How to Secure your BitClout Account Seed Phrase

TL;DR

BitClout is a new social network that uses a seed phrase as your account login and and your cryptocurrency wallet. If you lose the seed phrase, you will lose all your coins and the ability to login to your account ever again.

When you create a BitClout account, your seed phrase is pre-generated for you by BitClout. However, you can replace it with your own custom seed phrase.

You will need to back up your seed phrase straight away. Since the seed phrase represents not only your account but also the balances in your BitClout Wallet, you will need to robustly and securely store it.

In addition to the usual techniques of backing up a seed phrase, you can securely store your seed phrase in a Digital Vault.

Welcome to BitClout Security

BitClout is a new social network, built entirely on the blockchain, that enables you to speculate on people and their posts. The BitClout blockchain uses its own native cryptocurrency, called BitClout, which is used to operate the platform and purchase creator coins. Bitcoin, BitClout, and Creator coins are all stored in the BitClout wallet.

To secure your account, which represents your own reputation, your balance of BitClout coins, and the collection of all creator coins that you have invested in, a seed phrase is used. Unlike crypto wallets that often "hide" the seed phrase in their apps to make the experience of using the wallet "simpler", BitClout makes you use the seed phrase to directly log in to the platform, and in fact to log out.

Your seed phrase represents not only the credentials to your account, but also becomes the only way to manage your reputation and to manage your balances. You must back up your seed phrase to use BitClout and you must protect your seed phrase otherwise a 3rd party will be able to access your account.

BitClout gives you two ways to specify a seed phrase based on the BIP39 standard:

1. Default - Pre-generated seed phrase that appears when you first log in.
2. Advanced - Create your own custom BIP39 seed phrase. By using alternate techniques to generate your seed phrase you can better control your security risk.

Let's see how you can set up your security robustly:

How to back up your BitClout Seed Phrase?

When you first create or retrieve your BitClout account, you are immediately presented with your seed phrase and asked to store it. As with crypto wallets, the default is to write it down on paper, be warned this is not a good long-term approach due to the risks associated with paper backups.

Instead here are some seed phrase backup options to explore:

1. Back up to Digital Vault.
2. Crypto Steel.
3. Encrypted local drive or USB.
4. Cloud storage.
5. Brain Wallet.
6. Paper.

Creating a Custom BitClout Seed Phrase

The more advanced option, when you first create a BitClout account is to generate your own BIP39 seed phrase. Why would you generate a seed phrase externally? Because relying on software to generate a seed phrase means relying on someone else's interpretation and implementation of security concepts such as entropy and randomness that are critical to establishing non-replicable or non-derivable seed phrases. Using techniques that are completely offline like dice, will always give you a more robust security posture than relying on an electronic or software-based approach.

Here are some common ways in which seed phrases can be generated.

1. Seed Generation with Vault12
2. Calculator
3. Dice
4. Crypto Wallets
5. Hardware Wallets

For more in-depth details see our article on "How to generate a seed phrase".

Backing up your BitClout Seed in a Digital Vault

A Digital Vault has the advantage of being focused on a singular purpose - that of securely storing digital assets for long-term use. While there are many types of digital vaults available for cryptocurrency storage, it is better to use something that is independent of anyone's blockchain and can store any type of digital asset.

Here we will use Vault12 to demonstrate how a BitClout Seed Phrase can be backed up and how digital assets can also be stored in a Vault.

Step 1: Create and configure a Digital Vault

Step 2: Add your BitClout Seed phrase - this can be done in multiple ways - (a) Enter a Note in the format of a seed phrase or (b) you can enter a Note in free format text - see steps below:

Open your Vault and click on "Add an Asset".

Retrieving your BitClout Seed phrase from your Vault

To gain access to your BitClout seed phrase, select the asset in your Vault and take the unlock option.