Brain Wallet

A brain wallet refers to storing cryptocurrencies in your mind by using your brain and the power of memorization to remember your seed phrase.

Seed phrases are provided to you when you create a wallet for the first time.

Seed phrases are provided by mobile wallets on your smartphone, by desktop wallets on your computer or Mac when installing standalone software, or web wallets provided by the likes of Coinbase exchange or MetaMask browser extension wallet.

If you know your seed phrase, you can fully recover your wallet to any computer device or smartphone.

Using your memory as your primary wallet is an absolutely horrible idea.

Why do you ask?

Well, if you die, your cryptocurrency and digital assets are all gone. Bad.

You’re dead and you’ve lost it all.

Why else is it a horrible idea to store your cryptocurrencies in a brain wallet?

Seed phrases are a collection of 12, 18, or 24 random words.

I can barely remember my name and now I’m tasked with remembering up to 24 words, in a specific order.

Are you crazy?

Even though seed phrases are comprised of fairly basic words, there are still a whole bunch of them.

If you forget just one or forget the order of all of the words, you’ve lost it all.

If you’re completely sold on using a brain wallet, don’t let it be the only wallet or backup method you use.

Use a combination of a brain wallet and a paper wallet.

Better yet, as it seems you like life just a bit more difficult than most people, grab a piece of wood and carve your private key or seed phrase into the wood.

Make sure it’s readable.

Seriously, now forget all of that and copy your private key or seed phrase on a piece of paper and store it somewhere safe, like in a bank safety deposit box.

Thank us later!

Related Terms

Seed Phrase

A collection of random words generated during wallet creation that lets you get back into your crypto wallet if you lose access or delete it. Knowing your seed phrase ultimately gives you access to your private key, which verifies your ownership of your cryptocurrency. Anyone who knows your seed phrase can use it to make a copy of your wallet and add it to their own device. Once that happens, they can empty all of your funds from your wallet.

Cold Wallet

Cold wallets are not connected to the Internet, providing added security over hot wallets. Cold wallets are not directly exposed to Internet security threats like hacks, phishing attempts, malware, viruses, and other attacks that could lead to the permanent loss of your cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

Paper Wallet

Another form of cryptocurrency wallet that is literally a physical piece of paper with your public and private keys written or printed on it. It lets you store and access your cryptocurrency offline, or not connected to the Internet.

Desktop Wallet

A common type of crypto wallet used to securely store and manage your private keys on a computer hard drive. They’re considered more secure than web-based wallets, since you can only access them from wherever your computer is located, and again, you control your private keys.

Wallet

Made up of a unique public address called your public key (similar to your bank account number) that you can share with the world, your friends, family, and other businesses and companies that you trust, to send and receive digital assets. A wallet also stores a private key (much like the PIN that you use to access your bank account at the ATM), which, when combined with the public key, confirms ownership of the wallet, and allows you as the wallet owner to view the digital record of your wallet transactions, and allows you to perform actions such as buying, selling, withdrawing, and swapping funds.