Crypto Security Refresher 🔒

As this bull market heats up, scams are becoming much more prolific. Despite all the education we do around security, we still see investors falling victim. So we’re sending out this reminder so you can keep your assets safe.

The truth is, scammers know exactly how to disguise themselves, make you panic, or trust them just enough to give up your keys.

But as we’ve said many times before:

You should never, ever share your private keys with anyone.

Scammers will try many tricks to extract your keys from you. They will manipulate, lie, tug on your emotions and impersonate institutions. This can look like:

• A fake email from Trezor or Ledger saying you need to ‘update’ your hardware wallet or risk losing your funds.
• A seemingly helpful person in a ‘support’ forum offering to fix your wallet issues.
• Someone posing as an exchange rep, wallet provider, or even DWG, asking you to verify your private keys.

Unfortunately, these scams all end the same way – your wallet gets drained. Years of accumulation can disappear from one simple mistake.

This is the last thing we want for crypto investors.

So please, do not share your keys with anyone, no matter how trustworthy or ‘official’ they seem.

When do you actually need your private keys?

There’s only one time you will actually use your private keys, and that’s to restore a hardware wallet because your device is lost, damaged, or stolen.

You do not need them to buy or sell crypto.
You do not need them to log in to an exchange.
You do not need them to verify transactions.

If you’re not restoring a wallet? Your keys should be locked away in a fireproof and waterproof safe. Or better yet, use a metal backup that lets you physically engrave your keys, keeping them safe from fire, water, and damage (we recommend Bradshaw Knox].

The worst places to store your private keys

Many investors unknowingly put themselves at risk just by where they store their keys. Here’s what not to do:

• Don’t screenshot your private keys – malware and apps can scan your phone for anything resembling a seed phrase.
• Don’t store them in your phone or anywhere online – your phone and devices are vulnerable to hacking.
• Don’t email them to yourself – if your email gets hacked, so does your crypto.

Think of your crypto like cash. If you had $10,000 in cash, would you throw it in a junk drawer? Probably not. The same level of care you’d take to protect your life savings needs to go into protecting your private keys.

Common mistakes to avoid

Even if you store your keys securely, a few critical mistakes could still lock you out of your wallet forever:

• Forgetting where you stored them – plenty of people put them in a ‘safe place’ and then forget where that place was.
• Writing down an incomplete seed phrase – leaving out a word for ‘security’ is a terrible idea. Missing just one word makes your wallet easy to brute-force hack.
• Forgetting your passphrase – it’s just one extra word, but if you forget it, you are permanently locked out. No recovery, no second chances.

Remember, there is no customer support for crypto, so if you lose your keys or give them away, your funds are gone forever. That’s the trade-off for full control of your assets.

However!

Great responsibility also comes with great opportunity. This space offers wealth-generating potential unlike anything else, and in my opinion, it’s worth every extra security measure we take.