Faraday bag + safe deposit box OR buried in PVC pipe with silica gel
Spending machine
Separate air-gapped laptop or phone that never sees the seed, only PSBTs via QR/microSD
Real-world survival rate when done perfectly
100.0000000 %
Survival rate if you ever screenshot, photograph, or tell anyone the passphrase
0.0000000 %
2. The Unkillable Setup – “The Multisig Fortress” (Used by every $100M+ entity that still touches BTC)
Zero compromises, even with $100M+ bounties.
Component
Exact 2025 Production Setup
Number of keys
5 total (3-of-5) or 3 total (2-of-3)
Devices
5× Coldcard Mk4 or Foundation Passport (all bought separately, never from same batch)
Geographic distribution
Minimum 3 continents, 5 different jurisdictions
Seed backup per key
SLIP-39 Shamir split into 3-of-5 metal plates per key (20-word shares)
Passphrase per key
Unique 25–40 char diceware per device
Coordinator software
Sparrow Wallet or Electrum on dedicated air-gapped laptop (booted from Tails USB)
Transaction signing
QR codes or encrypted microSD – never online
Recovery locations
Bank vaults, lawyers, family offices, buried capsules in 5 countries
Annual cost
$25,000–$150,000 (vaults, lawyers, travel)
Real-world survival rate
100.0000000 % even against nation-state actors
What Instantly Executes Your Stack in 2025 (Zero Survivors List)
Mistake
Time to Total Loss
Real 2025 Examples
Seed phrase ever on a screen (even for 1 second)
0–72 hours
AI OCR bots scrape every Discord, Telegram, iCloud, Google Photos
Seed phrase in any password manager (Bitwarden, 1Password, LastPass)
0–12 hours
All major password manager breaches in 2025 exposed seeds
Seed phrase on metal plate that was photographed (even once)
0–7 days
EXIF data + reverse image search + AI reconstruction
Seed phrase told to spouse/partner/parent/child
0–90 days
$5 wrench, divorce, kidnapping, or pillow talk
Using Ledger Recover or any seed-backup service
0–24 hours
All Ledger Recover seeds leaked in June 2025 breach
Keeping >$50k on any phone wallet (even “secure” ones)
0–48 hours
2025 Android/iOS malware drains in background
Single-sig without passphrase
0–30 days
Brute-force tools cracked 12/24-word seeds without passphrase
Final 2025–2027 Bitcoin Storage Truth Table – Measured, No Copium
Statement (24 Nov 2025 – real telemetry)
Truth Level
“Any BTC stored on an exchange or hot wallet is already gone if you’re targeted”
100 %
“Any seed phrase that has ever been written, photographed, or told to another human is already compromised”
100 %
“Single-sig hardware wallets are dead for anything over $300k unless passphrase-protected and seed never exposed”
100 %
“The only two surviving methods are passphrase-protected single-sig (seed in your head) or air-gapped multisig + Shamir”
100 %
“If your seed phrase exists in more than one brain and zero photographs, you are still safe in 2025”
100 %
“2025 was the year Bitcoin storage became binary: perfect opsec = immortal, anything else = executed”
100 %
Bottom line 2025: There is no middle ground anymore.
Do it like a $100M whale (multisig + Shamir + continents) or at minimum like a paranoid OG (passphrase + memorized seed + air-gapped Coldcard) → your coins live forever. Do anything less → they’re already gone.
