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Topic: You should use a 12 or 24 words seed phrase ? (Read 399 times)

legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 4418
Crypto Swap Exchange
February 18, 2024, 12:41:57 AM
#25
Anyway, back to the seed phrase where 24 words is much safer but still it is possible to lose money if ever a person is able to know the words then he/she will be able to take it out of the wallet. Losing money is not all about brute force but scammer find a way to steal your wallet seed phrase. It is all up to the owner to keep the wallet safe.
12 words and 24 words have marginal difference in security increment. I wouldn't call it much safer by any regard. 12 words seed phrases are easier to keep than a 24 words seed phrase and hence a better option.
newbie
Activity: 14
Merit: 0
You can learn everyday something new, you know now what  the undecillion word stands for  Wink
We can learn everyday which is true but some people aren't learning right away because some people might be slower when it comes to how fast a person can learn. Anyway, back to the seed phrase where 24 words is much safer but still it is possible to lose money if ever a person is able to know the words then he/she will be able to take it out of the wallet. Losing money is not all about brute force but scammer find a way to steal your wallet seed phrase. It is all up to the owner to keep the wallet safe.

True but like OP posted you can have 24 words and someone know the seed but if the order of words is mixed up then you need some divine intervention to crack it.
hero member
Activity: 2268
Merit: 669
Bitcoin Casino Est. 2013
You can learn everyday something new, you know now what  the undecillion word stands for  Wink
We can learn everyday which is true but some people aren't learning right away because some people might be slower when it comes to how fast a person can learn. Anyway, back to the seed phrase where 24 words is much safer but still it is possible to lose money if ever a person is able to know the words then he/she will be able to take it out of the wallet. Losing money is not all about brute force but scammer find a way to steal your wallet seed phrase. It is all up to the owner to keep the wallet safe.
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 8
The number of posible combinations exceeds 2.6 undecillion potential pairings.
What is that weird unit you used? It is not even universal! According to google it is one thing in US standard and another in UK standard and who whos what it means in the rest of the world. Use the universal ways, something like e+36

BTW 2048^12=5.44e+39

You can learn everyday something new, you know now what  the undecillion word stands for  Wink
hero member
Activity: 714
Merit: 1298
Maybe a 24 word seed phrase will however become more relevant in the future when there is more and more computing power available. Is there any calculation if it will be possible to crack 12 word seed phrases with a super computer maybe in the next 50-100 years if you take into consideration how fast the capacity grows?

There will be no ways to crack either 12 or 24  words seed phrases (providing they  are  not biased on some extend)   in any future as such actions  require enormous source of energy.  To avoid repeating comment I head you to the relevant estimations based on Landauer's principle https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.63329443
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 7340
Farewell, Leo
The number of posible combinations exceeds 2.6 undecillion potential pairings.
The number of all possible phrases that contain 12 words, out of 2048, with word repetition, is 204812 (~54.4 duodecillion). However, not all phrases are valid, because the last word contains the 4 bits checksum. This reduces the number to 204812 / 24 (~3.4 duodecillion). None of these numbers begin with '26', so I'm not quite sure how you got this number.

24 is obviously more secure, but harder to keep.
It means 24 words are safer in security than 12 words, 256 bits of entropy compares to 128 bits of entropy. 24 words are more secure than 12 words.
Bitcoin private keys provide a 128 bits of security. A seed phrase can be 128 bits, 256 bits, 4096 bits, etc., but it won't provide security beyond 128 bits.

Maybe a 24 word seed phrase will however become more relevant in the future when there is more and more computing power available. Is there any calculation if it will be possible to crack 12 word seed phrases with a super computer maybe in the next 50-100 years if you take into consideration how fast the capacity grows?
Let me put it this way: It's computationally easier to work out the private key given a public key than guess a seed phrase with money inside.
full member
Activity: 532
Merit: 229
Yes I definitely use the seed phrase, because it gives me maximum security. I use seed phrase in my wallet and my exchange. I am now using a seed phrase of 12 words, Because rearranging a 24-word seed phrase is a lot of trouble.However I think seed phrase is most needed to keep any wallet or exchange or other important thing safe. And I think any hacker can't bypass the seed phrase. So I mostly rely on seed phrase to keep my wallet safe.
hero member
Activity: 1050
Merit: 642
Magic
Maybe a 24 word seed phrase will however become more relevant in the future when there is more and more computing power available. Is there any calculation if it will be possible to crack 12 word seed phrases with a super computer maybe in the next 50-100 years if you take into consideration how fast the capacity grows?
hero member
Activity: 1344
Merit: 540
Using this examples, i want to conclude this topic saying that both 12 and 24 SP words are secure, but 24 is way more, in one hand we have the dilema of scrambling the words and having the 24 SP its would be imposible to recover, although the 12 SP its definetly more ''easy'' or '' lot less difficult'' than the 24 one. My suggestion is to pick the 24 SP and not scrambling the words , i hope you learned something.

When adequately protected, a twelve-word seed phrases ensures complete safety.

So for me, it doesn't have to be twenty four seed phrases all the time as I have said, it boils down as how you manage and protect your seed phrases.
hero member
Activity: 1050
Merit: 642
Magic
Is there a tool that can try to brute force the correct order of the 24 seed word seed phrase. I would love to give it a try, since it looks much more easy then it actually is.
There is really that weird thing with humans and probabilities that we are not really able to understand how unlikely stuff is.
hero member
Activity: 714
Merit: 1298

Using this examples, i want to conclude this topic saying that both 12 and 24 SP words are secure,


They are secure at the assumption of being originated from the truly random numbers. I'm not sure that wallets are capable to  produce SEEDs covering the full available seed-space rather than they not are biased to some extend, let's say to billion or trillion or quadrillion variants.

