Trying to match an address to a seed.

[irukandji]

To cut a long story short my friend lost a passphrase for a ledger wallet.
So following the advice of some helpful people here I asked them to use iancoleman.io to try the 24 word see combined with some possible passphrases and compare the addresses.
 However her address begins with a "b", and Iancolman.io doesn't seem to give addresses in that format.
Can anyone suggest a solution?
Thanks

[1714694677]

1714694677

[1714694677]

1714694677

[1714694677]

1714694677

[1714694677]

1714694677

[1714694677]

1714694677

[1714694677]

1714694677

[mocacinno]

I don't know the complete story, but i'm assuming he/she has a native segwit address (starting with bc).
He/She probably needs to change the derivation path to BIP84 (on iancoleman's site)...

[Charles-Tim]

If possiblly the person can still access the wallet, tell the person to create new wallet and send all his coins to the newly created wallet and do appropriate offline backup.

Your question has been answered correctly above, probably the address start from bc1 which are native segwit (BIP84 derivational path).

BIP44, legacy, addresses that start from 1
BIP49, nested segwit, addresses that start from 3
BIP84, native segwit, addresses that start from bc1

Passphrase: Let the person know that space counts, for not to generate different keys.

[Quickseller]

It is too late now for your friend, however it is a good practice to have backups of everything needed in order to recover your bitcoin. This would include any 25'th word passphrase. If it makes you more comfortable, you can store your passphrase separately from the rest of your seed.

If your friend is able to figure out her passphrase, it would be a good idea to add her passphrase to her backups.

As mocacinno said, your friend can change the derivation path to BIP84 on the tool you are using. By default, this will change the path to m/84'/0'/0'/0 -- I am not sure what path ledger uses by default, but if this is not the path that ledger uses, you will have to update the account and internal/external fields accordingly. Otherwise, you will generate different addresses, even if you have the correct passphrase.

[Charles-Tim]

If your friend is able to figure out her passphrase, it would be a good idea to add her passphrase to her backups.

But this will increase the susceptibility of the backup to offline attack if compared to backup of seed phrase and passphrase separately in different locations.

I am not sure what path ledger uses by default

Ledger Nano uses the derivational path that you posted above (m/84'/0'/0'/0) for native segwit address generation.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If your friend doesn't know the passphrase, then it's a terrible recommendation to use iancoleman. They need to use some sort of brute force tool if their password wasn't long enough or/and didn't use any special characters. They do know a part of it, right?

Check btcrecover. It's a tool made for these occations.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If it makes you more comfortable, you can store your passphrase separately from the rest of your seed.

You should store your passphrase separately from the rest of your seed. Storing them together is almost pointless.

Ledger Nano uses the derivational path that you posted above (m/84'/0'/0'/0) for native segwit address generation.

This is true, provided that the address OP has is a receiving address (and not a change address) in the first bitcoin account they created using their passphrased wallet. If it is a change address, you would need to change to m/84'/0'/0'/1, and if it is not the first account, you would need to change to m/84'/0'/1'/0. If OP does not know or remember, then they are going to have to check all these paths and more.

Check btcrecover. It's a tool made for these occations.

Agreed. This will be a much faster way of checking. On an offline computer, feed it your seed phrase, a list of possible passphrases and their variations, and the address you know (and widen the derivation path limit if you don't know where the address came from).

[irukandji]

I don't know the complete story, but i'm assuming he/she has a native segwit address (starting with bc).
He/She probably needs to change the derivation path to BIP84 (on iancoleman's site)...

Thank you and thank you for all the other replies. My friend thinks they can narrow down the passphrase a lot and so this may work, but I have suggested to them if they don't find it quickly they use Btcrecover.

[BitMaxz]

Can you try to ask your friend if he can able to get the master public key from his ledger wallet?
Because maybe you can analyze it and find the exact derivation path of his wallet through xPub scanner or analyzer.
There is a tool that I use before like this https://blockpath.com/wallets/local/101?action=appxpub

But currently, they don't support segwit so I think your only option if any of the suggestion above doesn't work then try to scan it with this tool below
- https://github.com/LedgerHQ/xpub-scan

It was recently developed by ledger developers and it would help to find the exact derivation path of your friend's wallet. Once you found the right derivation path then you can use it to recover your friend's old wallet with funds.

[Quickseller]

If your friend is able to figure out her passphrase, it would be a good idea to add her passphrase to her backups.

But this will increase the susceptibility of the backup to offline attack if compared to backup of seed phrase and passphrase separately in different locations.

You should store your passphrase separately from the rest of your seed. Storing them together is almost pointless.

Some people use a passphrase as an additional security measure to prevent theft in the event their hardware wallet is stolen. I think it is fairly common for people to be more lax with their hardware wallets with regards to security, while backups are almost always kept under some kind of lock and key. Some people may also use a passphrase to prevent a $5 wrench attack while spending your coin. It really depends on your security model and assumptions.

If your friend doesn't know the passphrase, then it's a terrible recommendation to use iancoleman. They need to use some sort of brute force tool if their password wasn't long enough or/and didn't use any special characters. They do know a part of it, right?

Check btcrecover. It's a tool made for these occations.

If the OP's friend knows their passphrase is one of a dozen or so possibilities, the setup/reading the documentation for something like btcrecover may take longer than using iancoleman's tool.

[Charles-Tim]

Some people use a passphrase as an additional security measure to prevent theft in the event their hardware wallet is stolen...

