Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Merits 4 from 1 user
Re: [Guide] Ways to improve your seed phrase backup process.
by
Darker45
on 14/12/2023, 00:03:16 UTC
⭐ Merited by o_e_l_e_o (4)
Moreover, in case of death, amnesia, accident that makes you unconscious for the rest of your life, or whatever extreme yet real-life possibilities, will there be anybody else who's able to unlock that encryption? Or will the coins perish with you?
I remembered something from o_e_l_e_o.

Other answers above have told you just how insecure brain wallets are and how humans are a terrible source of entropy.

Each year:

69 million traumatic brain injuries: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29701556/
12 million strokes: https://www.world-stroke.org/assets/downloads/WSO_Global_Stroke_Fact_Sheet.pdf
10 million new diagnoses of dementia: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia
5 million new diagnoses of epilepsy: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/epilepsy
2.5 million cases of meningitis: https://www.path.org/articles/toward-world-without-meningitis/
2 million new brain tumors: https://academic.oup.com/noa/article/3/1/vdaa178/6043315
1.5 million cases of encephalitis: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163445322002110

That's each year, and that's only major conditions which directly affect the brain. Add in things like cardiac arrest, heart disease, sepsis, shock, diabetes, vascular injury, hemorrhage, poisoning, smoke inhalation, etc., all of which can cause secondary brain injury, and there are literally hundreds of millions of people every single year who suffer some form of insult to their brain which can lead to memory problems.

Do you want to trust all your coins to those odds? I know I don't.

Thanks for quoting his post. The actual figures are much higher than I would probably estimate. But even without knowing the actual numbers, even discounting all these diseases, illnesses, and injuries, can we fully trust our memory or our brains even if they're healthy? I don't think so. It doesn't take an amnesia for people to forget things. And given that what's at stake is something that we can't just afford to lose, should we risk it? Of course, not.