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Paper burns, so plan your seed phrase backup
A seed phrase backup belongs on paper or steel, stored offline, never in a photo, an app, an email draft, or any chat window.
Written by John AlewineReviewed by the Crypto Guidance team
Published ยท Updated
Your seed phrase is the master key to everything you own on-chain. Anyone who has it has your crypto. No company can reset it. So the backup gets boring, physical treatment.
Write it on paper or steel. Never in a photo, a notes app, a password manager synced to the cloud, or an email draft. Cloud backups get breached, and a phrase that was never written down at all is gone for good.
Chat windows count too. A seed typed into any chat, including an AI chatbot, is a seed typed into a website. I never want it typed into a website, ever.
Store it offline. Pick somewhere you would trust with a passport, where fire and flood will not take it.
Paper burns. Once the amount would hurt to lose, graduate to a steel backup. Then actually test a restore on a spare device, so you know the words open what you think they open. My restore test guide walks through it.
The full self-custody checklist lives on the security page.