Question regards Seed phrase

[breyvin]

hello



i have a question.


i have an old blockchain.info/com wallet from around end of 2013 beginning of 2014.

Back then i received a 12 seed phrase - so i checked 2 random words if they are listed in the BIP39 word list, and they do!


So my question is, if my seed phrase is now universal - meaning it can be imported on electrum for example, or did blockchain info back then used another kind of seed phrases, and they used the same word list from BIP39 just with another customizeation ( sum-check ) ?


And  if so , since when did they start to use universal seeds?

[safar1980]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Electrum/comments/udc2a7/can_you_recover_a_blockchaininfo_wallet_with_a/?rdt=44162
So if you create a blockchain.com (not info) wallet today, then it is BIP39 complaint. But if you created the blockchain.info wallet back in 2012 it would not be BIP39 complaint.
They switched to BIP39 / BIP44 compliance somewhere between 2012 and 2022.

Blockchain.info officially switched to the standard 12-word BIP39 seed phrases in late 2015/early 2016 with the launch of the third version of the wallet (V3 HD Wallet).
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1357661.0

[hosemary]

Blockchain.com started to generate 12 word BIP39 seed phrases in 2016.

So my question is, if my seed phrase is now universal - meaning it can be imported on electrum for example, or did blockchain info back then used another kind of seed phrases, and they used the same word list from BIP39 just with another customizeation ( sum-check ) ?

If you have an old blockchain.com seed phrase, you can't import it into other wallets.
If you have a new blockchain.com seed phrase, you can inport it into many other wallets including electrum.

Blockchain.com used a different wordlist before their 2016 upgrade and generated seed phrases using their own algorithm.

[Cricktor]

OP, I'm not sure if you tried to use the forum search, but I knew from memory where roughly to look at (took me a little searching to find LoyceV's recovery thread which I knew exists):

...
Seed phrases, Word lists or Mnemonic phrases
Bitcoin wallets can be stored as seed phrases, usually 12 to 24 words long. The used words can be in several languages (thanks HeRetiK).

• ...
• Blockchain.info: To recover an old legacy Blockchain.info wallet, read this topic and go here.
• Blockchain.info: In some cases, Blockchain.info (now .com) shows a compressed private key while the address was uncompressed. Read this topic.
• ...

...

It is possible that you could find more topics that deal with the recovery of old mnemonic words wallets from blockchain.info. Newbie accounts have some limits with usage of forum search. I suggest to use https://bitlist.co/search to search this forum.

From above cited snipet it sounds like you would need your "wallet recovery mnemonics" (17-word recovery phrase). Do you have something like that?

[NotATether]

Blockchain.com used a different wordlist before their 2016 upgrade and generated seed phrases using their own algorithm.

If the word list has been posted in public somewhere, it should not be too difficult for someone to make a "blockchain to bip39 translator" that just maps each blockchain.com word to the bip39 word for that same position.

I would be surprised if nobody has made such a tool or some other form of blockchain.com recovery software.

[hosemary]

If the word list has been posted in public somewhere, it should not be too difficult for someone to make a "blockchain to bip39 translator" that just maps each blockchain.com word to the bip39 word for that same position.

This is not possible.
It's not only the wordlist that is different. As I said in my previous post, blockchain.com old seed phrases were genereted using a different algorithm which is not even available to the public. Blockchain.com old seed phrases also included more than 12 words.

[bitmover]

If the word list has been posted in public somewhere, it should not be too difficult for someone to make a "blockchain to bip39 translator" that just maps each blockchain.com word to the bip39 word for that same position.

This is not possible.
It's not only the wordlist that is different. As I said in my previous post, blockchain.com old seed phrases were genereted using a different algorithm which is not even available to the public. Blockchain.com old seed phrases also included more than 12 words.

Yeah  even electrum seeds are completely different.
More details here
https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/seedphrase.html

This is not the same as a bip39 English x bip 39 portuguese (which can be freely translated, I even participated in translating the Portuguese one a few years ago)

[LoyceV]

blockchain.com old seed phrases were genereted using a different algorithm which is not even available to the public.

Wouldn't it be about time they make this open source? What if someone still wants to recover their coins years or even decades from now?

[hosemary]

Wouldn't it be about time they make this open source? What if someone still wants to recover their coins years or even decades from now?

Just a guess:
Maybe, there is nothing similar to BIP39 algorithm to be made available to the public at all and it's not technically possible to generate the keys without relying on their servers and just with a seed phrase.

If blockchain.com is not available for any reason, all the people having an old wallet there will lose their funds forever.

[greyplum]

I'm new in this forum and forgive my ignorance, but why don't you install electrum or sparrow in an offline laptop and try it for yourself?

[bitmover]

I'm new in this forum and forgive my ignorance, but why don't you install electrum or sparrow in an offline laptop and try it for yourself?

Yeah, and search for several derivation paths. Even tools like iancoleman.io can work

There is a place to enter blockchain.info as Client parameter in the derivation path.


https://iancoleman.io/bip39/

[hosemary]

Yeah, and search for several derivation paths. Even tools like iancoleman.io can work

It may be worth mentioning that this works only if your blockchain.com seed phrase is BIP39.
If you have an old blockchain.com seed phrase, your only option is to use blockchain.com itself and there is no other tool that can calculate your keys.

