Your Recovery Phrase
When you set up a KeepKey, the device shows you a list of 12 or 24 simple words — your recovery phrase (also called a seed phrase or mnemonic). This is the most important thing you will ever write down in crypto.
The phrase is the wallet
Those words are a human-readable form of the master secret that every key and address in your wallet is mathematically derived from. That has two consequences:
- Whoever has the words owns the wallet — forever. Anyone who reads them can recreate your entire wallet on any compatible device and take everything. There is no second factor.
- The words are your only backup. Lose the device and your funds are safe — you restore the wallet onto a new KeepKey (or any compatible wallet) from the phrase. Lose the phrase with no working device, and the funds are gone permanently.
The device is replaceable. The phrase is not.
An open standard: BIP-39
KeepKey doesn’t use a secret KeepKey-only format. The phrase follows BIP-39, an open industry standard, and the keys derive along the BIP-32/BIP-44 standards. That means your phrase is portable: if KeepKey vanished tomorrow, you could recover the same wallet on another BIP-39 wallet. You’re not locked in to any vendor — a core part of KeepKey’s open philosophy.
The backup rules
- Write it on paper (or stamp it in metal). Store it somewhere safe and private.
- Never type it into a computer or phone, never photograph it, never put it in a password manager, cloud drive, or email. The moment it touches an internet-connected device, treat it as compromised.
- No legitimate person or app will ever ask for it. Anyone who does is trying to rob you — see Staying Safe.
- Test recovery before funding a large amount, so you know your backup is correct.
On your KeepKey
- KeepKey displays the phrase once, on the device screen only, during setup — never on your computer. The step-by-step is in Onboarding and Recovery Phrase.
- Want extra protection beyond the words? A passphrase adds a secret that’s never stored on the device.
- Advanced: one phrase can deterministically generate many separate child wallets with BIP-85.