5 docs tagged with "bip39"

A derivation path determines how your private keys are derived from your seed phrase and which addresses are generated from those keys.

The extended private key is derived from the binary private key (along with an optional passphrase) using mathematical functions that most users don’t need to understand in detail.

The purpose of the extended public key (xpub) might not be immediately obvious. Looking at the bottom section of the diagram, you’ll see that possessing the extended public key allows wallet software to generate all the same Bitcoin addresses as the extended private key—in the same order. This means the wallet will look identical in terms of addresses and transaction history. But what’s the key difference?

BIP39 (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 39) defines a list of 2048 words, arranged alphabetically. Each word in the list corresponds to a specific position, which is used to map a binary number to its matching word. For example, if the binary number you calculate corresponds to the number 1477, the word in that position on the list is "reward”.

Writing down a binary private key accurately is difficult for humans, and entering it correctly into a wallet is even harder. A single mistake could lead to losing Bitcoin. While a computer can detect errors using a checksum, handwritten notes cannot.