At the subreddit for Ethereum, Bitcoin, Trezor, Ledger etc I see almost weekly post from people that have lost or almost lost their coins because they do not understand the importance of their seed phrase. So to everyone, especially those new to crypto. Keep your seed phrase safe. Never ever share it with anyone. Anyone who knows your seed phrase has full access to your crypto. If you lose access to your seed phrase your crypto is lost as well. If you use a passphrase/25th word with your seed phrase know this: Everything you write in as a passhrase will open a new set of keys/addresses/accounts. There is no right or wrong passphrase and there is no one to recover it for you if you forget it. If your passphrase is LoverBoy69, and you type in loverboy69 that will be valid as well and open another set of keys. So do not lose or forget your seedphrase if you use one.When storing your seed phrase and passphrase do not make it so complicated you do not understand it yourself or your family if you were to die. I see many scramble the words, split them up, replace them with synonyms. Chances are you will not remember all these clever things you did a year or two from now and your crypto may be lost.Many use Shamir's secret when storing their seedphrase. In short you cut up the 24-word mnemonic into sections of three 8-word rows. Row A, B and C. Then you take three items of paper/steel. On paper one you write down the words for Row A and B. On paper two you write down the words for Row A and C, and on paper three you write down the words for Row B and C. This way you will only need two of the three papers to access your crypto.After this you store them at different physical locations. For example one in your home, one in a bank box and one at another bank box in another bank or at your parents/children's house etc... If your house burned down or a robber got the paper stored in your house, they would still not be able to access your crypto and you would still have access to the other two parts giving you full access to your crypto. This is not a flawless method but one much used.Hopefully this can prevent a few of you from losing your seed phrase or writing it into a phishing site.tl;dr: Anyone who knows your seed phrase has full access to your crypto. A passphrase will open a new set of keys, there is no wrong passphrase, everything you type in will open new set of keys. Do not make storing the seed phrase so complicated you lock yourself out.
Submitted October 12, 2020 at 01:37PM
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