iancoleman bip39 / coinomi bip39 mnemonic code help

[cryptojoe3737]

   Once I put my passphrase in and I select the proper coin which "Derivation Path" do I choose, & I understand that I can send my coin to any one of those infinite public addresses but if I have a coin that is in the wallet then what public address & private key is my coin located on?? Thank you very much I'm a newbie kind of

[ranochigo]

What are you intending to do with your mnemonic? You are free to choose any derivation path you'd like as long as you are aware of the derivation path that you've chosen. Some wallets have specific derivation path support only, for which it would be better to choose one that is supported by your wallet from the onstart.

You should, as far as possible be spending to an address that is un-used at the lowest index and do it sequentially.

[cryptojoe3737]

Thank you... & what is the difference between public key & private key?? There is an "Address", a "Public key", & a "Private key" I do not understand the "Public key" part

[Charles-Tim]

I do not think you are yet the type to make use of Iancoleman, also know that Coinomi is a close source wallet, I will be specific and only comment about what is related to bitcoin. You can make use of Electrum instead of complicating the whole thing yourself. The address you sent bitcoin to is the address your funds are on blockchain.

Once I put my passphrase in and I select the proper coin which "Derivation Path" do I choose

Your seed phrase, not passphrase. But if passphrase is included along seed phrase when you generated the wallet, then you have to include the passphrase along together with the seed phrase to generate the right keys and addresses.

but if I have a coin that is in the wallet then what public address & private key is my coin located on??

For the derivation path:

• BIP44, for legacy addresses
• BIP49, for nested segwit addresses
• BIP84, for native segwit addresses

If you scroll down the Iancoleman site, you will see the addresses and the corresponding private keys and public keys. know that if you run Iancoleman online, it is risky and your funds can be stolen through online attack. The best is to download the HTML file on airgapped device for use.

On Electrum, know that you can get the corresponding private key of a bitcoin address on the wallet directly, after you setup an Electrum wallet, click on view -> show addresses and click on the address tab, right click on the address you want to know its private key. Download Electrum from https://electrum.org and make sure you verify its signature.

Thank you... & what is the difference between public key & private key?? There is an "Address", a "Public key", & a "Private key" I do not understand the "Public key" part

To understand more about keys and addresses, you can use this chapter of mastering Bitcoin.

[pooya87]

There is an "Address", a "Public key", & a "Private key" I do not understand the "Public key" part

The cryptography algorithm bitcoin uses is known as asymmetric cryptography. In this algorithm we have a "key pair" which is a duo of a key that should be kept privately (called private key) and another key corresponding with the first one that can be revealed to the world and shared publicly (called public key).

In bitcoin when you want to pay someone you have to get their public key then create some sort of "lock box" where you put the coins in that only their private key can unlock (provide a valid signature).
To make things easier and to hide the public key, we use the hash of it and then encode that hash with a human readable encoding. The final result is the address.

In short you need the address to make or receive a payment.

[nc50lc]

Why do you have to use iancoleman's BIP39 tool?
Check Coinomi's support page first, then if your "goal" isn't covered there, describe it here comprehensively so users can further help you.
Coinomi Support Articles: https://coinomi.freshdesk.com/support/home | Use 'search'

Most issues/questions are already answered there;
Eg.: Exporting your private keys using iancoleman's recovery tool: What is the Recovery Tool and how do I export my private keys? | Read "Important notes"

[cryptojoe3737]

well im just trying to figure out what to do if in 10 years from now trust & coinomi are gone (I know this sounds crazy) I would have to use that tool to sweep my private addresses into a new wallet. correct?

[pooya87]

~ trust & coinomi are gone (I know this sounds crazy)

FWIW both of these wallets are considered the worst options to store bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) because both of them are closed source so you can't know whether they are safe to use or not.
Additionally Coinomi has a shady history where they sent users' mnemonics to a remote server! We have no reason to believe either one of these wallets aren't still doing this and the companies behind them don't have all your private keys already.

[NotATether]

Thank you... & what is the difference between public key & private key?? There is an "Address", a "Public key", & a "Private key" I do not understand the "Public key" part

Public key is the number that starts with "02" "03" or "04", it is an encoding of the bytes that are shared publicly along with the "Private key" bytes which are encoded in alphanumeric character starting with "5", "K" or "L".

