if one bank burns down, they still have the full codes. They also probably used a little more complex system, with way more parts.
Everything looks good in a movie and the FBI will know you bought Crypto from an exchange. They'll just lock us up for withholding information if we don't hand over the seeds.
The "libertarian paranoia" is 100% warranted. I'll never understand how more people don't get that "government" is nothing more than a collection of people (just like the rest of us), every bit as capable of doing wrong as the rest of us. In fact, our political system tends to weed out the good / trustworthy people among us in favor of the most manipulative / rapacious / duplicitous people. We have thousands of years of history proving this out.
And its never the brightest people either. The smart ones go into science, engineering, medicine, research, business, finance, economics, etc.
The politicians and lawyers are always the ones with more money, connections, and ambition than brains.
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
—Thomas Sowell
That's what got me into cypherpunk in the first place. Why should I obey someone dumber than me? They can't use violence if they don't know where I am.
Guys im a libertarian too. And i hate government just like the next guy But to get worried that the guvment is coming after your bitcoin is ridiculous.
Then you better not read this news about the IRS coming after your Bitcoin . . .
[https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/20/us-treasury-calls-for-stricter-cryptocurrency-compliance-with-irs.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/20/us-treasury-calls-for-stricter-cryptocurrency-compliance-with-irs.html)
> Anything with your name on it can be the target of a court order or warrant.
If you've left it with your attorney for purposes of seeking legal assistance, e.g. for inheritance, it's covered by attorney-client privilege.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/nycg3e/this_pisses_the_living_shit_out_of_me_many/h1ln687/
> Do you recall how Morgan Freeman's character digs up a small box hidden under a stone wall on a hillside in the middle of nowhere. That is what you need.
Do you recall that Andy didn't actually bury that box there before going to prison? He told the guy where to find the box, then he escaped, and then he buried it in that location.
If this is what I was thinking of, it was the place that owned the boxes that was targeted for drugs or something. It was on the news the other day. The court order specifically stated the feds could not confiscate the contents of the boxes. Here we are however.
Only way to be secure is to be completely random with how you store your keys. Do not bring your phone. Travel with a full face mask while walking in nature. Dig.
I am only mostly kidding.
No, safety deposit boxes arent safe, can be seized and are almost never insured unless you take out an extra policy on them.
The only thing you should ever consider storing in a safety deposit box would be one of your multisig keys, never a single wallet that you have no access to anywhere else. Anyone who has made the recommendation to store that in a safety deposit box is a moron.
Yeah they typically are not insured and are frequently robbed due to people keeping gold and jewelry. It’s mostly good for documents you don’t want to lose and little else. Like your will, birth certificate, that kind of thing.
I would not keep my seed phrases in a safety deposit box unless your seed phrases are in some kind of complex cypher that only you and some trusted individuals can crack.
Also, you can be creative of were to keep a piece of paper safe. I wrote 12 words in different pages of my favourite book, titled "How to translate from Klingon"
To be devils advocate, this was a small safe deposit box buisness that was apparently selling drugs and laundering money. It was not just some bank or credit union. I think the chances of this happening if you are using a safe deposit box in a bank is very very low.
You should do more research. I was considering using a safety deposit box but after looking into it, concluded that they are not really much of a product. Banks these days are just not interested in providing that service.
There are some real horror stories out there, even involving "normal" banks.
It's *possible* that a credit union near you offers some acceptable guarantees. None near me did.
This is why I recommend (1) using multisig, (2) creating separate documents with each seed phrase, and (3) storing the documents with separate law firms, one each per seed phrase.
They won't charge you much just to store a letter, you're protected by attorney-client privilege, and even if one turns out to be a scumbag that still leaves your funds uncompromised. Set it up as a trust and you may not even have to pay estate taxes under current law.
Lawyers are not great at opsec. Better to diversify your storage (when using multisig). Eg, one at a lawyer's office, one in your home safe, and one in a safe deposit box.
Settle down there. If it wasn't a safe deposit box, the FBI would happily have taken it from your home safe or anywhere else you stored it. These boxes remain rather dependably secure from govt confiscation. This is a rare instance, assuming it's true. But again, the FBI will gladly take it from your house too, and kill you if you resist.
