Lost 12-word seed, got good hints

[RoxxR]

So I've lost my 12-word seed but I still know the first letter of each word. 
Can I make a script trying all possible combinations and recover my seed in a reasonable amount of time?

[Churchillvv]

If you know the first letters said you can use the bip39  mnemonic word list [1] recover them.
[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/bip-0039-wordlists.md

[Zaguru12]

If you know the first letter of each word and then the possible arrangement, I think it will actually help but will be a long process. I don’t know maybe btcrecovery tool can help but my guess is you will have to map out words starting with those letters from the Bip39 2048 wordlist if at all it is the combination used for the seed phrase. But if it is electrum custom word then I doubt it since you there is no exact number of those words like the Bip39

Here is a link to use btcrecovery tool

[BitMaxz]

I think it's impossible to recover if you only had the first letter of each word without the public key or BTC address.

If you have the BTC address or private key there is a possibility to recover the seed but it will take too long to recover do you know the position of each word? If it is just 1 or 2 missing words you can easily recover this seed.

Anyway, alternatively from the suggestion above if you want a recovery tool with GUI this one should be easier to use compared to BTCrecovery.

Check this link below.

- The FinderOuter, a bitcoin recovery tool

Once you open this go to the missing Mnemonic and use the advanced tool to generate all words that start with that letter.

[decodx]

So I've lost my 12-word seed but I still know the first letter of each word. 
Can I make a script trying all possible combinations and recover my seed in a reasonable amount of time?

I'm afraid brute forcing your seed phrase, even with known letters, is basically impossible.  With 12 random words drawn from a list of over 2000, the combinations are just astronomical.  Every initial letter opens up hundreds of possibilities - for instance 136 words start with A.  Doing the math, that's way too many combinations for any computer to churn through in our lifetimes.

[khaled0111]

Taking Levenshtein distance into account, if you know only the first letter of each one of the twelve words then you will need an eternity to find the correct seed.
You need to try every possibility/combination then see if it's the correct wallet. This, without exaggeration, will take an eternity.
Knowing few words and their position may help in reducing the possibilities.

[Yamane_Keto]

So I've lost my 12-word seed but I still know the first letter of each word. 
Can I make a script trying all possible combinations and recover my seed in a reasonable amount of time?

You only need the first 4 letters of a BIP39 wallet seed to be able to recover your coins safely.

It is impossible to know the correct wallet seed by knowing one letter, but knowing more words will reduce the search time, so try to remember more wrods by searching for the first letter using https://github .com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/bip-0039-wordlists.md

If you succeed in remembering 9 words, you will be left with (2048^3)/2, and after that you can use https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover/blob/master/docs/Seedrecover_Quick_Start_Guide.md if you do not remember the correct words.

[ranochigo]

Here is the distribution of the number of words in the Electrum Wordlist:

Code:

{'a': 136, 'b': 117, 'c': 186, 'd': 112, 'e': 100, 'f': 106, 'g': 76, 'h': 64, 'i': 55, 'j': 20, 'k': 20, 'l': 76, 'm': 105, 'n': 41, 'o': 55, 'p': 132, 'q': 8, 'r': 108, 's': 250, 't': 121, 'u': 35, 'v': 46, 'w': 69, 'y': 6, 'z': 4}

In the best case scenario, you have 4^12 combinations with all z, and the worst case would be 186^12 with all c. While it isn't impossible, you would have to be quite lucky to be able to find the seeds with that limited amount of information. If you have any other clues other than the first words, you might stand a slightly better chance though I wouldn't exactly count on it.

Small correction: the worse case is 250^12 with all s.

Thanks... I should've sorted it.

[pooya87]

and the worst case would be 186^12 with all c.

Small correction: the worse case is 250^12 with all s.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are no scripts which can brute force an Electrum seed phrase with the beginning character(s) of each word known. The Finder Outer, as far as I can see, supports missing entire words from a BIP39 or Electrum seed phrase, or missing characters in Armory's seed phrase. I can neither find this in btcrecover's documentation; only descrambling 12 word seeds and basic password / passphrase recoveries.

[pooya87]

The Finder Outer, as far as I can see, supports missing entire words from a BIP39 or Electrum seed phrase,

Technically it can. You just have to fill each word position one by one. It is under Advance, if you enter the first letter of each word then select the starts with button it adds words starting with that letter.
The problem here is that the search space is massive and I don't even think you can recover it using GPU and FinterOuter doesn't support GPU.

[BlackHatCoiner]

It is under Advance, if you enter the first letter of each word then select the starts with button it adds words starting with that letter.

I can see the option, but it nowhere allows you to specify which word position begins with letter x. It only allows you to specify words to search for the missing words. Like, from the three missing words of my seed phrase, search words that begin with 'i', or similar words to "cage". But, it does not allow you to say which words the program will check for word position #1, which ones for word position #2 etc. This has to be made by hand, which makes it infeasible, and you'd better off forking The Founder Outer and writing it yourself.

