For one moment, think about your precious cryptocurrency and digital assets. The time, years, and effort you’ve invested in accruing them, potentially adding up to a substantial amount of wealth. 

Then, in a few seconds, they’re gone forever into the blockchain.

All because you’ve lost or had your wallet damaged, failing to back it up when you first owned it. 

How would you feel, function, or even go about your daily life knowing you’d never see them again?

It’d be any enthusiast’s worst nightmare. 

Stick with us in this article to learn how to securely back up your hardware wallet so this does not become your own. 

What is a hardware wallet? 

Hardware wallets are cold, offline physical devices that store public and private keys linked to your blockchain address. You might commonly hear them referred to as cold storage.

Compared to a hot wallet (web-based or software), cold hardware wallets don’t provide any opportunity to expose your keys to the internet; only a brief connection is made with a device for a transaction to happen. 

Most of the time, hardware wallets resemble a device similar to a USB stick. Yet, at Cryptnox, we save you the headache with a portable wallet-friendly solution- a proprietary dual hardware smart card.

Different Backup Methods (Recovery Seeds, Backup Devices)

While your cryptocurrency is safe being held on the blockchain, it’s at significant risk of being lost if you can’t access your hardware wallet that stores your public and private keys. 

So, to ensure this never happens, you must implement additional security methods. If your original hardware wallet has been lost, damaged, or compromised, these methods will help you recover your wallet. 

In the crypto space, you’ll find many ways to back up your wallet; however, to keep things simple, today, we will stick to two common methods. Your 12-24 recovery seed phrase (using a web and mobile application) and using a backup device during the proprietary Cryptnox dual card init solution.

Backup process 

Before backing up your hardware wallet, you’ll need your recovery seed phrase, which consists of 12-24 randomized words from the BIP-39 Word List. This seed phrase you create when you first initialize your hardware wallet. 

If you’ve got a Cryptnox Hardware proprietary dual smart card set, learn our straightforward initialization process. When you undergo this process, the seed phrase won’t be displayed. Instead, it’s hidden in the cards and cannot be extracted, protecting your security.
When using the Cryptnox Wallet application in KIOSK mode, the PIN is always required (as a point of sale with someone else’s card).

On the contrary, if you don’t have a Cryptnox card, the best way is to use the Mnemonic initialization, where you’ll get a specific randomized set of words unique to your hardware wallet generated by an algorithm. 

 It might look something like this:

“Admit, aisle, canoe, decade, kid, monster, rent, property, sugar, water, wealth, zoo” 

It’s essential that you save your seed in a secure location offline, in a safe place, and never digitally. 

This phrase is your (BIP-32 seed) to access your public and private keys, and if it’s compromised or lost, then your crypto is theirs or stuck in the blockchain forever. 

Pro Tip: Skip the headache of locating and saving your phrase in a safe offline place. With the Cryptnox hardware wallet proprietary dual card setup, the backup is super simple and protects your privacy from the get go. You only need your backup card and the Cryptnox app; your seed phrase is never displayed on the screen.

Manually Backing up using your seed phrase 

If you don’t have a Cryptnox hardware wallet, the best option is to use a manual backup. Simply: 

1. Download a software wallet, i.e. Metamask
2. Select get started
3. Select wallet setup 
4. Click “Import using Secret Recovery Phrase”.
5. Complete the form, inputting your 12-24 recovery phrase  
6. Enter a new password 

Note: Add an extra layer of protection for your software wallet, make sure your password is at least 16 characters long, add a mixture of upper case letters, numbers, and symbols, and don’t use easy-to-guess phrases, words, or sequential numbers. 

Securing Your Backup

In addition to backing your wallet, you’ll want to add extra layers of security to ensure your keys are not compromised. After all, it’s good to be cautious, right? 

Because of this, we recommend encrypting your software wallet. With many software wallets, you’ll find different tools or methods, most commonly biometrics and pins.

Note: If you use the Cryptnox hardware card with the phone application, then accessing your card is linked to your phone biometrics. 

When pairing the card with your phone, you’ll inject a secret into the card, which is kept secure by your phone. However to inject this secret, you’ll need both your card’s pin and the puk. 

Whereas with a Cryptnox proprietary dual card set, you’ll be given an “Access Card” with a random PIN and PUK, that will be programmed into both the primary card and backup card during the init phase. It is mandatory to keep both the access card and the backup card, for later use of the backup card (pin and puk will be required).

As an alternative, Cryptnox also has a command line interface (CLI) desktop software for advanced users. In this software, you can build alternative layers of security by activating the following: 

• Windows Hello Biometrics (TPM)
• Yubikey Products with Personal Identity Verification (NIST 800-73-4)

Testing Your Backup

Once you’ve manually backed up and secured your backup, you must test it. You must do this to ensure there are no glitches in the event of a recovery. To test your hardware wallet backup, do the following:

1. Reset your hardware wallet to factory settings (you’ll find the instructions online from your hardware wallet provider) 
2. Restore it using your recovery seed 
3. Verify that the public address of the wallet is identical as before reset

Skip this: With a Cryptnox Hardware proprietary dual card set, you can bypass the above testing process; you only need to check in the card section of the application that both the primary and the backup cards have the same address.

Important: In the case of a proprietary dual card setup, you should never reset the cards. Also, the testing process is not possible in the case of a proprietary dual card setup, as the seed is never accessible in the clear. 

Straightforward storage and collection for crypto

Protect your privacy without carrying around a bulky hardware wallet by using a Cryptnox Hardware card dual set. They’re sleek smart cards that can easily fit in your wallet. 

This dual set serves the purpose of portability and provides superior and secure backup solutions. With a seamless initialization process and backup, we save you the stress, time, and inconvenience of manual methods. 

Most importantly, your seed phrases are stored on a smart card, meaning they’re never extracted or exposed to the public, being kept in cold storage the entire time. 

With advanced authentication methods, you also have a significantly lower risk of unauthorized access from malware, phishing, clipboard monitoring malware, and many more attacks. 

So what are you waiting for? 

Don’t compromise on the security of your cryptocurrency — order a Cryptnox Dual Card Wallet set today.