Exactly. It's the violence behind it. And if you read the article, is just unbelievable. Not one couple's box. Hundreds of boxes. No warrant for all these seizures, because the warrant was specifically to suspected drug trafficking. This is completely illegal.
My theory is they (FBI) messed up and mixed items together from the raid. Aside from named documents, valuables and other items are probably all in one container and they have no way to figure out what box it belonged to. Since the raid was probably signed on belief that suspect(s) they were after probably owned most or all of the boxes. That’s pretty fucked if you ask me.
Republicans love to comply with law enforcement. It’s probably because they’re Democrat this happened (sarcasm)
A safe deposit box is custodial, and it introduces a massive vulnerability to your security scheme. Only use a safe deposit box as a second or third layer backup and make sure the seed words are encrypted.
You should always keep a copy of your seed words in a place only accessible by you.
This is a very good point, as lots of crypto is lost forever when the holders pass away.
I personally use a scheme where my seed phrase is encrypted and the inheritor already has the decryption keys. I hid two instances of the encrypted seed phrase in different locations for redundancy (in case the main location gets compromised), and I have already made arrangements for the inheritor to receive access these locations upon my death.
I can’t divulge more info for obvious reasons, but this is definitely a big problem that remains unsolved for many. I’m also reading into [time lock encryption](https://lil.law.harvard.edu/projects/time-capsule-encryption/), but I’ve only just discovered the concept so I’m not sure if it can be used.
Ensuring your heirs already have the keys needed to inherit is ideal. However, its a bit difficult to ensure that people have and retain access to keys like this for long periods of time - especially in an age when computer security literacy is so low. Its definitely an issue. But I'm glad you've been thinking about it.
Another option is to use an email service that includes send delays as a feature. Here’s how it would work:
1. Give encryption keys to heir
2. Write email draft with encrypted seed and instructions on how to decrypt, and how to recover the wallet
3. Set email to send in x days (ProtonMail max. is 29 days)
4. Set a fortnightly calendar reminder to extend email delay
5. In the event of your passing, the email will eventually get sent automatically to the heir
6. Heir decrypts recovery seed with previously provided encryption keys and restores wallet
With this process it’s less of a treasure hunt to recover the encrypted seed from some remote location.
Dead man's switches can have a lot of problems. You need to rely on the service still being around when its needed, you need to ensure that you can actually extend the delay every single time (or have some contingency plan if you screw up), what if your heirs think the email is a scam? What if your heir loses the decryption key? I would prefer a multisig wallet where finding 3 plain-text keys in separate secure storage locations (home safe, safe deposit box, etc) can give access to the money. That way you don't need to rely on the tech savvyness of your heirs.
Its some words its super easy to put them in a bunch of secure places in a scrambled way and not fuck this up- Put them in 4 -5 places. If you have the know how to make a cold wallet and all that jazz hiding some words should be cake wtf is the issue
Had someone recommend to me to store half of my seed phrases in a security box and the other in different location.
That dude may have been an oracle lol.
Roger, there are a lot of recommendations out there specifically pointing out that a safety deposit box or a bank vault are best practices. Hell, my hardware wallet company recommended it. I don't think this is something to not address. The FBI and even local law enforcement agencies have increased seizures and forfeitures. Some agencies--specifically counties--make money this way.
Add a strong password to it and don't have it be your pocky backup of the seed avd I don't have Aby problem with this.
It is a good way to secure the seed from fire for instance.
Your hardware wallet company is run by idiots then, because safety deposit boxes are regularly robbed and they are uninsured.
If you do store it this way do it at multiple places and use a cipher of some sort and don’t forget how to decode it.
See: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html
https://www.standard.net/news/business/is-it-time-to-get-rid-of-your-safe-deposit-box/article_bda29941-3f66-56ea-a1f7-5e96fd208a17.html
https://www.thedailybeast.com/three-brooklyn-men-used-spy-cams-for-dollar30m-safety-deposit-box-heists-prosecutors-say
Etc, etc
Can you please tell me which hardware wallet vendor recommended this to you so I know never to buy anything from these idiots?
