Are seed phrases and private keys the same? Are they different? We have all the answers.
If you would like to know the answer to these common questions:
What a private key is? What a seed phrase is?
Is a seed phrase the same as a private key?
What do you do with a seed phrase?
What is the difference between the private key and the recovery seed phrase?
Below you will find a simple but complete answer. We will not dive deep into technical aspects of blockchain, instead, we will stick to the most important information you need.
Summary: /TL;DR/
Seed phrases and private keys are true access keys to your cryptocurrency wallets and accounts. They are sort of a “password” that authorize you as an owner of your blockchain “accounts” and wallets.
Private key is usually an access key to just one address (account), while seed phrase is an access key to the whole wallet, which can hold multiple addresses.
Wallets use recovery seed phrase as both access key and instruction to set up all addresses (accounts). Wallets always create the same set of addresses and private keys from a given seed phrase.
Seed phrases are made of words from a carefully chosen list of 2048 words. Seed phrases can be 12-24 words long. The words are taken randomly from the list.
Both seed phrases and private keys use state-of-the-art encryption so it is virtually impossible to crack them by hackers.
If your seed phrase backup is lost or destroyed, you will not be able to get your funds back, ever. This is why it is important to store seed phrase backup safely.
Contents:
What it is all about? Why should I care?
Similarities of seed phrases and private keys
How access keys numbers can be shown?
Private keys – hex form of access key number
Mnemonics – an access key madeeasier for humans
Similar or different?
Private keys
What is a private key?
How do private keys work in a wallet?
Seed phrase – all you need to know
What is a seed phrase?
How do seed phrase work in a wallet?
What does the seed phrase look like? How it is generated?
Seed phrase and private keys safety
What it is all about? Why should I care?
Private keys and recovery seed phrases are both crucial elements of bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain in general. They are both important blockchain security features that work together with blockchain technology and proper encryption techniques to guarantee the safety of your wallets and coins.
In essence seed phrases and private keys are true access keys to your cryptocurrency wallets and accounts. They are sort of a “password” that authorize you as an owner of your blockchain “accounts” and wallets. With them, you have full access to the funds but without them, you can lose access to your funds forever. However, it is important to know that although similar, they are not the same and we provide all the details below.
It is important for the safety of your crypto funds to know how seed phrases and private keys work and how to use them. Getting confused about these key blockchain features can put you at risk of losing all your crypto holdings.
We will do our best to provide a full explanation and provide lots of knowledge while avoiding difficult technical terms.
Similarities of seed phrases and private keys
How access keys numbers can be shown?
All blockchain addresses (the “accounts” where your coins are stored) have dedicated access keys. With Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies these access keys have a form of a very large number. Cryptocurrencies use 256bit numbers which are very big – up to 77 figures long.
In our normal – decimal numbers our access key (random example) is this number: 15692029237316 193423570985008 4879078532689846 65640564039457554 006913129639935
The above number – our access key – can be written differently, depending on the use. In binary (which is computer’s language) it would look like this: 111111111100011101011110001110000 101001101011011111110000010101111 100101110011010111110110111100111 010110110011100000001010000010011 000110011011110110110001000101011 111111110000101000101011110111100 100111100110010110010111111011100 000101111110111111111111
As you can see, it could be hard to write down or input into your wallet software both of those. Remember that getting even one character wrong means a risk of losing all your crypto money.
Private keys – hex form of access key number
This is the reason why inventors of Bitcoin had decided to use something in between – a format that would be easier to use by humans while still easily readable by computers – the hexadecimal (hex) number. Our access key would look like this in hex: ffc7 5e38 535b f82b e5cd 7dbc 75b3 80a0 98cd ed88 affc 28af 793c cb2f dc17 efff
The above is what the private keys look like. It is because the private key is your access key translated into hex. In essence, they are a different representation (a different form) of your access key number that we mentioned earlier.
The access key in this form is a bit easier to read and write down than binary numbers or even normal numbers, it is however still rather hard. This is the reason why people governing Bitcoin decided to make life easier for everyone and translate access keys into more accessible to us – humans.
Mnemonics – an access key madeeasier for humans
Somewhere around 2013, smart people around Bitcoin invented a way to translate access key numbers into words. Just words no fuzz – no hex, no binary, no absurdly large numbers. We as humans are naturally good with words. It is much easier to read, write and correct mistakes with normal words than some weird, seemingly random string of letters and numbers.
