I am BRAND NEW at this! I was thinking of holding my BTC on separate hard wallets. In other words, I plan to put about 25% on 4 separate hard wallets. (Three are Trezor; I have another of a different brand.) My thought was it made sense not to put all my eggs in one basket. Now that I have started putting BTC on my Trezor Safe 3 (I have three of this type hard wallet), I am wondering if this is a good idea or making things unnecessarily complicated. FEEDBACK welcome! Especially if you think this is dumb…but please tell me why so I can learn! THANKS A MILLION
It is possible to put all your eggs in one basket, under certain conditions. 1. The seed phrase must be generated only inside the hardware wallet (the device must not be fake or compromised with other firmware). 2. The seed phrase should never be entered into a software or web wallet. 3. For better security and your “peace of mind”, the Seed phrase of the BIP-39 standard must contain the 25th word as a passphrase. 4. If you are using Trezor Suite and need to enter the passphrase manually, then it is best to have a separate MacBook for this, because under Windows there is a higher chance of your passphrase being intercepted and who knows what else. 5. For long-term storage of Bitcoin, I recommend the Trezor device (Ledger I can only recommend if you need hardware support for other native blockchains, for example: Tron, Toncoin, Polkadot, etc., but I would advise using a different Seed phrase, generated on the Ledger wallet, which will not be used for the main storage of Bitcoin for the long term “HODL/HOLD”. There are some reasons why you should not trust the Ledger device 100% under certain conditions.
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you could just use 1 trezor device, so 1 main seed phrase.
Then have 3/4 different passphrases, 1 for each separate wallet.
You just want to be careful managing all these seed phrases / passphrases etc.
Forgetting them or not have proper notes etc and you’ll lose access to the crypto.
doing like this, a hacker would need the 1 seed and all the passphrases to gain access to each of the wallets.
Don’t share the same seed from a trezor with a ledger or other hardware/software wallet, as your potentially exposing the seed to both platforms.
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Honestly, it makes a certan amount of sense.
You get four wallets, that means four seeds. If you get phished out of one, you still have the other three, plus a valuable lesson that will hopefully teach you not to get phished again.
…of course, you’d also have to store the seeds in four separate places, so that if one of them gets robbed, the thief doesn’t get everything either.
…oooof course, you can do pretty much the same thing with Shamir Backup. If you store your shares in three different locations, then a thief gets nothing, and it is difficult to get phished out of a thing that’s in another city.
In terms of practical security, these are your greatest risks:
- falling for a phishing scam (Don’t give out your seed under any circumstances. Don’t enter seed to claim rewards. Don’t enter seed to “scan your wallet for problems”. Especially don’t enter your seed if “YOUR FUNDS ARE AT RISK!!!” or if there is a “FATAL WALLET ERROR”. Don’t tell your seed to tech support – and Trezor support will never ask you for it.)
- seed mishandling – e.g., you ““import”” your seed into Metamask which then gets hacked
- physical theft of the seed backup
- someone taking your Trezor and guessing (or knowing) the PIN.
Storing the seed backup somewhere else (like at your parents’ place) will cover (1) and (2). Using Shamir 2-of-3, and storing shares in three distinct places, covers (1), (2), and (3).
It’s up to you to set a good enough PIN to cover (4).
Splitting your savings into four different HW wallet brands kind of covers (1), (2), and (4), plus also (3) if your backups are stored in different places. It’s a little bit of a hassle, but it is not a wrong choice.
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REALLY appreciate the thoughtful answers and insights. I need a lot of coaching and this is VERY helpful. Still not sure what I will do, but I feel better attempting to make the decision. THANK YOU ALL
OK…ANOTHER question related to this idea of multiple wallets. IN a single trezor wallet, assuming I create 4 “passphrase wallets” (instead of using 4 separate physical wallets), do I have the ability to move coin from “passphrase wallet to passphrase wallet” inside the single Trezor physical wallet (with Suite), or do I have to “send” it through the network which would incur fees? My rookie assumption here is that any time I send from one address (with a passphrase “attached”/embedded/included or not) to another, that would involve going “outside the wire” through the network and “back” to my single physical Trezor…thereby incurring fees along the way.
A related question is that I am using my first Trezor right now without a passphrase. (Wanted to keep things simple starting out.) If I want to put the bit of coin that I have tested with so far (pulling off Coinbase) into a “passphrase wallet” from my existing “non passphrase wallet,” will it involve the same process as “going outside the wire” as I have imagined?
ALL feedback welcome…I am attempting to tread carefully, but understand that my ignorance can invoke eye rolling. Your patience appreciated and honesty even moreso!
First of all, you should not rush. Secondly, you need to clearly understand what you are doing and why.
Different passphrases are different wallets.
You cannot send bitcoins to yourself without paying a fee on the blockchain.
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Thanks for this…“Clearly understand” is my aim…but tough on the front end of learning! I believe you have answered my question…and confirmed my concern that once I put coin in a wallet (passphrase or no passphrase because it IS a separate wallet), I can’t move it without a fee even if appears in the same Trezor device. Correct?
The Trezor help page says this: “You can create any number of new passphrases and associated wallets. This means you can redistribute balances for added security, or simply to help you organize your accounts.” The words “redistribute balances” made me think I might be able to “move balances freely” but then I was thinking about it/confused/wondering (before I wrote last post) and I needed more feedback. THANKS for providing it.
Trezor itself is not a device for storing cryptocurrency, it is a hardware shell for your seed phrase and other keys. Trezor has the best functionality for managing Bitcoin.
A basic understanding of cryptography may also help, for example the RSA algorithm contains a private and public key for encrypting and decrypting data. So Trezor, like such an algorithm, stores a private key, which is determined by the seed phrase. With the help of a private key and the data inside it, Trezor can sign transactions when you press a button on it. All private operations take place inside the device, and only public data comes out of it, which cannot be compromised and re-encrypted without a private key, which is securely stored inside the hardware wallet.