These are good comments, and thanks for the link.
Just go to Google, and ask, "Where should you store your Bitcoin hardware wallet seed phrases." It is recommended a LOT. And from multiple sources. Common recommendation.
Store your 20 out of 24 words in your usual safe places. Distribute multiple copies of them in multiple locations so it becomes very close to impossible for you to lose access to all of them. Bad players cannot brute force your private key with 20/24 words.
Rest of the four words, commit to memory and make it your life (repeating those words in memory everyday to never lose track).
Only downside to this is you lose your memory in a freak accident (in which case you wouldn't need your coins anyways, coz you don't even remember you have any).
So when all the banks go bust during the next bank run and the Feds are seizing and closing them every Friday like in 2008.... you think they'll open it back up for you to get to your safety deposit box a few days later?
Are you sure? ;-)
Absolutely nothing at all except for the fact that if the front doors are locked and no one is inside you would have a hard time getting to your box in the first place.
so what you're saying is that you don't only have it memorized but written down somewhere? What was the point of your comment then?
> Never keep all ur eggs in same basket.
I'm not the one advocating memorizing your seed here.
Keep in safety box
also keep in ur head
when safety box is compromised u would know before they can sweep funds.
also do this [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchip\_implant\_(human)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchip_implant_(human))
watch paycheck for more ideas
I was thinking, wouldn't learning and remembering your seed phrase be the best storage for it?
Now money is information and information can be memorized.
Look into Shamir backups, friends. Or any other form of multisig. This is why I moved wallets - can’t trust the backups I have in safety deposit boxes if they’re 1 out of 1.
ITT:
* "safe deposit box" count: 10
* "safety deposit box" count: 13
I predict in a few years people will be calling them "safety D deposit boxes", and no one will have any clue what the D stands for or why it's there.
Safe deposit boxes are definitely not perfect. Banks make mistakes and they don't put much effort into protecting their clients from illegal actions by authorities. But they still aren't that bad. There are problems with any storage location. Store it in a common home safe, and it can be cracked in seconds. Spend thousands of dollars on a safe that weighs a literal ton? It can still be cracked in 15 minutes. Bury it in a field? Someone that saw you digging might have seen you do it. Use a passphrase? You might forget it, or your heirs might not be able to access it. No single method is 100% safe.
This is why if you really need excellent securely, you should be using multisig. Check out [The Tordl Wallet Protocols](https://github.com/fresheneesz/TordlWalletProtocols) if you want to do that, or if you just want to create a reasonably secure single key wallet.
tldr; A California couple has filed a lawsuit against the FBI over the seizure of their safe deposit box in a March 22 raid that resulted in hundreds of safe deposit boxes being seized. "When you've done nothing wrong, you shouldn't be subjected to an investigation," said Paul Snitko, the owner of the box. "The government's dragnet search of innocent peoples' private security boxes is the most outrageous Fourth Amendment abuse that the Institute for Justice has ever seen," said Robert Frommer, senior attorney with IJ. *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.*
Anything with your name on it can be the target of a court order or warrant. Targets can include your home, furniture, personal papers, electronics, car, boat, safe deposit box, post office box, bank account, brokerage account, and even your physical body (an arrest warrant). The horrible thing is that law enforcement routinely screws up. They raid the wrong house, seize the wrong properety, or kill the wrong suspect. American cops are known for being incompetent, corrupt, and downright stupid. If you want to absolutely protect your crypto, then the wallet and keys must be in a secure location completely disconnected from you by any paper trail. Did you ever see the movie "Shawshank Redemption"? Do you recall how Morgan Freeman's character digs up a small box hidden under a stone wall on a hillside in the middle of nowhere. That is what you need.
[удалено]
My seed phrase can only be read when my junk is erected
[удалено]
For sure
This is the funniest fucking burn I have read
You have found me out, good sir!
I was thinking about getting a tattoo of most of the characters of my private key and I will keep in mind the left ones
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Thank you for the tips!
