KeyStone
Get in touch
EN ES
← All articles

Hardware · No phrase

I have the device but not the phrase: why the PIN does matter

Many people believe that having the device means they are safe. It is the opposite: if you don’t have the phrase written down, your wallet depends on an object that can be lost, broken, soaked or wiped, and on a PIN you can forget. It is the most fragile setup there is.

September 28, 2026 · 4-minute read

If the device works and you remember the PIN: act today

You have an opportunity and it is best not to let it slip. There are two routes and both are valid:

  1. Retrieve the phrase from the device, if your model lets you display it again. Not all do, and some only do so when being set up afresh.
  2. Create a new wallet with a new phrase, write it on paper, and move all the funds there. That route always works, whatever the model.
If in doubt, do the second. Creating a new wallet and moving the money costs a network fee and half an hour, and gets you out of this situation for good. It is by far the best money you will spend.

If you don’t remember the PIN

Then you are in the hopeless case of hardware wallets, and it matters that you know it before paying anyone. The device will defend itself: some models wipe after a few attempts and others stretch the wait until it is unusable. In neither case can entry be forced.

Don’t mail your device to anyone. If someone offers to «unlock it in a lab», either they charge you for nothing or they keep the device. And don’t reset it thinking you can start over: the reset wipes the wallet, and without a phrase that wipe is final.

Why it can’t be forced

The key isn’t stored in ordinary memory but in a chip specifically designed to resist extraction: it protects against physical tampering, voltage manipulation and opening the package. The vulnerabilities that existed in a particular model were fixed years ago and were never a service you could hire. See can a Ledger or a Trezor be hacked?.

Keep reading