[LoyceV]

It may be worth mentioning that this works only if your blockchain.com seed phrase is BIP39.

I just checked my 2015 Blockchain wallet backup: it has 24 words, and includes words like "norsk" and "hoffmeister". I'm pretty sure the wallet is empty, but I'd have no idea how to recover this wallet. Electrum's "try to find a wallet" feature doesn't show anything, but it could also be I never funded it at all.
It's really shitty they created a custom wallet system, and abandoned it, but they're not the only ones. That's why I always feel like raw private keys are the easiest to understand.

[nc50lc]

Wouldn't it be about time they make this open source? What if someone still wants to recover their coins years or even decades from now?

If it's just the client-side of their legacy wallet, they have the source code for that,
here: github.com/blockchain/unused-My-Wallet

It comes with the v2 wordlist and the rare v3 algorithm with the code on how to decode/encode the words.
check this file, mnemonic.js: github.com/blockchain/unused-My-Wallet/blob/master/mnemonic.js
It has an updated version in their legacy pages of their v4 front-end repository: github.com/blockchain/blockchain-wallet-v4-frontend/blob/development/legacy-pages/js/mnemonic/mnemonic.js

I just checked my 2015 Blockchain wallet backup: it has 24 words, and includes words like "norsk" and "hoffmeister". I'm pretty sure the wallet is empty, but I'd have no idea how to recover this wallet.

Those are in their short-lived v3 mnemonic: github.com/blockchain/unused-My-Wallet/blob/master/mnemonic_words_v3.html

If the word list has been posted in public somewhere, it should not be too difficult for someone to make a "blockchain to bip39 translator" that just maps each blockchain.com word to the bip39 word for that same position.

The problem with this is the binary seed isn't based from the BIP39 word's position in the wordlist.
So you can't just map their positions and replace the words of the same positions.
The same reason why you can't just translate a BIP39 seed phrase to another language by mapping the words' positions.

The binary seed where the master private key is generated from is derived from the words themselves so changing any character will produce a different wallet.

As for legacy Blockchain, their legacy mnemonic isn't for deriving the wallet itself, it's just an encoded backup of the user's password.
OP made this confusing since he said it's legacy from 2013 yet claimed that it consist of BIP39 words.

[hosemary]

I'm pretty sure the wallet is empty, but I'd have no idea how to recover this wallet.

I have never used blockchain.com's recovery tool, but you would probably be able to recover your wallet using it.

If it's just the client-side of their legacy wallet, they have the source code for that,
here: github.com/blockchain/unused-My-Wallet

Does this mean it's technically possible to recover an old blockchain.com wallet without their website and just with the seed phrase?

[LoyceV]

I have never used blockchain.com's recovery tool, but you would probably be able to recover your wallet using it.

You're right, this worked. I didn't read carefully enough. It just reproduces the wallet ID and even the password I had already. Storing the password server-side does not inspire confidence!
Either way, it says the wallet has no transaction history. But it only shows Segwit addresses, while I created this wallet before those existed. It could be I never funded it.

[dkbit98]

And  if so , since when did they start to use universal seeds?

Trezor developers created BIP39 as standardized way of using 12 or 24 seed words.
Other developers later made alternative modified system, one example is seed words for Electrum wallet.
Now there is also Slip39, but that is not yet widely supported in all bitcoin wallets.

[hosemary]

You're right, this worked. I didn't read carefully enough. It just reproduces the wallet ID and even the password I had already.

Were you required to confirm your login through your email address?
It's been a long time since I last used blockchain.com wallet, but if I remember correctly, sometimes I had to click a link they sent me via email when trying to log in.

If so, having the recovery seed phrase isn't enough for accessing the wallet.

[BitMaxz]

Were you required to confirm your login through your email address?
It's been a long time since I last used blockchain.com wallet, but if I remember correctly, sometimes I had to click a link they sent me via email when trying to log in.

If so, having the recovery seed phrase isn't enough for accessing the wallet.

If I recall correctly, when I recovered my old "blockchain.info" wallet that consists of 17 phrases, using the seed alone did not lead me to the correct wallet; it also requested a Wallet ID, and providing a random Wallet ID led me to a different wallet with no funds.

So a seed phrase isn't enough to recover your exact wallet.


@OP Are you sure that it's a blockchain.info wallet? Because in the past, their legacy wallet never generated a 12-word seed; based on what I remember, they use 15, 17, 19, and 21 words.

[nc50lc]

If it's just the client-side of their legacy wallet, they have the source code for that,
here: github.com/blockchain/unused-My-Wallet

Does this mean it's technically possible to recover an old blockchain.com wallet without their website and just with the seed phrase?

Yes and no.
No because, since it's actually just a password backup, it's useless without the "wallet.aes.json" file that it can decrypt.
Yes if the user has a backup of his encrypted wallet file somewhere, if not, they need Blockchain for that since they're keeping a copy of it in their server.
IDK if someone already made a legacy mnemonic decoding tool/script though, but at the very least, the archived version of their latest legacy mnemonic recovery page works: web.archive.org

On a side note, the last method to get the wallet.aes.json that I tried without involving their customer support
requires the associated email to be available and accessible, I'm not sure if it'll still work in their v5 wallet.