Users of the Coinbase wallet can back up their private keys on Google Drive or iCloud, according to an official notice made on February 12.
In the announcement, the company said that letting users upload their keys to a cloud delivers a safeguard against lost keys, and will help them avoid losing funds should the keys be misplaced. The announcement also says:
“The private keys generated and stored on your mobile device are the only way to access your funds on the blockchain. Owners of ‘user-controlled wallets’ like Coinbase Wallet sometimes lose their devices or fail to backup their 12 word recovery phrase in a safe place, thus losing their funds forever.”
Users of the wallet can now keep an encrypted copy of the recovery phrase on their cloud accounts. Coinbase relayed that neither they nor the cloud services will have access to user funds, as recovery phrase key is unlocked by a password which is known only to the user. The backup is encrypted with AES-256-GCM encryption, which is only accessible through the Wallet mobile app.
Coinbase added that aside from Google Drive and iCloud, they will expand support to other clouds in the future.