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- it's not compatible with the bitcoin core client
- I don't find the generated words easy to memorize
So lately I've been learning about mnemonics in order to memorize the bitcoin core seed. After experimenting quite a bit, I concluded that at least for me, the the PEG system works better than the method of loci.
What is the PEG system? Well it seems that there are several definitions of it on the web, but the one I like is an analogy with what is done when you leave your shirt to a dry cleaner. They will stick a number to it and give you a receipt with that number. That's how the PEG system differs from the method of loci : you don't really memorize a sequence of things, instead you memorize associations between numbers and things. That's why people who use this method can recall the things they memorized in any order. I'm not sure that is possible with the method of loci.
So what worked for me is the combination of the PEG system and the so-called major system.
So to memorize a seed, I first converted it to decimal, from which I made 38 integers from 0 to 99.
Each of this numbers is turned into a word with the major system. Then each of these words is "pegged" to something that represents the position index in the list. These things representing the indices form what is called the recall table. This recall table doesn't have to be secret.
For instance, the second entry in my recall table is Elizabeth II :
So for instance if the second number you had to memorize was say 53, then you can picture Elizabeth II riding a lama (because "lama" is 53 in the major system), or you can think of the sentence "the queen is lame". I personally like using images of animals, but to each his own.
Whatever method you choose to build your recall table with, I think it is important that you do not use the major system, since you will associate two numbers, you want a way to know which is the index and which is the seed chunk value. Only the latter will be built with the major system. For the former, you can use anything. Since the recall table does not have to be secret, you can take inspiration from public knowledge data.
For the 33rd entry of my recall table for instance, I looked up the wikipedia page for 33 :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_(number)
and then I picked the islamic prayer beads as a PEG for that position (as it has 33 beads) :
Memorizing a bitcoin seed with this method implies building a recall table of size 38. It's perfectly doable. The main hassle I think is to type all these numbers : it is tedious and stressful because you're typing sensitive information you can't save anywhere and if you make a typing mistake you have to start over again.
