Paper wallet
A seed phrase or private key written on a physical medium (paper, metal plate) with no electronic storage at all. One of the safest cold-storage methods if its physical security is sound.
Aliases: paper backup, cold paper backup
Paper wallet is any physical medium that records a seed phrase or private key. Usually it is a sheet of paper with 24 BIP-39 words, sometimes with a QR code, sometimes a metal plate with engraved words.
Strictly, the “wallet” is the key information itself; it can be re-entered into any compatible wallet software at any time to regain access to the funds.
The big upside
Pure offline independence. Nothing is connected to the network, nothing syncs to the cloud, nothing can be hacked remotely. This is ideal protection against infostealers, ransomware, phishing, and OS supply-chain attacks.
The big downsides
- Fragile medium. Paper burns, soaks, fades. A house fire can erase the wallet permanently. The fix is a metal plate (Cryptosteel, Coldcard, similar) that survives fire and water.
- Physical theft. Anyone who reads the 24 words owns the wallet. Storing it in obvious places (a desk drawer) is a problem.
- Loss. Forgetting which book the note was tucked into is a real, common failure mode.
- Casual exposure. An electrician in the apartment glances at a sticky note on the wall and the wallet is compromised.
Good practices
- At least two copies in geographically separate places. Home plus bank deposit box. Home plus parents’ house. This survives fire and flooding.
- No “just in case” photos. A photo turns offline into online through iCloud / Google Photos.
- Do not include other wallet info on the same page. Address, balance, label “retirement fund” — all unnecessary. Less context makes it harder for an attacker to recognise what they have.
- Annual readability check. Pull out a copy, confirm the words are still visible, put it back. Old ink fades.
- Optional: SLIP-0039 (Shamir) splitting. The seed is split into N shares, K of which are required. Losing one share is not catastrophic. More complex; not every wallet supports it.
When it is not the right choice
Paper wallets are inconvenient for active trading or DeFi — every transfer means typing 24 words into a hot wallet, which is itself a risk. The right use is core long-term storage that is touched once in months, not days. For active flows, prefer a hardware wallet.