We’ve all heard stories of people losing their crypto wallet backups, whether that be due to incompetence, house fire or boating accident. Trust me, you don’t want to be that person, or maybe you do. Introducing the Trezor Keep Metal, a product which Trezor claims is capable of keeping your crypto wallet backup safe from water, physical impacts and fire. In Trezor’s own words, this essentially renders your wallet backup indestructible. These are bold claims and naturally, I had to put the Keep Metal to the test as part of my review. Stick around to find out if my wallet backup survived or if I’m now a no-coiner.
Disclaimer
First, a quick disclaimer in the name of transparency. Trezor did send this product to me but there was no payment or sponsorship involved, and no obligation for me to make any video. This review is made possible only by those of you who purchase membership and courses at HaydenOtto.com; check the links in the description to find out more and I thank you for your continued support.
Pricing and Options
Trezor’s Keep Metal comes in 3 variations to facilitate the different wallet backup types. The first is for 12 word recovery seeds. At a price of $99, this is what most users will need and it’s the model I’m in possession of. Then, for the more advanced users, there’s the 20-word Shamir Backup which was priced at $249 but is now $147. New models were recently added to the lineup that support the single-share and multi-share backup standard, although they are not currently priced or available until July 15, 2024.
Unboxing
The product arrives in familiar Trezor packaging and includes a marking pen, a hole punching tool, and tamperproof stickers. The Keep Metal itself, while appearing as a solid steel tube, is comprised of 2 parts that screw together. Where the threads make contact there’s a rubber O-ring, to keep the internal component water and air-tight. Removing the outer sleeve completely reveals the internal piece that will contain the crypto wallet backup, which looks quite similar to the cryptex puzzle from the Davinci Code. Here there are rows of laser engraved markings which correspond with the 12-words of the wallet backup.
Setup
Instructions for encoding your backup into the Keep Metal are clearly laid out on the included packaging. Grab all the included tools, as well as your 12-word wallet backup, and lay the internal component of the Keep Metal on the box it came in so it doesn’t roll away. To start, use the black pen to pre-mark all the fields for your 12 words. There is only room to mark the first 4 letters for each word, one letter on each line, but this is enough to recover the rest of the word as there is only 1 possible combination.
Once finished grab the hole punch tool, place it over the area you marked, and push down until it clicks in. You’ll see it made a dent or hole in the surface of the steel and this step must be repeated until all your words are encoded. With your 12 backup words set in steel, roll up your paper backup and slide it into the bottom of the cylinder. You can then screw the 2 pieces of the Keep Metal back together and slap one of the security stickers on it to ensure it hasn’t been tampered with in the future.
Torture Test
Ideally, if you ever need to access your wallet backup again, you can simply take it out of your safe or other secure storage location and recover your wallet with the paper backup stored inside. But what if something bad happened, like a house fire? That’s why I put my Keep Metal through a torture test to find out if it lives up to the manufacturers claims.
See the above video for torture test.
Final Thoughts
The Trezor Keep metal has fulfilled its promise of protecting crypto wallet backups from the harshest of conditions. It’s a simple product and I really have no complaints apart from the fact that it is single use, so if you need to change your 12-word backup for whatever reason you’ll need to buy another Keep Metal.
I have had some experience with a few other crypto backup products, and out of the bunch I think the Keep Metal is the most polished product with the easiest setup process. The others were quite tedious to set up and involved the use of many different pieces and tools. So if you’re looking for the best way to protect your crypto wallet backups, I highly recommend getting the Trezor Keep Metal. I’m definitely keen to grab some for myself. Make sure to use my affiliate link if you want to help support my work here on the channel, and I hope to see you all in the next video.
