COLDCARD Duress PIN

Advanced security feature that creates a separate wallet when a specific PIN is entered, protecting your main funds in duress situations.

What is a Duress PIN?

COLDCARD's duress PIN is an optional security feature that allows you to define a special PIN code. When this PIN is entered instead of your real PIN, the device operates normally but generates a completely separate wallet from your main funds.

How It Works

Separate Wallet: The duress wallet is derived from your original BIP-39 seed words but is completely isolated from your main wallet
Normal Operation: Nothing special is shown on screen - the device appears to function normally
No Backward Access: There's no way to access your main wallet from the duress wallet
Automatic Backup: The duress wallet is automatically backed up with your main seed words

Best Practices

To take full advantage of this feature, you should:

Put some Bitcoin into the duress wallet to make it plausible
Choose an amount you're willing to lose in a duress situation
Memorize the duress PIN separately from your main PIN
Never store the duress PIN with your main PIN

Security Note

The duress wallet will still be derived from the original BIP-39 words, so you don't need to back it up separately, but there will be no way to get from that wallet back to the original wallet with the real funds in it.

Learn More

For detailed setup instructions and advanced usage, visit our comprehensive documentation.

View Documentation