Backups
How to keep your recovery words so a lost phone is an inconvenience, not a loss.
Blank plate, twelve slots
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A blank backup plate: twelve numbered slots, stamped by hand at home, one letter at a time.
What a real backup looks like
Steel plates and paper cards have the same twelve or twenty-four numbered slots as your wallet’s list. The numbers matter: the words only work in their order.
- Stamp or write it at home, alone, with the wallet in front of you
- Never photograph it, scan it or type it into a website
- Check each word against the wallet's word list before you stamp
Holding your own keys means nobody can reverse a mistake or recover lost words for you.
Ways to keep the words
Each has a weak point. Most people use two.
Paper card
Cheap; weak against water and fire
Steel plate
Survives fire and flood; takes an hour to stamp
Two places
Protects against one break-in or one fire
Phone photo or cloud note
Never: the first place thieves look
Questions are the point of the course
Bring yours to an evening class in Springfield library. Seats are limited to twenty so everyone gets an answer.