This is how the mnemonic phrase came to life. You translate the very big number into words, much easier to use – the same level of security.
With a mnemonic phrase system our access key number would look like this: sewn forgery poorly armament surra pastor stoicism prog rupee panoply resigned worthy menses rehash acumen randy capping linkage reversal gilbert pygmy cozen snoopy pit
This is how seed phrases look like (somewhat) because they use a mnemonic system – a way of converting numbers into words. However, they use a dedicated mnemonic system (BIP39), which we will discuss further.
Similar or different?
In summary – seed phrases and private keys are similar in some ways because they both are a way of writing down crypto access keys. Private keys use a hexadecimal (hex) system and seed phrases use a mnemonic system.
However, they are also very different things when it comes to function. Seed phrase and private keys are not the same. They serve different purposes in blockchain and crypto – they are not interchangeable. Below we will describe the differences and function of both seed phrases and private keys when it comes to Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain in general.
Private keys
What is a private key?
A private key is your access key to the given bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) address. The address is an “account” where given coins are stored. To gain full access to the bitcoin address you need to show the correct access key – a private key.
As we said earlier, this private key has a form of hex (hexadecimal) number, which is a different way of presenting very large numbers. The hex numbers are easily recognized by computers while still manageable by humans. The private keys usually look like this: ffc7 5e38 535b f82b e5cd 7dbc 75b3 80a0 98cd ed88 affc 28af 793c cb2f dc17 efff
With the private key you “prove” that you are an “owner” of your bitcoin address (account) and can have full access to this address. This means doing transfers and withdrawals from the address.
How do private keys work in a wallet?
Nowadays private keys are used as access keys just for individual addresses (accounts). So if you have just one Bitcoin (or another cryptocurrency) address, you probably will have just a private key as an access key. If you have a paper wallet with just one address (account), you will have just a private key as a backup and access key.
However, if you are using a wallet that can store multiple addresses (accounts) possibly of multiple cryptocurrencies, the wallet itself is usually protected not with a private key but with a seed phrase. This type of wallet is nowadays the most popular one, so you probably use one. Please read further to learn about seed phrases.
(note that old multi wallets can be protected just by private keys without a seed, or even something different. Back in the day, there were many standards of access keys and seeds.)
This kind of multiple address wallet will act as a master wallet for all cryptocurrency addresses (accounts) inside. The wallet itself will create and store private keys to each individual address (accounts) so you don’t have to write them all down. You just need one master access key which is what seed phrase is. This is the same whether you use a software wallet, hardware wallet or even wallet on crypto exchanges like Coinbase.
Seed phrase – all you need to know
What is a seed phrase?
A seed phrase is a master access key to your cryptocurrency wallet (or blockchain wallet in general). This is also a backup of your wallet in case you forget the regular password or pin, your computer or hardware wallet is broken or lost. The seed phrase is in essence both access key and instruction for the wallet on how and which accounts to set up.
The recovery seed phrase would look like this: wedding cheese renew regular anger forum pelican deer shrimp tray denial fabric unique silver victory rain mistake write limit cart copper visa undo forget
So normally you probably use a login and password or pin code to access the wallet, but it is only to stop unauthorized users from logging into the wallet. The seed phrase is much more than that.
How do seed phrase work in a wallet?
The seed phrase not only grants you full access to your addresses (accounts) and funds. It also is a way for a wallet to know what addresses (accounts) on the blockchain you had.
The wallet algorithms work that way, that from a given seed phrase they always create the same set of addresses (accounts) where you store cryptocurrency or tokens. At the same time, the wallet will also create access keys to each individual address (the private keys) and protect them inside. It always creates the same set of addresses and private keys from one seed phrase. So if you will set up another wallet with the same seed phrase, it will create an identical copy of the first one. This is called a deterministic wallet, and almost all modern wallets work this way.
What happens when you input your seed phrase into the wallet? The wallet uses algorithms to calculate all addresses (and private keys) for every supported cryptocurrency or token from your seed phrase. This is why these wallets are called deterministic wallets because your seed phrase tells the wallet what addresses can be created.
The wallet can only create one set of addresses from a given seed phrase. This is also why the recovery phrase is called a seed phrase. The wallet can use the seed phrase to sprout/create all other addresses and info. Wallets can create a set of hundreds of addresses and private keys just from this one seed phrase.