Edit: I stand corrected. Read below.

[apogio]

Here is the distribution of the number of words in the Electrum Wordlist:

Code:

{'a': 136, 'b': 117, 'c': 186, 'd': 112, 'e': 100, 'f': 106, 'g': 76, 'h': 64, 'i': 55, 'j': 20, 'k': 20, 'l': 76, 'm': 105, 'n': 41, 'o': 55, 'p': 132, 'q': 8, 'r': 108, 's': 250, 't': 121, 'u': 35, 'v': 46, 'w': 69, 'y': 6, 'z': 4}

In the best case scenario, you have 4^12 combinations with all z, and the worst case would be 186^12 with all c. While it isn't impossible, you would have to be quite lucky to be able to find the seeds with that limited amount of information. If you have any other clues other than the first words, you might stand a slightly better chance though I wouldn't exactly count on it.

I consider this one to be a very good answer that explains how many combinations exist.

I am not aware of any existing program to help you with this endeavor, apart from FinderOuter like BlackHatCoiner said above.

However, if we were to write a script to do that, then we would need to check seed phrases' validity, because almost all combinations will not be valid electrum seed phrases.

By the way, OP, how did you manage to have a backup were you only have the first letters of the words. I mean, something must have gone terribly wrong.   If you knew some of the words, the space of seed phrases would become much smaller and thus the search would be much faster. But you only have the first characters? You must be very unlucky!

[pooya87]

It is under Advance, if you enter the first letter of each word then select the starts with button it adds words starting with that letter.

I can see the option, but it nowhere allows you to specify which word position begins with letter x. It only allows you to specify words to search for the missing words. Like, from the three missing words of my seed phrase, search words that begin with 'i', or similar words to "cage". But, it does not allow you to say which words the program will check for word position #1, which ones for word position #2 etc. This has to be made by hand, which makes it infeasible, and you'd better off forking The Founder Outer and writing it yourself.

You actually have to set things up for each missing word separately not one for all missing words.
There are two buttons with a number in between on the right side above the word list ("<" and ">" buttons) that have to be used for each missing position.
After clicking start, you basically set the first missing word (enter 'i' and click "Words starting with"), then click next (>) then do the same for the second missing word (enter 'c' and click "Words starting with") and so on.

[ABCbits]

I think it's impossible to recover if you only had the first letter of each word without the public key or BTC address.

--snip--

FYI, btcrecover provide let you attempt recovery without address by providing address DB instead[1]. Although it's not clear whether you can use address DB if you attempt to recover Electrum seed words.

[1] https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Creating_and_Using_AddressDB/.

[usekevin]

So I've lost my 12-word seed but I still know the first letter of each word. 
Can I make a script trying all possible combinations and recover my seed in a reasonable amount of time?

If you know the first letter of the 12 words,you will have fifty-fifty possibilities to recover the wallet.Because some wallet will provide the base word,if you know the first two letter of the words means.The possibility of recovering the wallet is huge.For example,the word is hat,hen.The first letter of this two words are the same one,but the second letter of the word made the word was different one.I had not get in to the meaning of the words,when the word of the wallet doesn’t require a meaning.Most of the people use to Copy paste their wallet recovery words seed in the saved messages of their telegram or other social media accounts.

So I request you to find the 12 words from the saved place.Before I had faced the same issue,but my problem not solved by the first letter prediction.The way I had chosen was to find the place where I had saved my wallet private key.If you have a private key,it was another way to recover the wallet access.

[ranochigo]

If you know the first letter of the 12 words,you will have fifty-fifty possibilities to recover the wallet.Because some wallet will provide the base word,if you know the first two letter of the words means.The possibility of recovering the wallet is huge.For example,the word is hat,hen.The first letter of this two words are the same one,but the second letter of the word made the word was different one.I had not get in to the meaning of the words,when the word of the wallet doesn’t require a meaning.Most of the people use to Copy paste their wallet recovery words seed in the saved messages of their telegram or other social media accounts.

So I request you to find the 12 words from the saved place.Before I had faced the same issue,but my problem not solved by the first letter prediction.The way I had chosen was to find the place where I had saved my wallet private key.If you have a private key,it was another way to recover the wallet access.

It is not fifty-fifty, the probability isn't just (able to recover/unable to recover) .

Anyways, even if you have the first two characters, it might not be as easy as it seems. If you're really lucky, then your search space can get narrowed significantly, or else it would still be time consuming.

