Generate your seed with dice
The most paranoid — and most verifiable — way to create a wallet: you become the random number generator. No chip, no firmware, no vendor left in the trust equation.
Why roll dice at all?
Every hardware wallet generates your seed with its internal random number generator. Open-source devices let you audit the process — but you still can’t personally prove the dice were fair. Rolling physical dice removes the question entirely: the entropy comes from physics you can see and touch. Combined with a device that accepts dice input, no manufacturer’s RNG is ever involved in your keys.
What you need
- 2–5 casino-grade precision dice (transparent, sharp edges — not board-game dice)
- A dice cup or tall glass — real shaking, not hand-rolling
- Paper and pencil for the roll log (destroyed afterwards)
- An air-gapped device that accepts dice entropy: SeedSigner or Keystone
- An hour of undisturbed, unobserved time — no cameras, no smartphones in the room
The math, in one breath
A 24-word seed encodes 256 bits of entropy. A fair six-sided die yields ~2.585 bits per roll — so 99 rolls ≈ 256 bits. For a 12-word seed (128 bits), 50 rolls are enough. Each roll is written down as a digit 1–6; the device converts the sequence into your seed words and verifies the built-in checksum.
Devices that accept dice entropy
SeedSigner (dedicated dice mode, 99/50 rolls) and Keystone (dice/manual entropy) take rolls directly. Jade and Trezor don’t accept raw dice input natively — advanced users convert rolls on an offline, verified machine, but that reintroduces a computer into the trust equation and is not recommended for most people.
The ritual, step by step
Prepare the room
Privacy first. No phones, no webcams, no smart speakers. Dice entropy only works if no one and nothing watches the rolls.
Roll and log
Shake all dice in the cup, throw, and write the numbers left-to-right as one continuous sequence (e.g. 4-1-6-2-3…). Keep going until you have 99 digits for 24 words (50 for 12 words).
Enter the rolls into an air-gapped device
On SeedSigner: dice seed creation, enter 99/50 rolls. On Keystone: choose dice/manual entropy and enter the same sequence. The device computes the seed words locally, offline.
Verify the checksum
The final word is a checksum over your entropy. If the device accepts your sequence and shows words, the math is consistent. If it rejects it, a digit was misrecorded — find it now, not years later.
Write the words, then steel
Copy the 12/24 words onto paper, double-check word by word against the device screen, then stamp them into steel. Destroy the paper roll log — burn it.
Rehearse before funding
Wipe the device, restore from your word backup, confirm the same fingerprint/xpub appears. Only then deposit — first a small test amount.
Warnings — read before you roll
Never generate entropy digitally
A website, an app, a spreadsheet macro, or an “online dice roller” defeats the entire purpose. If a computer picks the numbers, the computer — or its maker — may know your key. Physical dice only.
Cheap dice are biased dice
Board-game dice have rounded corners and uneven filling — some faces come up measurably more often. Use transparent casino-grade precision dice. Bias pushes your entropy below the security floor.
Don’t shortchange the shaking
Rolling from your palm in a lazy arc is not random. Use a cup, shake hard for several seconds, throw onto a hard surface. Weak technique = weak entropy.
Record perfectly — one digit kills the wallet
The sequence IS the key material. A single misread or transposed digit creates a different wallet whose backup you just wrote down wrong. Read each die twice, log immediately, verify the checksum on-device.
Never type rolls or words into an online machine
Enter the sequence only into an air-gapped device. If rolls or words ever touch a networked computer, assume the wallet is compromised and start over.
Destroy the roll log
The paper with your dice sequence is a full copy of your seed. Burn it once the words are safely in steel. “I’ll keep it in a drawer” is how dice wallets get stolen.
Don’t get creative with the sequence
Never skip, swap or “improve” rolls you dislike (too many sixes?). Any human selection destroys uniform randomness — which is the only security you have.
Test recovery before trusting it
Words that came from dice don’t protect you from a transcription error. Restore from your backup on a wiped device first. Dice entropy plus a bad backup still equals zero bitcoin.