First of all, no one paid me to write and publish this text, and of course this post do not contains any referral links.
So, why I am writing about CryptoSteel? Simply because I think this is an awesome product :)
What is Cryptosteel and why do I need it?
Short quote from FAQ:
Cryptosteel is the premier indestructible backup tool for optimal offline storage of private keys, passwords and wallet recovery seeds without any third-party involvement.
In other words, this cannot be hacked, burned or flooded :)
Does CryptoSteel support Steem?
Well, this question is not silly at all. The question is, is it possible to store Steem master password in CryptoSteel?
Typical password of majority Steem users looks like this:
P5KMpYPGmVMkWgaDBX337eo3nULEq3MwrEtURydXbdS213exrKbx
As you can see, such a password is 52 characters long, and contains numbers [0-1], lowercase letters [a-z] and uppercase letters [A-Z]. If I remember correctly, such passwords do not contain 0, o, O, 1, l, L - mostly to not confuse people, because those letters are very similar to each other.
Does CryptoSteel contain all those characters in a box? Well... there is a version Cryptosteel ANYKEY, which can be used to store typical Steem password, but it costs $149.
But the truth is, that if will you set your own password (which is not generated by Steemit.com website), you can use mnemonics, so you will need only letters [A-Z]. This version is $50 cheaper.
And because you can also set own hexadecimal password, you can even use Cryptosteel HEX, which you can buy for $79.
Wait, what? Can I set my OWN password for Steem account?
Yes, you can. Setting own password is currently a little bit complicated, because you need to generate own private and public keys from it, nevertheless if you have basic programming skills, you should be able to do that.
Some time ago I wrote a special article about that:
More about CryptoSteel soon...
I really like this project, so I have a plan to write more posts about it. CryptoSteel is really secure way to store your private keys. But the truth is, that this kind of security measures do not have much sense, if your password is still used to login on Steemit on daily basis.
What is the difference between a password and a private key(s) on Steemit?
How to make your account more secure, by using them correctly.
If you are a HODLer of STEEM, you should consider moving all your funds to your second account, which would function as cold-storage for your STEEM or SteemPower.
Recently I came to conclusion, that if I will keep my main @noisy account almost empty, and if I will move all my SteemPower to my cold storage account, and then I will delegate this SP back to @noisy - this should eliminate a majority of risk from my daily usage of my Steem account. Cool, right?
But why use just one password for cold storage Steem Account, when there is a possibility to use multisig 2of3, what would make this even more secure? More about this... soon :)