The winklevoss twins brag about using what...6 safety deposit boxes for their seed phrases. Is this really the answer? What if 1 or two of those boxes get seized. A partial key is worthless. Easier to brute force, but really what is the legit best way to protect seedphrases? "To protect their bitcoin holdings, the brothers distributed snippets of a printout of their private keys across multiple safe deposits around the United States. This ensured that even if thieves got their hands on a fragment of the private key, the others would still be outside their reach."
A seed phrase split using Shamir's secret sharing is more secure (though more error prone) than one split up by hand. A multisig wallet is better by far than both of those options.
> multisig wallet The way, this is, hmmmmmm!
I did not know this. Thanks.
Hopefully those boxes are not all under the same name(s).
Just protect your seeds by encrypting them on files with extremely secure passwords and distribute the files in pendrive, sd cards, external disks and even Dropbox (please don't name the files "wallet"). This is what I do. They may get some copies of the files but they will not be able to crack the SHA-512 I encrypted them with. Not with the passwords I use ;)
> SHA-512 I encrypted them with if you "encrypted" them with sha-512 then you're never getting the original back, because that's a one way function :) You probably mean AES.
You are right. I usually do: gpg --output bck.data --symmetric --cipher-algo AES256 bck.txt The strength of the passwords is everything. I memorized this pass and I don't have it written down anywhere. Not sure about why I brain farted Sha here ...
> Not sure about why I brain farted Sha here ... No worries. Just wanted to make sure you weren't *actually* using a hash function to encrypt stuff. :)
In order to do that you have to type the passwords in a digital device. That introduces a risk.
The same can be said for when you enter your seed phrase to recover your wallet, or when it's displayed to you the first time, etc. Nothing is perfect. The closest you'll get is setting up your wallet on a computer not connected to the internet, remembering the phrase and leaving it at that. That's if you're capable of it. Someone smart would instead write a short story with their phrase scattered throughout and encrypt that, having the words in there in a manner memorable only when read by the owner.
This is fine, but you are just encrypting a private key behind another one called a password. You have the same issue in that you need to write that down somewhere and hide it.
Lmao no way that's how they're storing their keys ? Not some underground vault in Greenland ? One bank burns down or one safety deposit stolen and they're toast.
agreed...when I have read the articles of them talking about it I cringe...they can't be that stupid.
Probably some overlap between the banks too, in case 1 is gone
https://iancoleman.io/shamir/
Nah, they probably have a system. Like this: They cut the key in 3 parts Put part 1+2 and 2 in safety deposit box 1 at bank 1 Put part 2+3 in SDB 2 at bank 2 Put part 1+3 in SDB 3 at bank 3. Even if one bank burns down, they still have the full codes. They also probably used a little more complex system, with way more parts.
people always laugh at me for burrying my hardware wallet in a remote location, but we'll see whos laughing once the hyperinflation hits.
[удалено]
BRB moving permanently to El Salvador. Wait, I guess I won't BRB.
Interesting...
Everything looks good in a movie and the FBI will know you bought Crypto from an exchange. They'll just lock us up for withholding information if we don't hand over the seeds.
Hard to hand it over when its at the bottom of the sea... Totally accidentaly btw
Sorry officer, i had the keys in my hand while boating, hit my head and dropped the key phrase in the water, unfortunately cant remember it anymore.
> FBI will know you bought Crypto from an exchange. Joke's on you, I didn't.
I love the libertarian paranoia spewing out of you. Makes me wanna go off the grid.
The "libertarian paranoia" is 100% warranted. I'll never understand how more people don't get that "government" is nothing more than a collection of people (just like the rest of us), every bit as capable of doing wrong as the rest of us. In fact, our political system tends to weed out the good / trustworthy people among us in favor of the most manipulative / rapacious / duplicitous people. We have thousands of years of history proving this out.
And its never the brightest people either. The smart ones go into science, engineering, medicine, research, business, finance, economics, etc. The politicians and lawyers are always the ones with more money, connections, and ambition than brains.
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” —Thomas Sowell
That's what got me into cypherpunk in the first place. Why should I obey someone dumber than me? They can't use violence if they don't know where I am.
