Bitcoin Forum

Why is it that some crypto wallet supports only 12 recovery seed words and others more? I have a bitcoin wallet with 18 seed phrases and it's hard to see any mobile wallet supporting this number, I've tried Exodus, Bread and few others, but they only support 12 seed phrases, what am I not getting here and is there any other solution around this. Are there any reliable crypto wallet that supports the importation of 18 seed phrases?

Use Electrum for it, it would work. Make sure you check BIP39 if the seed phrase is BIP39 seed phrase

For download: https://electrum.org
PGP key verification: [GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum [Guide] (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5240594.0)

You can also use Bluewallet for it. https://bluewallet.io/

For the derivation path:
Legacy (P2PKH) for bitcoin addresses that start with 1
P2SH-segwit (p2wpkh-P2sh) for addresses that start with 3
Native segwit (p2wpkh) for addresses that start with bc1

You can just insert those 18 words in https://iancoleman.io/bip39/ and it will generate all possible addresses for you.

But be careful!!

Download and run offline.
There are many derivation paths where your coins might be.
Someone may be watching your computer.


Alternatively, you can follow this guide to try to import the master key into electrum
https://coinomi.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/29000009715-how-to-import-a-coinomi-seed-into-electrum-

The most widely used standard for seed phrases is BIP39, which defines 12 to 24 words.
Some wallets may choose to use a smaller number of seed words for convenience or to simplify the backup process, while others may use a larger number for added security.

If you have a wallet with 18 seed phrases, it may not be supported by some popular mobile wallets, but there are alternatives that support 18 words, such as Electrum or Mycelium also you can try Atomic Wallet or Ledger Live, which both support BIP44 standard

As suggested above you can use electrum for importing your 18 word seed phrase. But take note that electrum will work for you only if that seed phrase is BIP39. Even if that's a BIP39 seed phrase, you also need to know the derivation path unless your wallet has been generated on a common derivation path. Otherwise, electrum will generate different addresses.

I wonder what wallet you are talking about.

First you need to know what was the wallet or website you used to create seed with 18 words, and format (BIP39 or electrum) you used to do it, and maybe even derivation path for addresses.
If I remember correctly several hardware wallets are supporting 12, 18 and 24 seed words and Coinomi software wallet was also supporting 18 seed words.
I would first try using iancoleman website but remember to do it only offline, not connected to internet.

Atomic wallet only supports 12 words seed phrase. Also close source.

Coinomi support 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 words seed phrases, but just that it is close source, when there are open source alternatives, I do not think it is necessary to use it.

Look like you people from the old school. that 18 seed as I remember from the old blockchain.info recovery mnemonic.
And as posted above, Coinomi is support importing 18 seeds and has an application phone also, but make sure to check it carefully and use the phone which sure is safe.

Yes. I think it is more likely that it is an old blockchain.info recovery phrase (which is not BIP-39, BTW).

I don't know of any wallet app that creates an 18-word BIP-39 phrase, but there might be one. (If so, then why not just use the original wallet app?)

There is one that uses 18 recovery phrases that I remember, coinomi wallet has 18 words because I started using this wallet in 2018 and 2019, I have created few multi wallet using coinomi and they are all 18 seed words, this wallet was the main reason why I started using iancoleman to get main private keys for each addresses and I ended up losing my asset. Such a bad experience at the time, I knew I did something wrong on the website or probably through airdrops because that was why I created those wallet addresses.

My first wallet is Coinomi until I came to this forum to know that it is close source, I started using it in the fourth quarter of 2019, Coinomi only generates 24 word seed phrase by default. But you can be able to recover 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 words seed phrases on Coinomi.