Yes, passphrase has many advantages, backup seed phrase with passphrase will make the backup vulnerable to offline attacks like I once commented. But to be fair about this, you still get a good point, but if provided the person knows the risk involved to backup both together and the advantage of having different backup for both.

If the OP's friend knows their passphrase is one of a dozen or so possibilities, the setup/reading the documentation for something like btcrecover may take longer than using iancoleman's tool.

If Iancoleman is used, the passphrase inputted will only be guesses, and they can be wrong and never guess the passphrase right, but not bad to try it as an initial step, while btcrecover will be the last resort which might likely brute force the passphrase.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If the OP's friend knows their passphrase is one of a dozen or so possibilities, the setup/reading the documentation for something like btcrecover may take longer than using iancoleman's tool.

It is the proper way to do it, though. If they don't know the passphrase, they can't be really trying a different password each time, even for a dozen of times. Let alone if the password is a long one which increases the odds of having few characters forgotten.

You'll most likely end up on brute forcing with btcrecover, so why not just do it in the first place?

[Quickseller]

If the OP's friend knows their passphrase is one of a dozen or so possibilities, the setup/reading the documentation for something like btcrecover may take longer than using iancoleman's tool.

It is the proper way to do it, though. If they don't know the passphrase, they can't be really trying a different password each time, even for a dozen of times. Let alone if the password is a long one which increases the odds of having few characters forgotten.

There is no "proper" way to try to bruteforce something.

While this is a bad security practice, many people reuse passwords, or reuse passwords while appending something to the end of a password each time a new one is created. If this is the case, there is a decent change the OP's friend knows her passphrase is one of a dozen or so potential passphrases, but isn't sure which one, and she can check them all in a few minutes.

You'll most likely end up on brute forcing with btcrecover, so why not just do it in the first place?

There are setup costs associated with using a program/script such as btcrecover such as reading the documentation to figure out how to use it. Spending 30 minutes "manually" checking potential passphrases before using a tool to systematically trying to bruteforce the passphase is not going to hurt anyone.

[HCP]

Spending 30 minutes "manually" checking potential passphrases before using a tool to systematically trying to bruteforce the passphase is not going to hurt anyone.

I concur... the time it takes to check 12 passphrases on iancoleman is likely measured in single digit minutes. The time required to get Python downloaded and installed, btcrecover and the required libs downloaded and installed, a token file generated and then the bruteforce up and running is likely to be substantially longer than that.

Is it a long shot that one of those 12 passphrases is the correct one?... most likely, but you're hardly wasting much time compared to how long a bruteforce run in btcrecover is likely going to take.

A lot will depend on the passphrase that the OPs friend was using... and their method for constructing a passphrase. If they tend to use a "standard" format then it will make the key space likely to be quite small/simple. However, if they tend to use truly random characters including specials... the keyspace and required search time will be a lot larger.

Either way, it's impossible to know without more information... and anything here is just speculation at this point.

[irukandji]

If the OP's friend knows their passphrase is one of a dozen or so possibilities, the setup/reading the documentation for something like btcrecover may take longer than using iancoleman's tool.

It is the proper way to do it, though. If they don't know the passphrase, they can't be really trying a different password each time, even for a dozen of times. Let alone if the password is a long one which increases the odds of having few characters forgotten.

You'll most likely end up on brute forcing with btcrecover, so why not just do it in the first place?

Thanks I have finally convinced my friend to try btcrecover. She is a bit nervous and not very technical (neither am I).
I'm on windows and downloaded and extracted the files, but after that I'm not sure what to do.  Any suggestions anyone?

I looked here but felt a bit out of my depth when it mentioned "Install Python".   I'm not great technically but better than my friend so want to help them as its worth a bit now. https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/INSTALL/

[mocacinno]

--snip--
Thanks I have finally convinced my friend to try btcrecover. She is a bit nervous and not very technical (neither am I).
I'm on windows and downloaded and extracted the files, but after that I'm not sure what to do.  Any suggestions anyone?

I looked here but felt a bit out of my depth when it mentioned "Install Python".   I'm not great technically but better than my friend so want to help them as its worth a bit now. https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/INSTALL/

On the install document, they refer to this video: https://youtu.be/8q65eqpf4gE
I've quickly skipped trough it, and it seems to show you all the steps you have to take (including installing python). And the guy making this video seems to have used windows aswell

You might feel overwhelmed, but to be honest, the task of installing a tool like this probably isn't as big as you might feel it is...

Good luck!

[o_e_l_e_o]

I looked here but felt a bit out of my depth when it mentioned "Install Python".

First go here: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/

Under "Stable Releases", you want the most recent version of 3.9, currently version 3.9.9. You want the "Windows installer", either 32-bit or 64-bit depending on your operating system. (If you don't know your operating system, then right click on "My Computer" or "This PC" on your desktop/file explorer, click "Properties", and it will tell you somewhere in there if your OS is 32 or 64 bit.)

Once you've downloaded the Windows installer, simply double click to run. Make sure to check the box in the install wizard which says "Add Python to PATH".

Next, go to the folder where you extracted btcrecover. Hold down shift and right click, and you should see something along the lines of "Open CMD prompt here" or "Open PowerShell window here" (I can't remember the exact wording, it's been a while since I used Windows). Once you click on that command you'll get a new box pop up which says something along the lines of "C:\Some Folder\btcrecover>".

In that box you want to enter this command and hit enter:

Code:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Which will install all the requirements for btcrecover to function. Once you've done that, you can then enter this command:

Code:

python run-all-tests.py -vv

Which will test you've done everything correctly.