Isn’t it all about security when it comes to Bitcoin wallets?
I’ve seen some folks claim that 24-word seed phrases are way tougher than the 12-word ones. But then there are others here saying that 12 or 24 doesn’t really make a difference.
I get that keeping your recovery seed offline is super important, but if having more words makes your wallet safer, why isn’t that pushed more? I’m just trying to figure this out.
12 and 24 word seed phrase has the same bits of security which is 128 bits. 12 words seed phrase is absolutely enough.
What people should be careful about is not the length of their seed phrase, it is about the types of wallets they should have for different purposes and how they stay away from being scammed and also avoid their wallet to be hacked.
For better security, cold wallets are better.
For frequent use with small amount of money, desktop and mobile wallet are good, but still making sure you avoid malware.
Since a bitcoin private key provides maximum of 128 bits of security, there is no way to have more than 128 bits of security.
Therefore you don't make your wallet more secure with having more than 12 words in your seed phrase and as stated above by Charles-Tim, 12 words are enough.
Its this way, a 12 word seed phrase provides 128 bits of entropy, while a 24 words seed phrase provides a 256 bits of entropy, this bits of entropy is same as that of a private key too which is 256 bits too, so does saying that 24 words are more secure are placing their emphasis base on this,
But the reason why members of this forum actually says that 12 words are just enough is that even with the 256 bits of entropy that the private key has the secp256k1 curve (ECDSA) that the bitcoin uses only provides 128 bits of entropy which technically means that the private key is just 128 bits of security possible and that means that the 12 words seed phrase with same bit of entropy is just enough,
Entropy: is the degree of randomness so the higher the entropy the more its supposed to be more secure but because of ECDSA bitcoin uses just the 128 bits
The only place then I will recommend a 24 word seed phrase is actually because of brute forcing, imagine someone gets access to half of your seed phrase, it will be harder to brute the other half of 24 words seed phrase than the other half of a 12 word seed word phrase
Rather than moving to 24 seed words, you can use 12 seed words and add a passphrase for your wallet.
Should you use a 12 or 24 word seed?
Optional passphrase in BIP39.
Well everyone already said it already Charles was right 12 words are enough, but bro 24 words are way more secured in my opinion because the length of word just make is more difficult to crack or brute force. I mean the hacker should work double haha, A 24-word seed phrase provides 256 bits of entropy (2 to the power of 256 combinations). tho Bitcoins ultimate security doesn't rely on the seed phrase itself; it relies on the mathematical difficulty .
Just use hardware wallet for better security imo
Using a hardware wallet is a good advice because cold wallets are the best but people need to know which hardware wallets are good, and how to buy hardware wallets rightly, then how to use hardware wallets properly too.
[LIST] Open Source Hardware Wallets.
[GUIDE] How to buy a Hardware Wallet the right way.
How To Verify the Downloaded Version of Ledger Live.
DOs and DON'Ts with wallets.
This is true, but most people will prefer to backup all the 24 words together. It is also not recommended to split seed phrase. I will prefer to use passphrase instead of making the seed phrase 24 words if security is the concern. I can also decide to generate address starting from m/84'/0'/0'/0/1234567, although which I do not consider necessary.
A 12-word seed phrase is completely secure. When I first came across it, I also thought that 12 words did not sound like much and that such a combination could be easy to guess. However, once I looked into it more deeply, I realized that guessing it is practically impossible.
The number of possible combinations is infinite it is so enormous that the human mind simply is not built to comprehend that scale. Even if every supercomputer in the world were connected and used to randomly guess your properly generated 12-word seed phrase, it would still take an unimaginable amount of time. The Sun would burn out long before anyone could randomly guess your 12 words.
A 24-word seed phrase is even more secure.
The security measures is part of the most vital aspect of Bitcoin wallet and we should know that our coin is not in this wallet but on the blockchain that we have access to its unblocking keys through the wallet used.
There's no difference because they all have the same security measures irrespective of the entropy, but most importantly is for us to be able to secure our seed phrase in a more advanced privacy manner, so that we don't lose hold of it or to a thought party for them to gain access, with non-costal deal is that the security lies in our hands and how we handles it determines how secure it is.
Using modern cryptographic hacking tools, cracking a wallet using a 12-word seed phrase is just as difficult as cracking a wallet using a 24-word seed phrase. In practice, there's no difference. The difference exists only in mathematical theory.
In my experience, a 12-word seed phrase is actually more effective than a 24-word one. For example, try memorizing a 12-word seed phrase... It's quite easy! Now try memorizing a 24-word one... It's much harder!
You can easily make a critical error when copying your 24-word seed phrase into a paper notebook. As a result, you could permanently lose access to your bitcoins.
If you enter your seed phrase into a fake wallet, you will lose your bitcoins, regardless of the length of your seed phrase. Currently, this is a very real risk, unlike the theoretical risk of your wallet being hacked by modern quantum computers. A long seed phrase, in my opinion, increases the likelihood of a successful hacker attack. After all, a cryptocurrency enthusiast will be too focused on correctly entering 24 words and may miss other very important details...
