Seed phrase storage, compared

The phrase is the wallet

A recovery phrase is the backup of the private keys. Anyone who reads it can recreate the wallet and move the coins. The phone, the extension, and the hardware device are holders of a copy. The phrase is the original in the only sense that matters: lose every device and the phrase still spends; lose the phrase and the devices, and the coins are gone if no other copy exists.

BIP-39 is the word list most wallets mean when they say twelve or twenty-four words. The words are not a password you chose. They are a human encoding of a random number. A passphrase, sometimes called a twenty-fifth word, is extra and optional. It is not one of the BIP-39 words. If you set one and forget it, the twenty-four words alone open a different, empty wallet. SLIP-39 is a different scheme, used by some Trezor backups, that splits the secret into shares. Do not mix the words from one standard with a restore screen from the other.

This page compares places to keep that secret. It does not rank a brand of steel plate, and it does not quote a price. Prices were left off the hardware profiles on purpose. The choice between exchange, hot wallet, and hardware is a shorter decision. This is what you do with the phrase after you have one.

Paper

Paper is the default a wallet shows you: write the words, in order, and keep the paper. It survives a dead phone. It does not survive a fire, a flood, or a trash can. It is easy to photograph by accident, and a photo in a camera roll is a copy you did not mean to make. Ink fades. Pencil smears. Two copies in two buildings beat one copy in a desk, and two copies also mean two places a visitor can find the words.

Write the words yourself. A printer attached to the computer that just generated the phrase is a computer that saw the phrase. Confirm the words by restoring into a wallet you just reset, or by using the wallet's own check, before you send a balance you cannot lose. A phrase you have never restored is a rumor that the paper is correct.

Do not 'improve' the paper by typing the words into a note so you have a searchable copy. Searchable means every app that syncs that note has the wallet. The security tools page on this site already says a seed does not belong in an ordinary password-manager note. The same rule covers email drafts, screenshots, and a chat with yourself.

Metal

A metal backup is the paper idea with a material that handles heat and water better. You stamp, engrave, or tile the words into steel or a similar plate. The threat it answers is a house fire or a flood, not a thief who can read. A plate in a drawer is as easy to read as paper, and louder to carry through an airport if you are the sort of person who labels it 'seed'.

The failure mode is a tile in the wrong order, or a word you mis-stamped and did not notice. Restore a small test balance, or run the wallet's recovery check, before you depend on the plate. Number the words. BIP-39 order is the wallet. A scrambled plate is a puzzle, not a backup.

Some kits sell you a product that stores the phrase in a gadget with a battery and a radio. That is no longer a plate. It is a device. Read what happens when the battery dies and whether the words can be extracted by anyone who holds it. This guide will not call that a metal backup.

The hardware device is not the backup

A hardware wallet keeps the keys off the computer that builds transactions. You still write the phrase down if the device uses one. The device can be lost, broken, or updated into a brick. The phrase is how a replacement device becomes the same wallet. People who skip the paper because 'the device is the backup' have one copy, inside a product that can fail.

Buy the device from the maker. A pre-filled phrase card in a reseller box is someone else's wallet. Generate the words on the device, on its screen. Ledger and Trezor are the two widely used examples in this set. The profiles do not quote a price. The setup habit is the same on both: words written by you, device screen checked against the recipient address, firmware from the vendor's app.

A seedless card, such as the model Tangem markets, is a different backup. There may be no phrase to write. The backup is another card, or a process the maker describes. Lose the only card and you may have nothing to restore. Read that process before you skip the paper. Do not invent a phrase the device never showed you and call it a backup.

Passphrase and split backups

A BIP-39 passphrase is an extra string the wallet mixes into the seed. The twenty-four words without it open one wallet. The same words with it open another. That is useful if you want a decoy wallet, or a second factor that is not stored with the words. It is a foot-gun if you set it once, do not record it, and later type a close misspelling. The coins are not gone in the sense of stolen. They are behind a string you cannot reproduce. Store the passphrase separately from the word list, in a form you will still understand in five years. 'The name of the dog' is not a storage plan if you will not remember which dog.

A split backup means no single piece is enough. SLIP-39, and multisig arrangements that require more than one key, both work this way, with different mechanics. In a threshold scheme you choose how many shares exist and how many are required. Two of three is a common shape: a fire can take one share, a thief who finds one share cannot spend, and you can still restore. Lose two shares in a two-of-three and you are done. Write down the threshold next to the shares. A stack of metal plates with no note of how many you need is not a plan.

Multisig, where each key has its own phrase, is the version that also changes how you spend. A single signature is not enough. That protects you from one stolen phrase and it complicates inheritance. Someone who is supposed to recover the coins needs the instructions, not only a plate they found in a drawer. Tell that person where the instructions are. Do not tell them by texting the words.

Copies that feel safe and are not

A photo is a copy. A cloud drive is a copy. A password manager is a copy, and it is only as private as that account. An exchange account is not a copy of your phrase at all. The exchange holds its own keys. If your plan is 'the coins are on the exchange, so I do not need a phrase,' you are describing custody, not a backup of a self-custody wallet. Both can be reasonable. They are not substitutes.

A support agent, a 'wallet validation' site, and this website do not need the words. Anyone who asks you to type them is taking the wallet. The words do not expire and they do not need to be 'confirmed' on a webpage to keep working.

Inheritance is the case people postpone. If you are the only person who knows the plate is in a book, the coins die with that knowledge even when the plate is perfect. A letter that says 'the hardware wallet instructions are in the blue folder, and the lawyer has a share' is a different document from the words themselves. Keep those apart.

• The words were generated by the wallet, not by a website, and you can restore them.
• At least one copy survives a fire at the house where you sleep. You know where it is.
• No copy is a photo, an email, or a chat.
• If you use a passphrase, it is written somewhere that is not the same object as the word list, and you have opened the wallet with it once.
• If you use shares, the threshold is written down, and you still have enough shares if one location is lost.
• A person who should inherit knows how to find the instructions without being handed the words in advance.

Questions