Sentient Labs

Hardware Wallet Setup Recommendations

Hackers are constantly looking for new ways to compromise your security and gain access to your crypto currencies and NFTs. Protecting your tokens can seem daunting at first, but as with all good habits it becomes easier with time and repetition. Understanding how to set up a hardware wallet is the first step in your security journey.

Security Considerations

‼️ Do not store the seed electronically

‼️ Your home may burn down/be robbed

‼️ The hardware wallet may fail

How would I recover from disaster scenarios?

Buy a hardware wallet directly from the manufacturer (never used or new from 3rd party). Purchasing a second hardware wallet device provides an additional layer of protection if something happens to your primary one.
Purchase multiple steel (or titanium) seed phrase holders, either 2 or 4.
Take your time setting hardware wallet up. Carefully follow all steps listed by the manufacturer.
First copy your seed phrase twice on to paper. Then get the seed phrase into steel. Best practice is to use the 24 word seed phrase, but only store 12 together at a time.
Factory reset your device then test the seed recovery.
Once restored, sent a small asset to it.
Reset the device again.
Restored the device a second time and make sure you can send the asset back to your original address. These steps are time consuming and may take a couple hours, but you will have your recovery process down and know you can easily recover things after restore.

Next Steps

Store your seed phrase in multiple places, never with all pieces needed in any one location. Some people recommend multiple safety deposit boxes at multiple different banks. Remember, never keep more than half of your seed phrase in any one location. If someone else opens that box, you don’t want them to have the whole key.