But are your keys truly secure? Being your own bank requires military-grade security thinking. Test your seed phrase protection, hardware wallet setup, backup strategies, and recovery plans against real-world disasters. Most self-custody fails at the first serious threat.
Six critical scenarios that expose the weaknesses in most self-custody setups. Each test simulates real conditions where crypto holders have lost everything. Can your security survive when it matters most?
Tell your next of kin to retrieve your coins as if you had died. They are only allowed to use the info they have now. No new note or instructions allowed. If you died today they wouldn't have those instructions either.
Put your phone down and pretend that it, your PC and every single thing in your home/office is destroyed. Now retrieve your coins. Remember, no use of your phone or anything from your home. No paper, no notes, nothing.
Stop what you are doing & assume 2 or more armed attackers are now at your main premises. Assume they have disabled means for help & assume they will find a safe if you have one. If they threaten violence against you how exactly do you deal with this? What can they get?
Assume that over a period of 3 weeks you suffer from illness, amnesia, dementia or extreme trauma which causes you to forget everything about your current setup. How do you or your loved ones/living assistants rebuild and understand your storage system?
You speak "misinformation", are a political enemy or are accused of a crime. The government gets a search warrant for your office, home, bank & safe deposit box. Assume they will find any 12 or 24 word pass phrase or private key on the premises. Can an agent sweep it?
There is extreme political turmoil in your country and you have 24 hours to pack your bags & move to another country. Assume banks/safe deposit locations are closed. You won't be able to return to your country. Can you bring your coins and access them in a new country?
Prove us wrong. Think your seed phrase is safe? Your hardware wallet secure? Your backup plan bulletproof? Face the exact scenarios that have cost self-custody advocates millions. Memory extraction. Device compromise. Backup destruction. Inheritance nightmares. Test your setup before reality does.
Every storage method has a breaking point. Understanding the failure modes of each wallet type is crucial for building a robust security stack. No single method is perfect. The key is layered defense and understanding exactly where each approach fails.
Store seed phrases or private keys purely in human memory
"Unhackable" - exists only in your head
Human memory is the weakest link in any security system
Short-term storage during high-risk travel
Everything else
Print private keys/seeds on paper, store in secure location
Offline, immune to digital attacks
Paper is fragile and obvious
Short-term cold storage with multiple copies
Long-term storage, single locations, obvious hiding spots
Purpose-built devices for key storage and transaction signing
Air-gapped security with physical confirmation
Still computers that can be compromised
Daily use with proper OPSEC
High-value storage, nation-state threats, physical coercion
Require multiple signatures to authorize transactions
No single point of failure
Multiple attack surfaces, coordination complexity
Corporate treasury, family inheritance planning
Personal use, emergency access, hostile legal environments
Maintain obvious "dummy" wallets with small amounts while hiding real wealth
Attackers satisfied with decoy, leave real funds alone
Sophisticated adversaries expect decoys
Opportunistic theft, amateur attackers
Professional criminals, state actors, comprehensive investigations
Hide wallet data within innocent-looking physical objects, engravings, or digital files
Invisible to casual inspection, survives physical searches
Pattern analysis and thorough searches defeat most hiding methods
Evading casual searches, automated scans, border crossings
Professional searches, advanced imaging, systematic investigations
The question isn't "which wallet is secure?" but "which combination of methods can survive YOUR specific threat model?"
As wallet technology improves, so do attack methods. Today's cutting-edge security is tomorrow's known vulnerability.
The more sophisticated your setup, the more ways it can fail. Every additional layer of security adds potential failure points.
If you can't access your funds under stress, in the dark, with a gun to your head, then your security is theater, not security.
The only way to know if your setup works is to stress-test it against real scenarios. Theory means nothing when reality comes knocking.