Understanding Your Recovery Phrase

Every time you create or restore a SecondFi wallet, you will be given or asked for a secret list of words that grants full access to your funds. This list of words is called a recovery phrase. It may also be referred to as a mnemonic phrase, seed phrase, or backup phrase.

What is a recovery phrase?

Your SecondFi recovery phrase is a human-readable backup of your wallet's private keys, generated when you first create the wallet. Anyone who has this phrase can restore the wallet and control all assets in it.

The recovery phrase is the only way to restore access to your funds if your device is lost, broken, stolen, or the app is deleted. It is not stored on SecondFi's servers and cannot be recovered by the SecondFi team.

SecondFi will never ask you to share your recovery phrase. If any website, app, or person asks you to type your recovery phrase outside the official SecondFi app, treat it as a scam and stop immediately.

Supported recovery phrase lengths

SecondFi supports 12-word, 15-word, and 24-word recovery phrases. When restoring a wallet — either from the wallet selection screen or during onboarding via "I already have a wallet" — you will see a segmented control to select the number of words in your recovery phrase before entering it.

How is the recovery phrase used?

During wallet creation, SecondFi generates your private keys from the recovery phrase and stores the encrypted keys locally on your device. Your assets remain on the blockchain — the recovery phrase is simply the way to recreate the keys that prove ownership of those funds.

When you restore a wallet, SecondFi asks for the recovery phrase to regenerate the same keys and re-sync your balances from the blockchain.

How to safely store your recovery phrase

1. Always keep your recovery phrase encrypted, never as plain text or an unprotected photo. Use a reputable, audited password manager or encryption tool to store it in an encrypted vault.
2. Create at least one offline backup of the encrypted vault (for example, on an external drive or hardware-encrypted USB) and store it in a separate, secure physical location.
3. Avoid writing the phrase on paper without additional protection. If you must write it down, store that copy inside a safe or use a metal backup combined with a strong passphrase.
4. Regularly verify that you can still unlock your encrypted backup.

What to avoid

• Do not store your recovery phrase in email inboxes, cloud storage, screenshots, or online notes — these can be compromised by attackers.
• Never share your recovery phrase with anyone, including support staff or people claiming to be from SecondFi or Cardano.

Updated on: 05/06/2026