Generate 12 word seed for hardware wallet

[thecryptoprick]

What is the most secure way to generate a 12 word seed for a hardware wallet. I would like to also add a passphrase.

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[1715430818]

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[mocacinno]

What is the most secure way to generate a 12 word seed for a hardware wallet. I would like to also add a passphrase.

Usually, it's best to just use whatever procedure the hardware vendor suggests... The brain is a terrible source of entropy, so whatever method you're using not suggested by the vendor, it's usually worse than just following the proper procedure.

This does not mean there aren't good ways to create a 12 word seed yourself, but usually your own methods aren't more secure than the recommanded methods anyway (imho)

[thecryptoprick]

What is the most secure way to generate a 12 word seed for a hardware wallet. I would like to also add a passphrase.

Usually, it's best to just use whatever procedure the hardware vendor suggests... The brain is a terrible source of entropy, so whatever method you're using not suggested by the vendor, it's usually worse than just following the proper procedure.

This does not mean there aren't good ways to create a 12 word seed yourself, but usually your own methods aren't more secure than the recommanded methods anyway (imho)

The hardware wallet I want to purchase can only generate 24 by default. In my opinion the only way to be secure from seizure of your funds is to memorize the seed. With 12 words it's much easier. This is why I need to generate the 12 words.

I am sure someone can help with this. Explain it to me, I understand I may need to purchase an offline laptop which is ok.

[aplistir]

The hardware wallet I want to purchase can only generate 24 by default. In my opinion the only way to be secure from seizure of your funds is to memorize the seed. With 12 words it's much easier. This is why I need to generate the 12 words.

I am sure someone can help with this. Explain it to me, I understand I may need to purchase an offline laptop which is

You could always generate a 24 word seed with only 12 words. Just repeat every word like a stuttering child  

Or have your 12 words and repeat the last word until you have 24 words, or whatever.

24 words are more secure than 12, but it is your coins...

[bob123]

In my opinion the only way to be secure from seizure of your funds is to memorize the seed. With 12 words it's much easier. This is why I need to generate the 12 words.

Thats a horrible idea.
Even if you are going to memorize the 12 words, without a proper backup this is just careless.
There are a lot of things which can happen which lead to a loss of your memory (e.g. car accident, alzheimer, trauma, shock moment, ...).

Your whole cryptos would be gone in this case. A proper backup (better: 2 or 3) is a must have.

I am sure someone can help with this. Explain it to me, I understand I may need to purchase an offline laptop which is ok.

There are a lot of ways to generate a random number. In the end thats all you need.
The easiest (and one of the safest) way would probably be to boot a linux distro (offline) and do some stuff (so the internal entropy pool gets filled), then get a 256 bit number from dev/urandom (don't use dev/random!) and convert it manually to a 12 word seed (with the BIP39 word list). You will need to calculate the last bits of the last word (since they are basically a checksum).

For more information take a look at https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki and https://github.com/trezor/python-mnemonic.
 

[LoyceV]

The hardware wallet I want to purchase can only generate 24 by default. In my opinion the only way to be secure from seizure of your funds is to memorize the seed. With 12 words it's much easier. This is why I need to generate the 12 words.

I'm okay with 12 seed words, my Electrum uses that too. If you want to rely on remembering 12 words, you can just write down 12 out of 24 words, and remember the rest.

Just know you lose your funds if you forget the words or their order, and know this is NOT recommended.

[thecryptoprick]

To be clear there will be a paper as well. But let's say the gov raids your house and takes your paper with 24 words, that's it....bye-bye. But if they raided your house and took the 12 word seed, you can still have this in your head with a passphrase.

In my opinion the only way to be secure from seizure of your funds is to memorize the seed. With 12 words it's much easier. This is why I need to generate the 12 words.

Thats a horrible idea.
Even if you are going to memorize the 12 words, without a proper backup this is just careless.
There are a lot of things which can happen which lead to a loss of your memory (e.g. car accident, alzheimer, trauma, shock moment, ...).

Your whole cryptos would be gone in this case. A proper backup (better: 2 or 3) is a must have.

I am sure someone can help with this. Explain it to me, I understand I may need to purchase an offline laptop which is ok.

There are a lot of ways to generate a random number. In the end thats all you need.
The easiest (and one of the safest) way would probably be to boot a linux distro (offline) and do some stuff (so the internal entropy pool gets filled), then get a 256 bit number from dev/urandom (don't use dev/random!) and convert it manually to a 12 word seed (with the BIP39 word list). You will need to calculate the last bits of the last word (since they are basically a checksum).

