CRYPTO GUIDANCE INC.

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How to Test a Seed Restore

Published 2026-08-15. Last updated 2026-08-15. Written by John Alewine, Crypto Guidance Inc.

Educational only. Never type a seed into a website, a chat, or a "support" form.
If you are already missing coins, stop and call someone sober. Do not improvise.

Who This Page Is For

The person who wrote twelve or twenty-four words on a card last year and has never proven those words open anything. I will not sign off on a family letter until this test has been done once. It is boring. It is the whole product of self-custody.

It is not for someone who lost the card and wants me to guess it. Nobody can. It is not for someone whose coins already moved and who is being walked through a "recovery dapp." That is a drainer.

What You Are Proving

Three facts, nothing more:

The backup is readable (paper, steel, or both).
Those words, on a device you control, produce the same addresses you already use.
You can wipe the test device afterward so you do not leave a second hot copy sitting around.

You are not moving the stack. You are not "updating" anything. You are checking that the spare key in the safe is a real key.

What I Have People Do

Use a spare device, not your daily phone. A wiped hardware wallet, a cheap spare you can factory-reset, or a laptop that is about to be erased. Do not import the seed into the same MetaMask you use for Discord.
Go offline if you can. Airplane mode, or a device that will never see Wi-Fi again. An air-gapped restore is the gold standard. A brief online restore to a hardware device you then wipe is what most households actually finish.
Enter the words from the backup, not from memory. The point is the object in the safe, not your recitation. If a letter is wrong, you want to learn it now.
Match the derivation path. Bitcoin native SegWit (bc1) is usually m/84'. If the test wallet shows zero and your real wallet does not, you are probably in the wrong hallway, not robbed. A passphrase you forgot is the other usual empty room.
Confirm one receive address you have used before, or a small known balance on a watch-only view. Then stop. Do not send a "test transaction" to a stranger who offered to help.
Wipe the spare. Factory reset. Confirm it no longer shows the accounts. Put the backup back where it lives. Write the date you tested it on the instruction letter.

What Not to Do

Do not photograph the card "so the test is easier."
Do not paste the words into a website that promises to "validate BIP-39." Your wallet already does that with a checksum. See BIP-39.
Do not test on a device you will keep using as a daily driver with the seed loaded. That is how a restore becomes a second hot wallet.
Do not skip the wipe because you got hungry. The leftover copy is now the weakest link.

If the Restore Shows Zero

Stop spending. Check the path, the network (Bitcoin vs. Ethereum vs. Solana), and whether a passphrase was ever set. Sparrow is the desk I use to hunt Bitcoin paths. If you still cannot see the coins and the amount matters, this is a consulting hour, not a YouTube evening. Call or text (479) 283-6457 or email [email protected]. Bring the device, not a photo of the words.

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