Bitcoin Forum

what will happen if two persons use the same "recovery phrase" ?

the entropy of the recovery seeds (many random words) is so high that its unlikely to happen

but if you typed in your seed and strangely found it has fnds on it because someone obviously already had the same seeds to produce addresses before you.. then the answer is simple
a game of "fastest spender wins"

They will both have access to the same bitcoins.
Depending on what wallet they are using and how well it deals with multiple concurrent instances, they will probably experience a lot of confusion and messed up transactions that are rejected as "double-spend attempt".

Im pretty sure if you use the same recovery seed phrase then you will be given access to the same bitcoin private address which is just as unlikely as generating the same address as someone in the first place. probably impossibly small chance of this ever happening .

Yikes, What a mess that would be for the operator. I would not want to be responsible for such a system.

I agree.  Most of the Bitcoin wallets are not designed for multiple concurrent instances.  The wallets typically assume that they have exclusive access to all the information about all transactions signed by the private keys that are in the wallet.  As such, if someone creates a transaction from some other wallet that is using the same private keys, all other instances may know nothing about it may therefore try (and fail) to spend the same bitcoins.

It's generally a very bad idea to have the same private keys in more than one in-use wallet.

Nothing...

The recovery phhrase is attached to a single account, so, if two users have exactly the same recovery phrase it dont affects, same happens with two people with the same secret question:

Example:

secret question for jackessmith account:  Name of your pet:  Stupid dog (hehehe)

secret question for his brother:  jhonsmith:  Name of your pet:  Stupid dog

as you see, noting happens..

just the two brothers dont have to tell each other what is the secret question  lol

Its never gona happen, ok i cant say never but it is highly doubtful, like seriously.....

You have no idea what you are you talking about do you?

Yeah, im talking about security issues in sites or banks or whatever who ask a recovery phrase when yo forget yor password...

That is a recovery phrase..

or not ????


or what  ; P

The network will no care about it... Recovery phrases are only used by the wallets.

Whoever have the private key will be able to spent the balance. If two Tx happen at the same time, the fastest one will get accepted.

I have Electrum on three computers, with the wallet file copied from the first one to the other two. Is this what you are talking about? I've not had any serious issues with it, but I was careful to generate all the public keys I expect to need before copying it. I am able to make transactions on one and then see them seamlessly on the others at will. Is there anything I should beware of, or definitely NOT do?

that is why wallets don't let you choose that phrase/seed for generating wallet. for example in Electrum which is a wallet that uses seed to create your private keys, there is no (easy) option to enter your own custom seed to generate the private keys.

Getting same recovery phrase is hard so two person using same recovery phrase is unlikely to happen except both knows it already.

The probability is one in a trillion. Most unlikely to happen.

However, even if it happens then the fast person to use that key will win. The second person will get nothing. Double transaction can't happen in this.

The only person that will actually even be aware of the problem will be the second person to log into the wallet so the first person wouldn't even know what's happened until all the coins are gone.  Luckily the chance is so small its next to impossible.

the question that nobody seems toe be asking here is "recovery phrase for what"?
is it recovery phrase (which is mostly known as seed by the way) for a wallet?
which wallet are you talking about?
most wallets like electrum have good enough entropy in order to genera these seeds in a way that there is nearly zero chance of collision.

but this recovery phrase may be coded in a bad way in another not-so-popular wallet that doesn't provide the same security and causes collision.

I think it's impossible to get same recovery phrase for other users because there are many phrase to word and every recovery phrase is unique.

In Bitcoin, recovery phrase points directly to the private key, so you can spend the Bitcoins with the recovery phrase.

With sites or banks if two persons have the same password (or recovery phrase for password, a hint) it doesnt matter, as these are linked to two different account usernames, which both persons have no knowledge about the other.

the recovery phrase doesnt quite work how you think it works.
its not just 12 words that when you put them together its a private key.

the words arent random. each one has a place in the chain.. kind of like a check.. they are made up in a way it would be impossible to guess.

If more one person is having access to same bitcoin private-key due to same recovery phrase, I believe the first spender will get all the benefits. But recovery phrases has more combinations, so less to no chances for a collision.