Hardware wallets adopted a written backup because devices fail in ordinary ways. They are dropped, they are packed into the wrong bag, they sit through a move. A private key that exists only inside one object is a key with a single point of loss. The recovery phrase is the spare, generated with the key and able to restore it on a replacement device.
On the Yenao Wallet the phrase is 24 words. Yenao shows them on the device screen a single time, during setup, after the key has been created on the chip. You copy them by hand. The device does not email them, and the website cannot display them later. If the words were easy to summon again, they would already be in the wrong room.
Paper, then distance
Write slowly enough to check each word against the screen before you leave the page. A skipped word is not a small typo. It is a backup that will not restore. When the list is complete, put the paper somewhere that is not the drawer where the device lives. Two copies in two buildings are calmer than one copy under the object it is meant to replace.
Do not photograph the page. Camera rolls sync. Do not type the words into a notes file, a password manager in a browser, or a message to yourself. The moment the phrase enters a general computer, it inherits every neighbor on that computer. The chip’s whole purpose was to avoid that neighborhood.
What the words are
The words are not a username and they are not a PIN. The PIN opens the device in your hand. The phrase recreates the key if that device is gone. Anyone who can read the phrase can recreate the key, which is why the page is treated as the key. Share it with no one who asks for it on a call, in a ticket, or on a website. Response Mine Interactive will not ask you to read those words aloud.
A calm backup
People postpone the writing because the device is new and the afternoon is busy. The phrase is shown once. Treat that screen as the appointment. Pencil, paper, a second look, and a place that is boring on purpose. After that, the words should be dull enough that you do not keep revisiting them.
The device is the object you use. The paper is the object you hope not to use. Both are part of holding a private key, and neither one belongs in a screenshot.