(Please note that not all wallets use the same way of address creation, so seed phrases are not truly universal. The situation above is relevant inside the same type of wallets. We will cover this topic in future articles.)
What does the seed phrase look like? How it is generated?
Seed phrases usually have a form of mnemonic phrase which is a bunch of words. Nowadays almost all wallets use one common way of creating seed phrases – theBIP39 standard. The recovery seed phrase would look like this: wedding cheese renew regular anger forum pelican deer shrimp tray denial fabric unique silver victory rain mistake write limit cart copper visa undo forget
The seed phrase is basically a master access key in a word format (we described this in detail above). It is easy to read and write for humans and also accessible for computers thanks to clever IT engineering.
Bitcoin enthusiasts developed a special way of creating the seed phrases and a special set of words to choose from. Seed phrases use a list of words that is defined in the BIP39 standard.BIP39 wordlisthas 2048 carefully chosen words. There are no similar words to avoid errors and each word can be identified by just 4 first letters. Here you can get apdf printout of BIP39 wordlist.
There are 2048 words on that list to achieve an insanely high number of possible combinations. It guarantees the same ultrahigh level of security (256bit) as with other features of bitcoin and blockchain.
Check out BIP39 Seed Phrase Generator.
Seed phrase and private keys safety
To guarantee that no one else can guess your seed phrase, it uses some very clever tricks and very big numbers (like truly big). As we said earlier, bitcoin and blockchain in general, use 256bit encryption with 256bit numbers.
These 256bit numbers are big – up to 80 figures long (2^256), and the number of all possible access keys is bigger than there are grains of sand on Earth. In fact, it is much bigger than that. There are more possible combinations of a 24-word seed phrase than there are atoms in the known universe, or at least comparable to that. It is almost impossible to grasp something that big with our human brain.
This fact makes finding someone else’s keys impossible even with all supercomputers. It would take supercomputers decades to sweep through even a very, very tiny portion of all possible combinations which makes it not worth the time and cost. Remember – the number of combinations is mind-blowing big. This is also true for private keys because they also use 256bit encryption techniques so they are as hack-resistant as seed phrases.
Seed phrases are virtually non-hackable and this makes them very secure. However you have to store a backup of your seed phrase, so you can restore your wallets if it brokes down or get stolen. The most popular way of storing seed phrases is by writing them down on a piece of paper, but it’s not a best idea. Paper is fragile though and can be easily destroyed by water or fire. You can also easily throw it away by mistake.
This is why it is so important to protect your seed phrase with a durable metal crypto wallet. You should use one of the most resilient metal backups – the Coinplate Alpha. It’s made of ultra-thick slabs of premium-grade stainless steel, and you can mark your seed phrase permanently within just a few minutes. Coinplate stainless backups are designed to last decades. They are waterproof, fireproof, and rust-resistant
Seed phrases are ultra-secure against hacks because they use state-of-the-art encryption. But you should remember that it also means that if your seed phrase backup is destroyed, you will not be able to get your funds back, ever. If you are serious about your bitcoins, Ethereum, NFTs, or other cryptocurrency you should take proper care of your seed phrase and secure it with stainless crypto backup likeCoinplate.
Unlike a private key, the seed phrase doesn't just relate to one blockchain address, but all the addresses secured by the private keys in your wallet. — Recovery phrases and private keys are two halves of the same whole, but need to be managed differently.
Private keys are similar to secret passwords (in a traditional sense), while seed phrases are simplified versions of 256-bit private keys. Private keys are strings of random characters representing cryptocurrency wallet addresses, allowing you to access, receive, and send crypto funds.
While a Secret Recovery Phrase is used to create and restore your entire MetaMask Wallet, including all accounts created in that wallet, each account has its own private key. This key can be used to import that account, and that account only, into a different wallet.
A seed phrase is the set of words your wallet generates that lets you access your crypto, no matter what happens to the wallet itself. This recovery phrase grants access not just to your wallet but to the crypto held inside it.
The private key is what authorizes you to control funds attached to a public key and initiate transactions from that address. Public and private keys are always created in pairs. A secret phrase is a human-readable master private key in the form of a sequence of words.
If you simply need to recover access to your account:
If you no longer have access to your recovery phrase, you will need to create a new account. Please note: Coinbase Wallet is a user-controlled, non-custodial product. The recovery phrase is what gives you, and only you, access to move funds that you have received.
