{"id":81733,"date":"2023-07-14T18:13:59","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T15:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=81733"},"modified":"2025-09-12T00:47:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T21:47:04","slug":"opinion-long-seed-phrases-offer-little-practical-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/opinion-long-seed-phrases-offer-little-practical-value\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Long seed phrases offer little practical value"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many participants in the cryptocurrency community are convinced that a 24-word seed phrase is safer than a 12-word one. Even the well-known Bitcoin evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos \u043f\u0440\u0438\u0437\u043d\u0430\u043b\u0441\u044f<\/a> that he believed a longer seed was more reliable.<\/p>\n

Together with the Bitcoin mixer Mixer.money<\/a>, we explain why 12 words are sufficient to safeguard funds.<\/p>\n

How a seed phrase protects the private key<\/h2>\n

Software and hardware Bitcoin wallets generate private keys of 256 bits \u2014 long alphanumeric sequences such as KxBacM22hLi3o8W8nQFk6gpWZ6c3C2N9VAr1e3buYGpBVNZaft2p.<\/p>\n

In 2013, developers included<\/a> in the Bitcoin code the BIP39 proposal, which described a mechanism to generate mnemonic codes (seed phrases) of length 12 to 24 words.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cUsers want to maximise the safety of their savings, so they intuitively choose \u201creliable\u201d 24-word backups. They hope for higher seed entropy, which in reality increases the security of the private key only theoretically,\u201d \u2014 say the representatives of Mixer.money.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An attacker can target the private key in two ways \u2014 attempt to recover it from the Bitcoin address or brute-force the mnemonic phrase.<\/p>\n

The first attack is also known as ECDLP<\/a> (Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem) \u2014 the problem of discrete logarithms in the group of points on an elliptic curve. In theory, an attacker could solve it for an address holding a large number of coins.<\/p>\n

The Bitcoin protocol uses elliptic-curve cryptography<\/span>, and specifically the curve secp256k1<\/a>. It allows the rapid generation of public keys and Bitcoin addresses based on private keys. The reverse process \u2014 recovering private keys from public keys \u2014 is practically impossible.<\/p>\n

Solving ECDLP for secp256k1 via the \u0440\u043e-\u0430\u043b\u0433\u043e\u0440\u0438\u0442\u043c \u041f\u043e\u043b\u043b\u0430\u0440\u0434\u0430<\/a> reduces the entropy of keys by half and requires 2^128 operations. However, even that process would take billions of years on modern computers.<\/p>\n

The second attack is a brute-force of the seed phrase. The number of combinations for a 12-word seed is 204812<\/sup>. Discard seeds with an incorrect checksum \u2014 2128<\/span><\/sup> valid phrases remain. The brute-force would also take billions of years.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe probability of finding the mnemonic code by modern technical means is negligibly small. Using 24 words will, without a doubt, increase the already enormous brute-force time by many orders of magnitude, but there is no practical value to it,\u201d \u2014 comment the Mixer.money team.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why long seed phrases are unnecessary<\/h2>\n

12 words are enough to generate private keys with 128-bit security strength. Reducing the seed by even two words would make brute-force attacks feasible.<\/p>\n

A longer mnemonic phrase has a greater level of entropy. Yet the Bitcoin protocol remains based on secp256k1 with 128-bit security.<\/p>\n

A private key derived from 24 words contains the same 128-bit security. It can be cracked, as with a seed of 12 words, in 2^128 operations.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cA 12-word seed is more vulnerable only if the attacker already knows the set of words and can quickly determine<\/em><\/a> their order.<\/em><\/p>\n

But even in such a scenario a long phrase is unlikely to save the wallet owner: during backup users pay equal attention to the words and their order. If a hacker has accessed the mnemonic code, he probably knows both.<\/em><\/p>\n

You can strengthen the protection of seed phrases against such brute-forcing, but the security foundation of Bitcoin will still reside in the private key,\u201d \u2014 conclude the analysts at Mixer.money.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Conclusions<\/h2>\n

Twelve words are sufficient to generate a robust secret and protect against brute-forcing. A seed phrase of that length offers the same security as the private key itself.<\/p>\n

Mixer.money notes that losses in Bitcoin can result not only from theft but also from a mistake when creating a backup. From this perspective, a 12-word mnemonic phrase is safer: users are more likely to write it down correctly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Together with the Bitcoin mixer Mixer.money we explain why 12 words are enough to safeguard funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":81734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"2","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1144],"tags":[1111,1138],"class_list":["post-81733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-longreads","tag-cybersecurity","tag-opinions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"47","promo_type":"2","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81735,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81733\/revisions\/81735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}