what a canary token is and how it works?

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what a canary token is and how it works?

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In the context of cryptocurrency.

It’s common, when personally holding cryptocurrency, to have a 24 word secret key. However if someone, friend, family or hacker finds out what these 24 words are, your crypto account can be drained in seconds.

It’s also possible you could be subject to a [wrench attack](https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/538:_Security) so to counter both these cases it’s possible to create a ‘canary account’

Your 24 word crypto key becomes your canary account, you only keep a small amount of your crypto there (as much as you are prepared to lose, yet enough to be plausible). Your main account is protected by an additional 25th word and is effectively a totally separate account.

You can set up a free email or sms service that reports if any transactions are made on the canary account (which, since you don’t generally make transactions yourself, must be fraudulent). This is equivalent to the mine canary dropping dead! You then have time to move your main funds to another, more secure wallet.

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