As with traditional money and valuables, it’s critical that you take reasonable measures to keep your bitcoin safe. This short guide will explain how you can secure your Bisq wallet by (1) encrypting it and (2) writing down its seed words so you can restore it later.
Before setting a password, your Bisq wallet files are stored on your hard drive unencrypted. That means anyone who gains access to your computer (whether by physically stealing it or by hacking it remotely) can gain access to your private keys and take your bitcoin.
Setting a password encrypts your Bisq wallet files so they’re useless to anyone without the password.
To set a password, go to the Wallet password section of the Account screen and enter a password.
Now that you’ve set a password, it’s time to write down your wallet’s seed words. Go to the Wallet seed section of the Account screen and write down the words you see in the Wallet seed words field along with the Wallet date.
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Important
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You should actually write down your seed words and wallet date with paper and pen. Saving them on your computer makes it possible for a hacker to obtain through sneaky schemes like keylogging, phishing, etc. Using paper and pen eliminates every possible digital attack vector, no matter how sneaky it is. |
With just your wallet’s seed words and date, you can restore your Bisq wallet and all its bitcoin whenever you need to. If you lose your wallet’s seed words and date, you won’t be able to restore your wallet, and any bitcoin in it is lost forever. So make sure you keep that paper safe!
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Warning
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Encrypting your wallet and writing down its seed words does not save Bisq application data such as trading history, arbitration cases, etc. For that, you need to back up the Bisq data folder:
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With your wallet encrypted and your seed words written down, the bitcoin in your Bisq wallet is much more secure. Bravo!