Incidentally, some cryptocurrency wallets allow you to add a 13th word or rather, not even a word, but a custom password to the 12 words of the seed phrase. Under certain circumstances, this can provide no less cryptographic security than a 24-word seed phrase. However, it also creates new risks for you. If you accidentally forget this 13th word (password), the consequences will likely be catastrophic.🤷
I was actually just stating the only reason why a 24 words seed phrase is better, it always a bad idea to actually back up ones wallet by either splitting the words or even use other methods like coloring and all things like that. Passphrase is actually one of the best forms of adding extra layer of security to ones seed phrase or if not passphrase alone there is still the method of using multi sig again for someone with two devices
The possibility of the brute forcing actually depends on the number of missing words, the fewer numbers of missing words and the knowledge of each words position results into how high the possibility of brute forcing is. Here is some permutations based on the number of missing words.
I think memorizing your seed phrase is second means of backing up your seed phrase because if memorizing is your only option then its a bad option. Because memorizing your seed phrase is bad choice me
Both are secured, if care isn't taken you will lose your Bitcoin with 12 recovery phrases or 24 recovery phrases, it doesn't matter which it is, and that's why people recommend 12 recovery.
The one mission you have as a investor is guiding the words like your life depends on it, 24 words won't safe you from phishing links, wrong address, or other attacks, this. Is why it doesn't matter.
As for any hacking tools out there, it's very hard to crack both 12 and 24 seed phrases, keep either offline and you will be alright on the longest run, twenty years down holding nothing bad will happen.
This is not accurate. What Charles-Tim says is is enough and it's not about opinion, it's practical proof that you can't brute force 128 bits security.
12 words and 24 words both can give you 128 bits of security and you can't brute force it, going beyond 128 bits is just you playing safe but the 128 bits is enough.
Instead of using 24 words, I will rather use 12 words with a passphrase as extension to further strengthen and protect my coin instead of having long seed phrase.
Not really true.
A Seed of 24 words is more secure than a Seed composed of 12 words. 12 words are enough for security but this does not invalidate the fact that 24 words are uncomparably more secure.
In fact. When you lose a word out of your 24 word Seed, you do not only have more security but it is also a lot easier to recover than if you lost a word out of a 12 word Seed. Considering I have seen people lose a word or two out of their Seed before, I would say this is another advantage to having 24 words.
Also. A Passphrase does help. But the security extension of it depends on how secure it is. I used random password generators in the past and even if I asked them to use symbols, numbers et cetera it ended up generating a password that was not secure at all and I had to re generate it multiple times until I found one that was actually secure. I bet you there are a LOT of people who set a really bad Passphrase thinking it adds a layer of security on top of their Seed. So for the average person I actually think a 24 words Seed is better than picking their own bad Passphrase over a 12 word Seed.
12 seed words: 128 bits of entropy
24 seed words: 256 bits of entropy
24 seed words are more secure than 12 seed words but practically 12 seed words is enough because it's impossible to break/ brute force 12 seed words already.
A video explains about Optional passphrase from Antonopoulos.
Bitcoin Q&A: Optional Passphrases (Advanced Security Feature) and Seed Storage.
There's another reason too that makes 12 words enough.
Even if you have a 24 word seed phrase, your private keys can still provide a maximum of 128 bits of security and this means that even in theory, a 24 word seed phrase can't give you more security than a 12 word seed phrase.
I should have probably included more of the quote I inserted as I was replying to Cookdata contradicting the following,
The 12 versus 24 word Seed is a debate on theoretical margin. Theoretically, 24 words is maximum security and most of the people I know of who have high level security Bitcoin set ups prefer 24 words. It allows flexibility of splitting the Seed in parts, it needs less recovery attempts if any of the words fail et cetera. Out of paranoia or not it is still the highest level of security to choose, even considering the 128 bits of security Private Key ceiling limit.
Let's end the 12 vs 24 words seed phrase debate once and for all.
Both are secure. No, a 24 one is not more secure than a 12 one. No attacker will ever brute force a seed phrase from zero. It's easier to brute force the Bitcoin private key directly than a seed phrase with no hints. The reason why wallets allow you to pick between a 12 and 24 words is because of a tradeoff; the more the words, the easier it is to brute force the seed phrase with 3-4 words missing. This is because the checksum is greater with 24 words, and you can skip a lot more invalid seed phrases this way. But the downside is that you're writing down 24 words instead of just 12.
That's it. Both secure. None is "more secure".
I won't discuss which is more secure, 12 or 24 seed phrases, as both should be mathematically equally secure. However, what's important to emphasize is the medium where you store your Bitcoin. When the device you use to store your Bitcoin is connected to the internet, the chances of your wallet being vulnerable are much greater than when you use a hardware wallet.