Making a Metal Seed Backup
The metal seed kit
Not your keys, not your coin
You need to own the recovery keys to a wallet that contains your bitcoin.
Once you have those keys, you won’t really sleep soundly until they are stored somewhere. Long story short, etching them on metal is one way to do that.
Making your Backup
Materials:
To make life easier you can buy one of our kits which includes:
2 x Business-Card Sized Steel Plates - Varnished with electrical resist, ready to etch
1 x Etching Pen
1 x 9v Battery Connector Wire
2 x Absorbent Papers
1 x Cassette Case (with insert for 2nd backup of seed-words)
Plus Instructions
Note: In addition you will also need is a 9V battery and something you want to etch.
Instructions
Watch the video below first, which illustrates the full process:
Steps:
On the blue side of the steel plate write the words by scraping away the varnish with the etching pen. You can do this quite gently, just make sure that you are exposing the bare metal beneath the varnish
In a small cup mix together the water and salt at a 5:1 ratio (eg: 50ml water to 10g Salt) stirring until all the salt is dissolved
Stick the red wire (positive) to the middle of the back of the plate, and the black wire (negative) to the etching pen. Place the steel plate on a non-porous surface and connect the 9v battery
Add a little salt water to the face of the metal, ensuring that it comes into contact with the bare metal that will form the words
Soak the absorbent paper in the salt water and cover the face of the metal plate
Lay the pen across the plate, on top of the paper, and leave for 30 mins to 1 hour. Add more salt water to the paper if needed to avoid it drying out
Finally, rinse the plate. To quickly remove the resist varnish, use acetone
Now that you’re feeling more relaxed about your keys being safe, here’s a pretty little thing we made to help you keep an eye on the price of bitcoin:
