What is a metal seed plate used for?
Hardware wallets like Ledger Nano and Trezor are a great idea and provide much more security that software wallets, however if you lose your hardware wallet it can often mean you have lost all of your crypto currencies. This is where seed phrases come in.
A seed phrase is usually a list of 12-24 randomly selected words that can allow you to access your bitcoin on the blockchain if you lose access to your hardware wallet. An example of a seed phrase is:
witch collapse practice feed shame open despair creek road again ice least
If you are able to remember all of the words in the correct order you can easily recreate your wallet complete with all your private keys and thus gain access to your crypto currencies again. Writing the seed phrase down on paper is probably preferrable to trying to remember it - however paper is not very durable (fire, water, ink fades, pets, tearing etc.). This is where metal plates become useful, engraving your recovery seed phrase on to a metal plate is a more durable and permanent solution. You still need to keep the metal plate safe e.g. safety deposit box.
Examples of companies who offer metal seed plates for storing your crypto currencies are:
Cold Titanium - https://coldti.com
Privacy Pros - https://privacypros.io
Hodlinox - https://hodlinox.com
CypherWheel - https://cyphersafe.io
Ellipal Mnemonic Metal - https://www.ellipal.com
Blockplate - www.blockplate.com
CryptoSteel - https://cryptosteel.com
Cryptostag - https://cryptotag.io
Hodlr Swiss - https://hodlr.swiss
All of the above steel plate wallets will protect you against
Corrosion
Fire
Hackers
Rust
EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) Shocks
Water
Below is a link to a document containing a detailed review of a number of hardware seed storage products, it rates them on a number of factors including how resistant they are to corrosion, fire, crushing etc. We hope you find it useful.
N.B. Please avoid any devices where the device manufacturer knows your private key!
