Field note · 12 February 2026
Where a seed phrase can live in a Busan apartment
Visitors often arrive with the recovery phrase still sitting in a phone note, a photo roll, or a chat they sent themselves “just for the afternoon.” The private session starts by closing that note and talking about the apartment instead. A Solana wallet can be restored from those words on any compatible wallet app. Whoever can read them can move the funds. After a leak, a settings screen cannot rotate the phrase the way it can rotate a password.
Paper still earns its place. Write the words by hand, in order, and number them. Skip the printer at a shared office. A steel or plastic sleeve helps in a Busan summer, when damp air works its way into paper drawers near an outside wall. A refrigerator looks clever and then wets the card; we have seen the smear. A locked drawer in a bedroom, away from the desk where you sign, is the ordinary arrangement that holds up.
Two copies belong in two buildings if you can arrange it. One stays with you. The second can sit with a family member who understands they are holding paper for safekeeping. Tell them, in plain speech, to keep those words off every website, including any page that offers to verify a wallet. A page that asks for the recovery phrase is asking for the wallet itself.
A passphrase added beyond the word list changes the wallet that appears. It also means the paper list alone will not restore the funds you actually use. If you set one, write down that you use a passphrase, and store the passphrase itself apart from the word list. Do not store only a hint that you will fail to remember in three years.
During a session at Clarity Junction we will not ask to see the phrase, photograph it, or “just confirm the first word.” If a reader ever did, that would be the moment to close the laptop and leave. Practice restorations, when a visitor wants one, use a fresh throwaway wallet created in the room and wiped before they go.
Hardware wallets do not remove the phrase. They move the signing step onto a small device, and the phrase still restores that device if it is lost. Keep the written copy even when the device feels solid in your hand. Label the envelope with your name and a date if you must, and leave the words off the outside.