Code:

{'ab': 10, 'ac': 14, 'ad': 9, 'ae': 1, 'af': 3, 'ag': 4, 'ah': 1, 'ai': 4, 'al': 15, 'am': 5, 'an': 16, 'ap': 6, 'ar': 18, 'as': 7, 'at': 6, 'au': 7, 'av': 3, 'aw': 6, 'ax': 1, 'ba': 19, 'be': 20, 'bi': 8, 'bl': 14, 'bo': 17, 'br': 20, 'bu': 19, 'ca': 42, 'ce': 7, 'ch': 25, 'ci': 6, 'cl': 24, 'co': 41, 'cr': 29, 'cu': 11, 'cy': 1, 'da': 10, 'de': 38, 'di': 27, 'do': 13, 'dr': 15, 'du': 7, 'dw': 1, 'dy': 1, 'ea': 8, 'ec': 3, 'ed': 3, 'ef': 1, 'eg': 1, 'ei': 2, 'el': 9, 'em': 8, 'en': 21, 'ep': 1, 'eq': 2, 'er': 6, 'es': 4, 'et': 2, 'ev': 4, 'ex': 23, 'ey': 2, 'fa': 22, 'fe': 12, 'fi': 20, 'fl': 15, 'fo': 19, 'fr': 12, 'fu': 6, 'ga': 17, 'ge': 6, 'gh': 1, 'gi': 7, 'gl': 12, 'go': 10, 'gr': 16, 'gu': 6, 'gy': 1, 'ha': 15, 'he': 11, 'hi': 7, 'ho': 18, 'hu': 12, 'hy': 1, 'ic': 2, 'id': 3, 'ig': 1, 'il': 3, 'im': 8, 'in': 32, 'ir': 1, 'is': 3, 'it': 1, 'iv': 1, 'ja': 4, 'je': 4, 'jo': 5, 'ju': 7, 'ka': 1, 'ke': 4, 'ki': 11, 'kn': 4, 'la': 20, 'le': 18, 'li': 17, 'lo': 14, 'lu': 6, 'ly': 1, 'ma': 33, 'me': 21, 'mi': 17, 'mo': 21, 'mu': 10, 'my': 3, 'na': 7, 'ne': 15, 'ni': 2, 'no': 13, 'nu': 4, 'oa': 1, 'ob': 7, 'oc': 3, 'od': 1, 'of': 4, 'oi': 1, 'ok': 1, 'ol': 3, 'om': 1, 'on': 5, 'op': 5, 'or': 9, 'os': 1, 'ot': 1, 'ou': 4, 'ov': 3, 'ow': 2, 'ox': 1, 'oy': 1, 'oz': 1, 'pa': 25, 'pe': 14, 'ph': 4, 'pi': 14, 'pl': 10, 'po': 19, 'pr': 29, 'pu': 16, 'py': 1, 'qu': 8, 'ra': 21, 're': 48, 'rh': 1, 'ri': 16, 'ro': 15, 'ru': 7, 'sa': 19, 'sc': 15, 'se': 23, 'sh': 23, 'si': 19, 'sk': 7, 'sl': 12, 'sm': 5, 'sn': 5, 'so': 21, 'sp': 25, 'sq': 3, 'st': 33, 'su': 25, 'sw': 11, 'sy': 4, 'ta': 13, 'te': 10, 'th': 15, 'ti': 11, 'to': 28, 'tr': 28, 'tu': 8, 'tw': 6, 'ty': 2, 'ug': 1, 'um': 1, 'un': 18, 'up': 6, 'ur': 2, 'us': 6, 'ut': 1, 'va': 12, 've': 11, 'vi': 16, 'vo': 7, 'wa': 16, 'we': 12, 'wh': 8, 'wi': 17, 'wo': 10, 'wr': 6, 'ya': 1, 'ye': 2, 'yo': 3, 'ze': 2, 'zo': 2}

[Synchronice]

Here is the distribution of the number of words in the Electrum Wordlist:

Code:

{'a': 136, 'b': 117, 'c': 186, 'd': 112, 'e': 100, 'f': 106, 'g': 76, 'h': 64, 'i': 55, 'j': 20, 'k': 20, 'l': 76, 'm': 105, 'n': 41, 'o': 55, 'p': 132, 'q': 8, 'r': 108, 's': 250, 't': 121, 'u': 35, 'v': 46, 'w': 69, 'y': 6, 'z': 4}

In the best case scenario, you have 4^12 combinations with all z, and the worst case would be 186^12 with all c. While it isn't impossible, you would have to be quite lucky to be able to find the seeds with that limited amount of information. If you have any other clues other than the first words, you might stand a slightly better chance though I wouldn't exactly count on it.

Small correction: the worse case is 250^12 with all s.

Thanks... I should've sorted it.

This is a very good chart.

OP, there is no way for you to recover your wallet. On cointelegraph there was an experiment where one person knew all the 12 words of 12-word seed phrase and cracked it within a hour but this person also had the list of 24 words of 24-word seed phrase but couldn't crack it because mathematically it would take centuries to crack that. Now, when you only know the first letter of each words, this basically means that you have to crack the wallet that is more than 100 word seed phrase. So, long story short, it's impossible, you can't be that lucky to have only words that start with Z and Y.