For more information take a look at https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki and https://github.com/trezor/python-mnemonic.
 

[bob123]

To be clear there will be a paper as well. But let's say the gov raids your house and takes your paper with 24 words, that's it....bye-bye. But if they raided your house and took the 12 word seed, you can still have this in your head with a passphrase.

In such a scenario there are way better ways.

For example:

(1) You could encrypt your 12 seed (backup) with a strong password only you know. The gov won't realize what it is, they might recognize that it is encrypted (because it looks like random stuff).

(2) You could use steganography (hiding information inside pictures/videos/audios) to hide your (encrypted) 12 word seed. You might simply choose a granny porn to hide your information inside. I bet the gov won't watch all of your videos and search inside them for hidden information.

(3) You could use an 'offline form' of steganography. You might encrypt your seed, print it out (in hex) and place it somewhere, or print your (encrypted) hex seed onto a cup or something else. The gov probably won't take all of your cups with them to type the hex code into a notepad just to realize it is some random stuff (might realize its encrypted).



IMO these 3 ways are better than completely memorizing a 12 word seed.
And if you do have a paper backup anyway, why do you need to memorize the 12 words?

[reingard]

You could just split your seed between multiple papers and put each of them in a different place.
Or create your own cypher and write the encrypted seed in a paper.

[ttookk]

Get a letter punch set, some sheets of stainless steel and punch your seed on two or more plates. Screw them together in a way that the words are on the inside. Put this in a safe place. If you can, like, if you have family members you can trust, do a second and/or third one and put them off-site, as in not where you live.

If you have a big amount of Bitcoin to secure, it might be worth the effort to go through with the glacier protocol:

https://glacierprotocol.org/

[Golubkov1988]

You can generate 10 words with https://randomwordgenerator.com/ and 2 words generate youself.

[mocacinno]

You can generate 10 words with https://randomwordgenerator.com/ and 2 words generate youself.

I don't think this random word generator generates words that are bound to the  bip39 wordlist?

[Golubkov1988]

You can generate 10 words with https://randomwordgenerator.com/ and 2 words generate youself.

I don't think this random word generator generates words that are bound to the  bip39 wordlist?

Oh, I didn't know that it is special list.

[ttookk]

You can generate 10 words with https://randomwordgenerator.com/ and 2 words generate youself.

I don't think this random word generator generates words that are bound to the  bip39 wordlist?

Oh, I didn't know that it is special list.

Yes, it is a special list. The reason is that the words are not used directly, but are representations of the strings of characters a random seed consists of, because words are easier to recognize for humans than just random numbers and chars. Here's the BIP:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki

This is the (english) word list:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt

Now, you could use just about any type of data, including any words you want as a private key. This is called a brainwallet and there are a number of brainwallet generators out there. However, this is generally discouraged, because, humans are bad at picking random things, so they tend to follow predictable patterns. Also, your memory doesn't work as well as you think it does.

[Theb]

In my opinion the only way to be secure from seizure of your funds is to memorize the seed. With 12 words it's much easier. This is why I need to generate the 12 words.

Thats a horrible idea.
Even if you are going to memorize the 12 words, without a proper backup this is just careless.
There are a lot of things which can happen which lead to a loss of your memory (e.g. car accident, alzheimer, trauma, shock moment, ...).

Your whole cryptos would be gone in this case. A proper backup (better: 2 or 3) is a must have.

I have to agree a lot of people have forgotten their seeds in that way, to keep you some real life example a lot of people are even forgetting their 6 digit ATM card pin numbers already what more if you will memorize 12 words or even 24 words. Writing it down is really the way to go. And if you really don't trust that process you can scramble their arrangement and have another note written where you will write their proper arrangements, both notes must be hidden in different location, preferably on a safe and secure location/place only you will know.

[HCP]

The hardware wallet I want to purchase can only generate 24 by default.

Can you be more specific about the hardware wallet you intend to purchase (ie. Make and model)?

It's quite possible that, while it defaults to 24 words, you might be able to make it generate a 12 word seed using "hidden" settings or vendor provided utilities etc.

[vit05]

Ian Coleman website is the best for this kind of things, IMO. But why you didn't put the model of the hardware wallet here? It would make everything easier as it could be a hidden function of the wallet, as @HCP has said.