Metal backups for your Bitcoin

One of the most mind-bending properties of Bitcoin is that with just 12 words any amount of wealth can be kept safe, under the control of a single person.

Your recovery seed is a list of words that backs up your Bitcoin keys. It must be stored in physical form written down as a list of words and hiding them somewhere, safe from online and physical attack. While you can also memorize your recovery seed, you should never rely on memory alone.

So how do you take care of a recovery seed?

Why use a metal backup?

As long as your keys were generated offline by your Trezor hardware wallet, they are unique. To ensure long-term access to your Bitcoin, you need to back them up offline and keep them as safe as possible.

All our wallets come with paper templates that you can use to write down your recovery seed. Paper and pencil is surprisingly resilient and takes a long time to degrade, but it is vulnerable to fire, water and other environmental factors. To prevent disaster, you should consider eventually upgrading to a metal recovery seed.

What stands the test of time longer than paper? Metal. Since the creation of the BIP39 recovery seed standard, dozens of companies have been creating plates, capsules and other products which are purpose-built to store seed words.

Metal backups come in many shapes and sizes, but are most commonly made of stainless steel or titanium; metals which can withstand housefires, munitions impact, corrosion and more.

An overview of metal recovery seeds

While almost all available options will be more resilient than a paper backup, there are significant differences between products.

Different materials will tolerate different environments; the shape of the backup will mean some are easier to hide; and the design will mean some are more prone to data loss if damaged, but they may also easier to use than others depending on whether they record full words or just abbreviations.

All of this should be considered according to your personal security needs. Jameson Lopp’s Bitcoin resources include methodical documentation of extreme tests of 70 metal backups that are highly recommended reading when deciding which backup is right for you.