How to keep a Bitcoin wallet safe
- Step 1
Write the recovery phrase down offline
Keep it on paper somewhere private. A phrase stored in a photo, note app, email, or chat can be taken along with the device or account.
- Step 2
Never share secrets with anyone
No legitimate support process needs your password, one-time code, private key, or recovery phrase. A request for any of them is an attack.
- Step 3
Start from your own account, not a link
Open the site or app yourself rather than following a link from a message. Phishing pages are built to look correct.
- Step 4
Verify addresses after pasting
Check the first and last characters against the order. Address-replacing malware is a real and widespread category of attack.
- Step 5
Slow down when someone creates urgency
Urgency is the most consistent feature of crypto fraud. A genuine process will still be there in ten minutes.
Where phrases actually get lost
Recovery phrases are rarely stolen by sophisticated attacks. They are photographed for convenience, typed into a note app, or pasted into a chat with someone offering help.
Paper in a private place is unglamorous and works. If you want redundancy, a second copy in a second private place is safer than any digital copy.
Impersonation is the common shape
Fraud involving crypto in Nigeria usually looks like a person, not a hack: someone helpful in a chat, a familiar logo, a message that seems to come from a platform you use.
The defence is structural rather than clever. Start from your own account, verify notices inside it, and use signed-in Support so the conversation is tied to your real account.
Build in one pause
Urgency is the tool that makes all of this work. A frozen account, a limited window, a payment that must be made now. The pressure exists to stop you checking.
One deliberate pause defeats most of it. Close the message, open your account yourself, and see whether the situation described is actually there.