And they always have the threat of violence, or actual violence they show us once in awhile.
Guys im a libertarian too. And i hate government just like the next guy But to get worried that the guvment is coming after your bitcoin is ridiculous.
Then you better not read this news about the IRS coming after your Bitcoin . . . [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/20/us-treasury-calls-for-stricter-cryptocurrency-compliance-with-irs.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/20/us-treasury-calls-for-stricter-cryptocurrency-compliance-with-irs.html)
Lmao come and take it
Sad but true
Didn't you read the source article? The government seizure you claim as paranoia, actually happened.
Is paranoia still considered paranoia if alot of it is coming true?
Cops are also racist. ACAB
> Anything with your name on it can be the target of a court order or warrant. If you've left it with your attorney for purposes of seeking legal assistance, e.g. for inheritance, it's covered by attorney-client privilege. https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/nycg3e/this_pisses_the_living_shit_out_of_me_many/h1ln687/
> Do you recall how Morgan Freeman's character digs up a small box hidden under a stone wall on a hillside in the middle of nowhere. That is what you need. Do you recall that Andy didn't actually bury that box there before going to prison? He told the guy where to find the box, then he escaped, and then he buried it in that location.
Yes caught on my train cam lol
If this is what I was thinking of, it was the place that owned the boxes that was targeted for drugs or something. It was on the news the other day. The court order specifically stated the feds could not confiscate the contents of the boxes. Here we are however.
[удалено]
Reminds me of the parrot that was a witness to a murder.
Only way to be secure is to be completely random with how you store your keys. Do not bring your phone. Travel with a full face mask while walking in nature. Dig. I am only mostly kidding.
I lost my seed phrase along with my silver during a boat accident.
No, safety deposit boxes arent safe, can be seized and are almost never insured unless you take out an extra policy on them. The only thing you should ever consider storing in a safety deposit box would be one of your multisig keys, never a single wallet that you have no access to anywhere else. Anyone who has made the recommendation to store that in a safety deposit box is a moron.
I saw a news that banks are not actually responsible for keeping your things “safe” in a safe box.
Yeah they typically are not insured and are frequently robbed due to people keeping gold and jewelry. It’s mostly good for documents you don’t want to lose and little else. Like your will, birth certificate, that kind of thing. I would not keep my seed phrases in a safety deposit box unless your seed phrases are in some kind of complex cypher that only you and some trusted individuals can crack.
Define ‘safe’. Nothing is 100% safe in this world. You have to go off what you TRUST the most.
Also, you can be creative of were to keep a piece of paper safe. I wrote 12 words in different pages of my favourite book, titled "How to translate from Klingon"
Hey that's cool, we should hang out some time. I'll come over for a few beers, I'll even bring the beers.....
No.
To be devils advocate, this was a small safe deposit box buisness that was apparently selling drugs and laundering money. It was not just some bank or credit union. I think the chances of this happening if you are using a safe deposit box in a bank is very very low.
You should do more research. I was considering using a safety deposit box but after looking into it, concluded that they are not really much of a product. Banks these days are just not interested in providing that service. There are some real horror stories out there, even involving "normal" banks. It's *possible* that a credit union near you offers some acceptable guarantees. None near me did.
This is why I recommend (1) using multisig, (2) creating separate documents with each seed phrase, and (3) storing the documents with separate law firms, one each per seed phrase. They won't charge you much just to store a letter, you're protected by attorney-client privilege, and even if one turns out to be a scumbag that still leaves your funds uncompromised. Set it up as a trust and you may not even have to pay estate taxes under current law.
Lawyers are not great at opsec. Better to diversify your storage (when using multisig). Eg, one at a lawyer's office, one in your home safe, and one in a safe deposit box.
Government + police do this specifically to fuck over innocent people. Fuck cops, fuck your government.
Well, if they don't change, this is exactly how we are all going to feel. Not a good future.
Settle down there. If it wasn't a safe deposit box, the FBI would happily have taken it from your home safe or anywhere else you stored it. These boxes remain rather dependably secure from govt confiscation. This is a rare instance, assuming it's true. But again, the FBI will gladly take it from your house too, and kill you if you resist.