After you enter the seed phrase to recover your wallet, through a special algorithm, a master private key, as well as the public key (the public key or address is also a hash of the private key), can then be generated from the phrase, which is essentially what a wallet is combined of (public key + private key).
A private key is a long alphanumeric code that acts similarly to a password. Private keys are used to authorize cryptocurrency transactions. Your private key is generated by your wallet and is used to create your public key (your wallet address) using encryption.
Coinbase Wallet generates a 12-word recovery phrase, also referred to as a seed phrase, that you and only you have access to. ... To access the backup feature in your Coinbase Wallet:
Open the Coinbase Wallet mobile app.
Tap Settings, then Recovery Phrase.
Select Backup to iCloud/Google Drive or Backup manually.
A recovery phrase (sometimes known as a seed phrase) is a series of words generated by your cryptocurrency wallet that gives you access to the crypto associated with that wallet.
A recovery phrase (or “seed phrase”) is basically a human-readable form of your wallet's private key—the unique, secret passcode used to authenticate and encrypt your wallet access.
Private keys are equally derived from another key. The key these are derived from is called the Master Seed. Through the Master Seed, it is possible to generate an infinite number of private keys. This Master Seed itself consists of a list of 256 bits (like flipping a coin 256 times).
Your 12-word secret recovery phrase is encrypted and stored on the device where you install Exodus. We do not store your secret recovery phrase on our servers, nor do we have any access to it. As the owner of the wallet, you are the only one with access to your secret recovery phrase and private keys.
There are basically two types of key-based algorithms: symmetric (secret-key) and asymmetric (public-key). The difference between these is that the symmetric keys use the same algorithms for encryption and decryption.
If Coinbase filed for bankruptcy, all of the company's assets and the customer assets it holds would first be divided up to cover money owed to creditors. This means that if Coinbase's debt exceeds the value of the company's own assets, money would be taken from the customer pool to cover the difference.
A string of letters and numbers that is used to access and spend cryptocurrencies or NFTs stored in a wallet. A Seed Phrase represents your private keys within a wallet. Neither your private keys or seed phrase should ever be shared with anyone otherwise they could gain access to your wallet and steal your funds.
A seed phrase is a series of 12 or 24 random words that provides the data needed to recover a lost or broken crypto wallet. It is also known as a mnemonic phrase and is best understood as a security measure for self-custodied digital assets. Both hot wallets and cold wallets can use a seed phrase for recovery.
Activate the QR code scanner by tapping the icon on the upper right. Put a Name so that you can easily recognize the wallet. Once you are done typing, tap on Import . Congratulations, you have successfully imported a wallet.
The same seed phrase can be used to derive multiple private keys. In order to derive the same private key you need to use the same seed phrase and the same derivation path. Step's development team should be able to tell you which derivation path they used in their previous app.
With asymmetric encryption, both the public and private keys are generated randomly. Anyone can have access to a public key to encrypt data, but only an individual who has the matching private key can decrypt the data.
Public and private keys form the basis for public key cryptography , also known as asymmetric cryptography. In public key cryptography, every public key matches to only one private key. Together, they are used to encrypt and decrypt messages.
What does a private Bitcoin key look like? A private Bitcoin key is a 64-character string of letters and numbers. It might look something like this: E9873D79C6D87DC0FB6A5778633389F4453213303DA61F20BD67FC233AA33262.
To generate an SSH private/public key pair for your use, you can use the ssh-keygen command-line utility. You can run the ssh-keygen command from the command line to generate an SSH private/public key pair. If you are using Windows, by default you may not have access to the ssh-keygen command.
A CA's private key should be stored in hardware-based protection, such as a Hardware Security Module (HSM). This provides tamper-resistant secure storage. A Private key for an end entity could be stored in a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip or a USB tamper-resistant security token.
Base58Check encoded private keys for WIF always start with a “5”, and compressed WIF private keys always start with a “K” or “L”. It's crucial to understand that compressed WIF doesn't refer to private key compression. Bitcoin private keys are neither compressed or uncompressed.
Unfortunately, if you do not have the 12-word backup phrase there is no way to recover your wallet or the funds should anything happen to the device you have the wallet downloaded to. Bitcoin.com has no control over your private keys or any transactions made; we can not restore your wallet for you.
Unfortunately, if a 12-word seed phrase gets lost, there's no way to "reset" it. The person who lost their phrase will have no way to access their account or their assets, even if they appeal to the platform administrators. Keeping the recovery phrase safe is the only way to ensure consistent access to Crypto assets.