Thus I would add  ( to any SEED) the additional entropy of at least 128 bits  in the form of 25th password (aka pass phrase, aka SEED extension aka etc.)
sr. member
Activity: 652
Merit: 321
the way i see it:

24 words is more secure - each word creates exponentially more security
however 12 words is easier to remember in a short story. which can can be more secure as people lose their seed all the time

the way the world is going you want to hold your btc in your brain. just hope those nano bots aren't scooping it up
hero member
Activity: 742
Merit: 633
The rule to secure your coins is no rule.

Some people said 12 words is secure and enough, the other said 24 words is better.

Some people said using passphrase is better, the other said it's not secure because we can lost or forget it.

Some people said non custodial wallet is better, the other said centralized exchange is better because you don't have to pay fees and you can easily recover your coins when you lost your password.
legendary
Activity: 2716
Merit: 1225
Once a man, twice a child!
A few days ago, I was given the option of either choosing a 12 SP or a 24 SP while trying to create a crypto wallet specifically for certain alts I wanted to buy. I've never had that option before. It was either on 12 SP or 24 SP default settings with other wallets I had created in the past. So, I quickly went with the 12. Though there was a note at the bottom of that option that both were secured, the 24 SP was more secured as it read. I chose and created using 12 because I've come to realize that a better part of wallet security begins with us, not the app. No matter how secure we think an app or hardware is, if we aren't safety conscious we won't get the wallet security it provides. For me, the security and safety of my funds begins with me and I try not to compromise that. I've used both 12 and 24 in my seven years in this industry with various wallets and haven't been hacked for once. Know the type of wallets you want to use first before sending your funds to them. Research and find reviews on them before activation.
newbie
Activity: 93
Merit: 0
24 is obviously more secure, but harder to keep. You can recover 12 words, if you have a part of your seed phrase and you remember it, or if words are rearranged. Can't imagine that with 24 words seed phrase.
sr. member
Activity: 1736
Merit: 357
Peace be with you!
Although, technically, 256 bits of entropy means higher level of unpredictability than 128 bits of entropy, generally speaking, they're both secure enough to protect your funds. What's left to make sure of is that you won't leak it, whether half of it, whether disarranged.

I guess the problem most of the time is not the number of words in your seed phrase but how you safekeep them. Nobody has ever brute-force attack even a 12-word seed phrase.

And, if I may add, a random passphrase provides additional protection.

Exactly. I can see more people forgot their seed phrases or even misplaced it resulting to their funds lost forever compared to getting bruteforced from the previous years. The most important thing here is how responsible we are to keep our private keys, seed phrases or whatever you call it in a safe place. But I personally use the 24 SP with all my wallets.
legendary
Activity: 3808
Merit: 1723
February 17, 2024, 12:45:35 AM
#9
In general you should just use 12 word seeds. 24 is safer in terms of security however 12 is enough by todays standards to provide more than adequate protection.

Reason why 12 is better is because if you somehow lost 24 seed words, it would be very difficult to remember all of those words, especially in the correct order.

But with 12 it you remember some of your words then there are options to recover them. You could look manually at the dictionary and would have a greater chance of getting your lost seeds back, with 24 it would be impossible.
member
Activity: 1218
Merit: 49
Binance #Smart World Global Token
February 17, 2024, 12:34:59 AM
#8


Many of the wallets I am using only require 12-word seed phrase but there are surely some that you can opt to get the other choice which is the 24-word one. I do understand that maybe 24-word can be more secured but then again it can be burdensome on my part inputting those 24 words whenever I need to uninstall and install the wallet. Anyway, the most important thing is that we have the choice on what to pick...if 24-word can give one a more peace of mind then so let it be the choice, otherwise 12-word is enough for me. Now, will this dynamic be changed if we will have the quantum computing staring right before us?
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 10611
February 16, 2024, 11:37:17 PM
#7
The number of posible combinations exceeds 2.6 undecillion potential pairings.
What is that weird unit you used? It is not even universal! According to google it is one thing in US standard and another in UK standard and who whos what it means in the rest of the world. Use the universal ways, something like e+36

BTW 2048^12=5.44e+39

Quote
Using this examples, i want to conclude this topic saying that both 12 and 24 SP words are secure, but 24 is way more, in one hand we have the dilema of scrambling the words and having the 24 SP its would be imposible to recover, although the 12 SP its definetly more ''easy'' or '' lot less difficult'' than the 24 one. My suggestion is to pick the 24 SP and not scrambling the words , i hope you learned something.
Uranus is far but Neptune is farther! Who cares? We can't travel to either one of them Smiley
That's the same with 12 versus 24 words. It is impossible to break a 128-bit entropy that created the 12 word seed phrase. Using 256 bit entropy is obviously stronger but it is like making something impossible more impossible!
Not to mention that a bigger entropy is not providing your keys with more security because the keys derived from it still have 128 bits of security.
hero member
Activity: 630
Merit: 510
February 16, 2024, 09:48:16 PM
#6
12 vs 24 wallet seed topics has been discussed a lot in the forum, and you can find a lot of in-depth discussions by searching on Google using the word
Code:
12 vs 24 seed bitcointalk

BIP-39 standard enables you to generate 12, 15, 18, 24, but 12 and 24 are the most famous ones, as they both represent 2^256 (24 words) and 2^128 (12 words), so in terms of entropy, your coins are safe, but 24 words increases the risk of losing your bitcoin as losing 5-7 words will cause you to lose everything you own, while it is easy to keep 12 words.
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