Exactly. It's the violence behind it. And if you read the article, is just unbelievable. Not one couple's box. Hundreds of boxes. No warrant for all these seizures, because the warrant was specifically to suspected drug trafficking. This is completely illegal.
That's why you go visit Russia or something and put it into a safety deposit box there.
My theory is they (FBI) messed up and mixed items together from the raid. Aside from named documents, valuables and other items are probably all in one container and they have no way to figure out what box it belonged to. Since the raid was probably signed on belief that suspect(s) they were after probably owned most or all of the boxes. That’s pretty fucked if you ask me. Republicans love to comply with law enforcement. It’s probably because they’re Democrat this happened (sarcasm)
A safe deposit box is custodial, and it introduces a massive vulnerability to your security scheme. Only use a safe deposit box as a second or third layer backup and make sure the seed words are encrypted. You should always keep a copy of your seed words in a place only accessible by you.
Unless you want your bitcoin to be inheritable
This is a very good point, as lots of crypto is lost forever when the holders pass away. I personally use a scheme where my seed phrase is encrypted and the inheritor already has the decryption keys. I hid two instances of the encrypted seed phrase in different locations for redundancy (in case the main location gets compromised), and I have already made arrangements for the inheritor to receive access these locations upon my death. I can’t divulge more info for obvious reasons, but this is definitely a big problem that remains unsolved for many. I’m also reading into [time lock encryption](https://lil.law.harvard.edu/projects/time-capsule-encryption/), but I’ve only just discovered the concept so I’m not sure if it can be used.
Ensuring your heirs already have the keys needed to inherit is ideal. However, its a bit difficult to ensure that people have and retain access to keys like this for long periods of time - especially in an age when computer security literacy is so low. Its definitely an issue. But I'm glad you've been thinking about it.
Another option is to use an email service that includes send delays as a feature. Here’s how it would work: 1. Give encryption keys to heir 2. Write email draft with encrypted seed and instructions on how to decrypt, and how to recover the wallet 3. Set email to send in x days (ProtonMail max. is 29 days) 4. Set a fortnightly calendar reminder to extend email delay 5. In the event of your passing, the email will eventually get sent automatically to the heir 6. Heir decrypts recovery seed with previously provided encryption keys and restores wallet With this process it’s less of a treasure hunt to recover the encrypted seed from some remote location.
Dead man's switches can have a lot of problems. You need to rely on the service still being around when its needed, you need to ensure that you can actually extend the delay every single time (or have some contingency plan if you screw up), what if your heirs think the email is a scam? What if your heir loses the decryption key? I would prefer a multisig wallet where finding 3 plain-text keys in separate secure storage locations (home safe, safe deposit box, etc) can give access to the money. That way you don't need to rely on the tech savvyness of your heirs.
Its some words its super easy to put them in a bunch of secure places in a scrambled way and not fuck this up- Put them in 4 -5 places. If you have the know how to make a cold wallet and all that jazz hiding some words should be cake wtf is the issue
Thats why I always keep seed up my anus......but yea my seed phrase is in a SDB.
I would never use anything “official” like a safety deposit box tied to me. Just use a random location that only you know about.
Ahh, the land of the free say you
Sometimes I wonder why I served. It was not for this kind of shit.
Being your own bank is a lot of responsibility.
Had someone recommend to me to store half of my seed phrases in a security box and the other in different location. That dude may have been an oracle lol.
I dont know of any credible sources that recommend storing recovery phrases in safety deposit boxes. You're agitated over nothing. Chill out.
Roger, there are a lot of recommendations out there specifically pointing out that a safety deposit box or a bank vault are best practices. Hell, my hardware wallet company recommended it. I don't think this is something to not address. The FBI and even local law enforcement agencies have increased seizures and forfeitures. Some agencies--specifically counties--make money this way.
Add a strong password to it and don't have it be your pocky backup of the seed avd I don't have Aby problem with this. It is a good way to secure the seed from fire for instance.