After all, seed phrases are just strings of words — on paper, that seems like an enormous security risk. Fortunately, seed phrases cannot be “guessed” randomly with current technology. Some of the data in the phrase isn't random, but 12-word phrases have a security of 128 bits.
Technically speaking, these 24 words are a representation of a string of random digits called a seed, from which all the keys in your wallet are derived. The seed is used to generate your master private key, which generates the rest of your private keys. Private keys are used to generate corresponding public keys.
Select Security in the top right of the header.Click Backup Funds in the Secret Private Key Recovery Phrase section.Click View Secret Private Key Recovery Phrase in the side panel. The side panel will display the first six words of your recovery phrase.
Your 12-word Secret Private Key Recovery Phrase is a seed of all the private keys of all the addresses generated within the wallet, and will allow you to restore access to your funds even if you lose access to your original wallet.
You will be prompted for a passphrase which is used to encrypt the private key. By default, the private key is stored in ~/.ssh/id_rsa and the public key is stored in ~/. ssh/id_rsa.
If your seed phrase is lost, you can transfer your assets to a new device. If it's stolen, it could be used to steal your assets (same as if someone hacks your seed phrase when using a hot wallet), which is why we emphasize the need to keep your seed phrase safe & well hidden.
MetaMask provides you with a unique 12-word Secret Recovery Phrase on the very first launch. If you did not write it down, or you lost it, you can unlock MetaMask and reveal your Secret Recovery Phrase.
A recovery phrase is usually generated from a specific list of 2,048 words. That means that your 12-word seed phrase has an iteration of 2,048 words. Therefore, it's almost impossible that someone could successfully guess your seed phrase.
Yes. In asymmetric cryptography, key pairs are randomly generated. Furthermore, the amount of different keypairs that can be generated is huge. Therefore, the probability of two people accidentally generating the same keypair is negligible.
And that's if only four words are missing. To iterate all possible 12 word seeds using the same setup would take about 309,485,009,821,345,068,724,781,056 days.
SSH passphrases protect your private key from being used by someone who doesn't know the passphrase. Without a passphrase, anyone who gains access to your computer has the potential to copy your private key. For example, family members, coworkers, system administrators, and hostile actors could gain access.
You can even do it by yourself! A private key is a 256-bit number. This means that it is represented in binary in 256 numbers of 0 or 1. In total, this means there are a total of (almost) 2^256 combinations of private keys.
Private keys are similar to secret passwords (in a traditional sense), while seed phrases are simplified versions of 256-bit private keys. Private keys are strings of random characters representing cryptocurrency wallet addresses, allowing you to access, receive, and send crypto funds.
Private keys are always randomly generated characters. With 64 characters that consist of letters and numbers, it's hard to imagine that anyone could end up with the same private key as another user.
A master private key is the extended private key at the root of a HD tree, and is derived directly from the seed of a HD wallet. If a single private key is leaked, you can lose the funds associated with that key.
A private key is a long alphanumeric code that acts similarly to a password. Private keys are used to authorize cryptocurrency transactions. Your private key is generated by your wallet and is used to create your public key (your wallet address) using encryption.
Having this phrase means you can restore all of your existing private keys on another wallet, and retrieve your funds on the blockchain. This means you will never be dependent on any one wallet provider – you can access your crypto anywhere, as long as you have that phrase.
The bitcoin private key is just a number. You can pick your private keys randomly using just a coin, pencil, and paper: toss a coin 256 times and you have the binary digits of a random private key you can use in a bitcoin wallet. The public key can then be generated from the private key.
MetaMask provides you with a unique 12-word Secret Recovery Phrase on the very first launch. If you did not write it down, or you lost it, you can unlock MetaMask and reveal your Secret Recovery Phrase.
Navigate down to Settings > Security & Privacy. Scroll down, and click on the button that reads "Reveal Secret Recovery Phrase". Enter your password to reveal your Seed Phrase / Secret Recovery Phrase.
A Wallet Address can only be used to make transactions into such wallet, so it's safe to share with other people for them to make a transfer to your wallet. On the other hand, your Private Key is the set of numbers and letters that allows you to access your wallet.
Private keys can be saved in the PEM format as well, "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----"/"-----END PRIVATE KEY-----" is used to denote such files. All these headers as well the detailed PEM-encoding rules are documented in this specification. ASN. 1/DER/PEM is mostly used for TLS implementation and whenever X.
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