Topic: Urgent Help Needed for BRD Wallet Bitcoin Recovery (Read 312 times)

Glad, you recovered your coins and a nice sum-up of the solution by the OP. I want to point out, that the OP didn't mention the crucial language translation step he did with his mnemonic recovery words in most of his posts here. If he had, the solution to the recovery issue would've likely been easier to spot for those who know that the actual normalized words, not their indices, are fed into the 2048x PBKDF2 rounds mill, see e.g. https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/mnemonic#mnemonic-to-seed

Just to highlight the importance to try to calm down and think about and report every detail of a problem which you can't solve yourself. Sometimes little details really matter...

Uh, I tried again and used the Electrum wallet to input the Chinese mnemonic phrase, and indeed, I was able to recover it. Just by checking the existing addresses, I could find them. The main issue was that the input box only had English prompts, and below, it showed 'unknown wordlist.' I thought it didn't support other languages, my misunderstanding.

Anyway, Thanks again.

The entropy is used to generate the words. The words themselves are what is fed in to PBKDF2 in order to generate your master keys. If you encode the same entropy using different word lists or different languages, then you will have different seed phrases and therefore different wallets.

The Chinese seed phrase is not convertible to an English seed phrase. As above, even if you encode the same entropy in two different languages, you will end up with two different wallets.

OP - glad you got things sorted, but all your actions were unnecessary. If you enter your seed phrase in any language in to Electrum and check BIP39, although it will tell you "unknown wordlist", it will still let you recover your wallet normally. You should just be able to enter your Chinese seed phrase directly in to Electrum, select BIP39, enter the correct derivation path, and recover your wallet. Certainly this works with a Chinese seed phrase generated via iancoleman.

Yes,  I replaced each Chinese word with the english word, line by line.

I have checked the BIP039, seed phrase generate and recovery is indpendent.

Using https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39 this tool to generate random words, as you can see, if you choose different language, the words has the same index, but the private/public key is different.

Very good! I suspected that the derivation path would be something like that, but I never knew that BRD Wallet let you write mnemonic phrases in different languages.


That is a bit strange. So at first you replaced each Chinese word with the english word, line by line?

I'll probably have to re-visit the BIP39 spec to see how exactly it handles different language wordlists.

I am quite surprised in particular at how the Chinese mnemonic only converted correctly to english after using the m/0'/0 path, I mean before using it as an Electrum mnemonic.

Thank goodness! After several days of effort, researching, studying documentation, and reading code, I finally managed to recover all of my bitcoins. The core issue was indeed related to the mnemonic phrase. Let me recap the key points.

Mnemonic phrases in different languages cannot be directly converted. I had mistakenly believed that I could convert mnemonic phrases between different languages using the word list index provided by https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/b1791c24aa163eb6578d0bfaadcf44997484eeaf/bip-0039/bip-0039-wordlists.md.

This turned out to be the crux of the matter. Since most wallets only support English mnemonic phrases, and mine was in Chinese, my attempts to replace it with English words using the index and trying different derivation paths were unsuccessful. Upon revisiting the https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/b1791c24aa163eb6578d0bfaadcf44997484eeaf/bip-0039.mediawiki mnemonic specification, I realized that the index was only meant for checksum verification. The actual seed calculation involves treating the original mnemonic phrase as a string. Identifying this core issue, I used the https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39 (offline) tool to convert my Chinese mnemonic phrase into the BIP032 standard with a custom derivation path (m/0'/0). I saw my addresses were there, and I knew success was just one step away.

Using the Electrum wallet, I imported the master public key address generated by https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39. However, I still couldn't see the balance, which was puzzling. After examining Electrum's source code (https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/586d3a4361f5dbb9ce9ffdfdfeb276664b5bbfaa/electrum/bip39_recovery.py#L51), I discovered that it automatically adds /0 to the derivation path. Understanding this, all I needed to do was fill in the derivation path as m/0' in https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39, enter the corresponding public key (xpubxxx) into Electrum, and finally, I could see the transaction history. With this, I've successfully recovered the bitcoins I lost.

I believe there are probably many others like me who think that mnemonic phrases in different languages can be converted. Moreover, most wallets on the market only support English mnemonic phrases, and this is the core issue.

Here, I express my gratitude for all the help provided. By sharing my experience, I hope to assist more people who might encounter similar challenges.

Ok, what happens when you try to open it? Since you didn't update the app to the latest version, it should not be bricked. Are you still able to see your addresses and balances? Or is it completely obscured by some network error?

Yes, I have one.

You don't need to enter different paths prior to using "Detect existing accounts" - Electrum will scan the common ones automatically. Was Electrum definitely synced when you did this (green circle in the bottom right)?

BRD wallet uses m/0' for both legacy and sewgit addresses. Import your seed to Electrum, select BIP39, choose legacy, and enter m/0' as the derivation path. In the wallet it creates for you, make sure it is synced as above.

If the wallet is empty, go to the console and enter the following two commands separately:

This will generate more receiving and change addresses. Let those sync too. If still empty, check the wallet for any historical transactions.

Do you still have the old (not updated) BRD Wallet app installed on your phones?

Just checked again, and it's still not working

Can you try the following path (exactly as it is):

m/0 (hardened)/ 0 (NOT hardened)/0 (NOT hardened)?

I saw it in an old reddit post that this used to be the old derivation path: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/9yibc4/whats_the_brd_wallet_derivation_path/

Thank you for your kind reminder.
I know I should not importing seed phrase in so many different wallet, But anyway, I have to try different wallets to recover my bitcoins, and as soon as I find a way to recover, I will transfer them out immediately.


Every time I tried a different derivative path of BIP039 with Electrum Wallet, I clicked the "Detect existing account" button, but it didn't work.

First of all, I would be very cautious importing your seed phrase in to so many different wallets and websites. You are at high risk of it being stolen unless you are doing this all on an airgapped computer.

Secondly, have you tried using the "Detect existing accounts" button on Electrum? If I remember correctly, that worked for another user and it found his BRD wallet account.

I've also read reports of people having success importing BRD seed phrases in to Blue Wallet. You could try that as another option.

I create this wallet between 2017 later and 2018 middle, I remember BRD wallet did not support custom derivation path.
I and my friend have not recover our bitcoin yet... we have tried every method, I don't konw anybody else have encounter the same problem.

The xpub is generated from your seed. Use the iancoleman tool as recommended by others to get it.
Unless you changed something the m/0' is the derivation path used by BRD for legacy addresses.

-Dave

I have tried this https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39 tool, and path m/0', m/0'/0', m/0'/0'/0, m/0'/0'/1, m/0'/1/0, m/0'/1/0, etc, non of my address displayer.

That's the things weird, I'm absolutely sure I got the mnemonic right, and my brd wallet can export the same mnemonic on my old phone.

The xpub is generated from your seed phrase.

Download the iancoleman page https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39, disconnect your internet connection and paste the seed phrase inside.

Then go to "Derivation Path" and type in some derivation paths such as m/0', m/0'/0, m/0'/0/0, etc. Repeat until you see your address displayed in the "Derived Addresses" area.

Also maybe you can try importing the seed in bluewallet, some comments on Reddit say it imports better than Coinbase wallet and Electrum.

I have an old addresses, which used in 2018, but it starts with 1xxxx, how can I transfer it to format like this "xpubXXXXX"

Do you have any old addresses generated by BRD wallet that you can examine inside the xpub checker site?