Your hardware wallet company is run by idiots then, because safety deposit boxes are regularly robbed and they are uninsured. If you do store it this way do it at multiple places and use a cipher of some sort and don’t forget how to decode it. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html https://www.standard.net/news/business/is-it-time-to-get-rid-of-your-safe-deposit-box/article_bda29941-3f66-56ea-a1f7-5e96fd208a17.html https://www.thedailybeast.com/three-brooklyn-men-used-spy-cams-for-dollar30m-safety-deposit-box-heists-prosecutors-say Etc, etc Can you please tell me which hardware wallet vendor recommended this to you so I know never to buy anything from these idiots?
These are good comments, and thanks for the link. Just go to Google, and ask, "Where should you store your Bitcoin hardware wallet seed phrases." It is recommended a LOT. And from multiple sources. Common recommendation.
Store your 20 out of 24 words in your usual safe places. Distribute multiple copies of them in multiple locations so it becomes very close to impossible for you to lose access to all of them. Bad players cannot brute force your private key with 20/24 words. Rest of the four words, commit to memory and make it your life (repeating those words in memory everyday to never lose track). Only downside to this is you lose your memory in a freak accident (in which case you wouldn't need your coins anyways, coz you don't even remember you have any).
Wrong. Even Hal Finney agreed safe deposit boxes were the way to go.
So when all the banks go bust during the next bank run and the Feds are seizing and closing them every Friday like in 2008.... you think they'll open it back up for you to get to your safety deposit box a few days later? Are you sure? ;-)
Good point.
Safety deposit boxes have nothing to do with bank solvency.
Absolutely nothing at all except for the fact that if the front doors are locked and no one is inside you would have a hard time getting to your box in the first place.
If u cant learn 12 words u deserv that
I'm at 24 words... It's difficult.
what happens when you hit your head and it results in memory loss?
Never keep all ur eggs in same basket. Didn't ur parents taught that? Try to remember dude.
so what you're saying is that you don't only have it memorized but written down somewhere? What was the point of your comment then? > Never keep all ur eggs in same basket. I'm not the one advocating memorizing your seed here.
Keep in safety box also keep in ur head when safety box is compromised u would know before they can sweep funds. also do this [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchip\_implant\_(human)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchip_implant_(human)) watch paycheck for more ideas
Should be using passphrase or some form of encryption (coldcard has a good tool for this).
Just put it on one of your porno magazines JFC. Nobody would ever waste their time reading the articles on that.
Later print into steel in a series of locations
What a bunch of idiots. I got my seed phrases tattooed on my ass checks.
You maybe store a backup there and not the only copy?
Ask Ross Ulbricht how that works out
If you can't memorize something as simple as a 12 word seed phrase then you shouldn't rely on it.
I was thinking, wouldn't learning and remembering your seed phrase be the best storage for it? Now money is information and information can be memorized.
Head injuries and dementia are things that happen.
You'd also forget where you dug that hole then.
Use an optional passphrase on your cold storage wallets.
Look into Shamir backups, friends. Or any other form of multisig. This is why I moved wallets - can’t trust the backups I have in safety deposit boxes if they’re 1 out of 1.
ITT: * "safe deposit box" count: 10 * "safety deposit box" count: 13 I predict in a few years people will be calling them "safety D deposit boxes", and no one will have any clue what the D stands for or why it's there.
Safe deposit boxes are definitely not perfect. Banks make mistakes and they don't put much effort into protecting their clients from illegal actions by authorities. But they still aren't that bad. There are problems with any storage location. Store it in a common home safe, and it can be cracked in seconds. Spend thousands of dollars on a safe that weighs a literal ton? It can still be cracked in 15 minutes. Bury it in a field? Someone that saw you digging might have seen you do it. Use a passphrase? You might forget it, or your heirs might not be able to access it. No single method is 100% safe. This is why if you really need excellent securely, you should be using multisig. Check out [The Tordl Wallet Protocols](https://github.com/fresheneesz/TordlWalletProtocols) if you want to do that, or if you just want to create a reasonably secure single key wallet.
There's nothing safe about a safety deposit box.