What happens if someone steals my seed phrase?
The seed phrase is used to generate your private keys (and thus your public keys as well). If someone has access to your seed phrase, they can "restore" your wallet Yoroi, Daedalus, or any other wallet application and can do anything with your wallet that you could do.
I think my seed phrase has been compromised, what should I do? We recommend immediately withdrawing all funds you have received to addresses that you control to mitigate the possibility of theft. This seed phrase enables anyone who is in possession of it to move all received funds to any blockchain address.
- Restart Into Recovery Mode. The Ledger Nano X has two buttons, one near the USB-C port and one on the far end. ...
- Set Your PIN Code. The Ledger Nano requires you to set up a PIN code before accessing the device. ...
- Add Your Seed Phrase. ...
- Reinstall Apps and Add Your Accounts.
You can simply write the phrases down on a piece of paper but I know many guys who took it one step further by engraving the seed words on a piece of metal. You should always store the recovery phrase and all cryptocurrency assets (in a cold wallet) offline.
It is not safe to invent your own seed phrase because humans are bad at generating randomness. The best way is to allow the wallet software to generate a phrase which you write down. As seed phrases use natural language words, they have excellent error correction.
Your private key is what links you uniquely to your blockchain address, while your seed phrase is a fingerprint of all your blockchain assets that you can use as a back-up if you lose your crypto wallet.
- Contact the police. ...
- Notify the cryptocurrency exchange. ...
- Follow the money. ...
- Call customer service. ...
- Don't talk publicly about owning the digital currency. ...
- Use multi-factor authentication.
Hackers can gain access to cryptocurrency owners' cryptocurrency wallets and exchange accounts to steal crypto.
A recovery phrase is usually generated from a specific list of 2,048 words. That means that your 12-word seed phrase has an iteration of 2,048 words. Therefore, it's almost impossible that someone could successfully guess your seed phrase.
Also, keep in mind that different wallets use different derivation paths. Exodus and Trezor both use the BIP39 standard. However, other wallets like Electrum use an older incompatible standard. This means that a 12-word phrase from an Electrum wallet can't be used with Exodus or Trezor.
Can I use the same seed phrase for two wallets?
Yes, by using the same seed phrase (and derivation path), you can have multiple instances of the same wallet. A wallet does not 'contain your bitcoin', it just contains the keys that allow you to spend your bitcoin.
Basically, your 12-word phrase is a set of words that allows you to recover and use your private key. And if you can recover your private key, you can access your wallet from anywhere in the world without having to carry anything around. It's a simple, user-friendly security measure which is very powerful.
Open the app and go to the gear icon at the bottom right. Then scroll down and choose Create or Import a Key. Then, choose Import Wallet and the Recovery Phrase tab. Type out your 12 word recovery phrase and click Import to restore your funds.
Never store your seed phrase online. Never enter your seed phrase into any online application without your due diligence. Never give anyone your seed phrase. Don't lose your seed phrase.
If your device is lost, stolen, or no longer working, you can restore your funds through your recovery phrase on any hardware or software wallet that supports 24-word recovery phrases. Make sure that your Recovery sheet is easily accessible. You can download a new Recovery sheet here. Restore from Recovery phrase.
As mentioned earlier, the seed phrase must not be shared with anyone; thus, keeping it safe is important; otherwise, anyone with access to your crypto phrase can gain access and control of your crypto assets.
Never share the key or the seed phrase with anyone. Once the private key is generated, the public key is created based on the private key through elliptic curve mathematics. We won't go deep into this, but suffice to say that this method ensures your private key can never be guessed through your public key.
Never type your 24-word seed into a computer. There have been malware and keylogger attacks on PCs, instantly stealing people's Bitcoin once typed in. If you need to recover a wallet, do it into the hardware wallet directly using something like Coldcard, Trezor Model T, or Ledger.
No. Even if your recovery phrase has been exposed, you can't change the words nor their order. What is this? As a consequence, in case someone has figured out the phrase, you need to move the funds out of the wallet asap and create a new wallet with a new phrase.