Normally in other (non-cryptocurrency) applications, the public key and private key are mashed together during the signing process to create a signature.

However in cryptocurrency, first the public key is hashed and then encoded into an alphanumeric string that is the address starting with "1", "3" or "bc1".

It may appear at first glance that the address and private key are being mashed together when a signature is created. Because a signature is used to sign transactions.

However the address actually has nothing to do with the signing process, it is for identification purposes of your money only. The public key is calculated from the private key. It does not work vice versa for security reasons - you can't get the private key from the public key.

[Charles-Tim]

well im just trying to figure out what to do if in 10 years from now trust & coinomi are gone (I know this sounds crazy) I would have to use that tool to sweep my private addresses into a new wallet. correct?

One of the best bitcoin SPV wallet is Electrum like I mentioned above, it has all these features including the ones that you haven't mentioned. It is also open source, it source codes are available to the public on github unlike close source wallets.

[cryptojoe3737]

yeah but is electrum multi currency or whatever for altcoins

[NeuroticFish]

yeah but is electrum multi currency or whatever for altcoins

Since this section is primarily about Bitcoin, people will give you suggestions for.. you know, bitcoin...
In theory the wallet can use any internal rules. And coinomi is also not open source.

After searching a lot, I found one tool that could be of help. It's coinomi's clone of IanColeman BIP39 tool and it puts the correct derivation paths for some of the coins. I don't know if it's all.
https://coinomi.github.io/tools/bip39/

[Pmalek]

well im just trying to figure out what to do if in 10 years from now trust & coinomi are gone (I know this sounds crazy) I would have to use that tool to sweep my private addresses into a new wallet. correct?

Doesn't or didn't Trust Wallet or the Coinomi wallet provide you with a seed phrase during the onboarding process? That's the information you need to recover your coins. Just recover your seed in a different multi-currency wallet (if it has to be multi-currency) or download separate software wallets for each coin that you have and recover from seed. Make sure you take note of the derivation paths that Coinomi and Trust wallet use. Always deal with Bitcoin first and move that to a safe location before dealing with any less-valuable alts. 

[o_e_l_e_o]

Coinomi will tell you the derivation path it uses for every coin and every account you have. Just click on the wallet in question, go to the "Receive" tab, and under the address you will see a series of characters starting with "M" and with a number of "/" in it. This is the derivation path.

Note that Coinomi uses "H" to denote hardened paths, whereas Ian Coleman (and most other wallets) use the symbol ' instead.

If you go in to your first Bitcoin wallet and choose the default segwit address, then it should say M/84H/0H/0H/0/X, with X depending on how many times you have already received bitcoin to that wallet. If it is a brand new wallet, X will be 0. If you enter your seed phrase in to Ian Coleman (only do this on an airgapped computer!) and then select "BIP84", the first address it generates will show the path m/84'/0'/0'/0/0, which is the same as Coinomi.

You can repeat this process for all your altcoins to convince yourself you can recover them should Coinomi stop working. Note that not only will different coins have different paths, but if you have created multiple wallets for the same coin, they will have different paths too.

[HCP]

   Once I put my passphrase in and I select the proper coin which "Derivation Path" do I choose,

Did you put your actual BIP39 mnemonic backup phrase from your coinomi wallet into the Ian Coleman BIP39 website? If so, you need to move all your coins ASAP, as you should consider that mnemonic compromised!

Or did you put your BIP39 mnemonic into an "offline version" of Ian Coleman (downloaded and run on a computer not connected to any network)? That is still "bad", but not as bad as typing your mnemonic into a website.

[Pmalek]

Or did you put your BIP39 mnemonic into an "offline version" of Ian Coleman (downloaded and run on a computer not connected to any network)? That is still "bad", but not as bad as typing your mnemonic into a website.

Hopefully he entered in into the offline version downloaded from the right place. But OP is using Coinomi - a closed-source hot wallet that was caught sending seed phrases to Google servers to check the validity of them. Coinomi being a hot wallet is bad enough, the way they are/were handling user data is even worse. No matter which of the two he did, he should seriously consider using a better client.