ELECTRUM WALLET PASSWORD SOFTWARE

The best way is to allow the wallet software to generate a phrase which you write down.Īs seed phrases use natural language words, they have excellent error correction. It is not safe to invent your own seed phrase because humans are bad at generating randomness.

This is approximately the same strength as all Bitcoin private keys, so most experts consider it to be sufficiently secure. However, some of the data in a BIP39 phrase is not random, so the actual security of a 12-word BIP39 seed phrase is only 128 bits. The English-language wordlist for the BIP39 standard has 2048 words, so if the phrase contained only 12 random words, the number of possible combinations would be 2048^12 = 2^132 and the phrase would have 132 bits of security. The seed phrase can be converted to a number which is used as the seed integer to a deterministic wallet that generates all the key pairs used in the wallet. ExplanationĪ simplified explanation of how seed phrases work is that the wallet software has a list of words taken from a dictionary, with each word assigned to a number. Hotel obvious agent lecture gadget evil jealous keen fragile before damp clarifyĮxample seed phrase on paper. is an attempt at helping with this issue, but ideally there will be a better solution in the future.Īn example of a non-BIP39 seed phrase is: BIP39 works this way because its designers wanted their hardware wallet to also support altcoins. Most seriously, BIP39 flaws mean it is not true to say that backing up a BIP39 seed phrase and name of wallet software is the only thing a user needs to do to keep their money safe. They are described here on this electrum doc page. BIP39 has some flaws, known in the technical community but not known much wider. One notable example is Electrum wallet, which is using its own standard, and for good reasons.

5 Storing seed phrases for the long termīIP39 is the most common standard used for seed phrases.

Although these technologies are in their infancy as of 2019 so its possible in future seed phrases could be used to backup them. They cannot store funds involved in off-chain transactions such as Lightning Network or Blinded bearer certificates. Seed phrases can only backups funds on the block chain. Seed phrases are an excellent way of backing up and storing bitcoins, so they are used by almost all well-regarded wallets. For example, it must not be typed into any website.

ELECTRUM WALLET PASSWORD DOWNLOAD

If the user's computer breaks or their hard drive becomes corrupted, they can download the same wallet software again and use the paper backup to get their bitcoins back.Īnybody else who discovers the phrase can steal the bitcoins, so it must be kept safe like jewels or cash. Wallet software will typically generate a seed phrase and instruct the user to write it down on paper. Do not send bitcoins to or import any sample keys you will lose your money.Ī seed phrase, seed recovery phrase or backup seed phrase is a list of words which store all the information needed to recover Bitcoin funds on-chain. This page contains sample addresses and/or private keys.

Electrum wallet password