Seed Backup Strategies
How to back up a recovery seed so it survives fire, flood, loss, and coercion without creating a new single point of failure — covering metal backups, Shamir secret sharing, and multisig geographic distribution.
The Seed Is the Wallet
When you set up a self-custody wallet you are shown a recovery seed — usually 12 or 24 words. Those words are the wallet. Anyone who has them can recreate it and take everything; anyone who loses them permanently loses access if the device also fails. Backing up the seed well is therefore the central discipline of self-custody, and it is a genuine balancing act: you need the backup to be durable and recoverable by you, while being useless to anyone else and resistant to disasters.
Why Paper Is Not Enough
The seed card that ships with a wallet is a starting point, not a backup strategy. Paper burns, soaks, fades, and tears. A single copy in one location is one house fire away from total loss. The first upgrade almost everyone should make is to record the seed on something fireproof and waterproof — a stamped or engraved metal plate — and to think carefully about how many copies exist and where they live.
- The recovery seed can fully recreate your wallet — it is the crown jewel
- Losing it can mean permanent loss; leaking it means theft
- Paper is fragile; metal backups survive fire and water
- How many copies exist and where is a deliberate security decision
Key Takeaways
- Your seed is the ultimate key — protect it as such
- Move off paper to a fireproof, waterproof metal backup
- Backup design balances durability and recoverability against theft resistance
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References & further reading
- primarySLIP-39 — Shamir secret sharing for mnemonics
The specification behind Trezor's Shamir backup.
archived copy ↗ - primary