Which is more secured

[Charles-Tim]

The 12 versus 24 word Seed is a debate on theoretical margin.  Theoretically, 24 words is maximum security and most of the people I know of who have high level security Bitcoin set ups prefer 24 words.  It allows flexibility of splitting the Seed in parts, it needs less recovery attempts if any of the words fail et cetera. Out of paranoia or not it is still the highest level of security to choose, even considering the 128 bits of security Private Key ceiling limit.

Can you give a scenario of how 24 seed phrase has the highest level of security to choose? I mean real life example.

I am perfectly fine with 12 word seed phrase when I do not have any good reason to go for 15, 18, 21 or 24 word seed phrase.

I do not understand how 24 words seed phrase allows flexibility of splitting the seed phrase in parts and how it needs less recovery attempts if any of the words fail. Can you explain better? All these sounds kind of not correct to me.

[hosemary]

I do not understand how 24 words seed phrase allows flexibility of splitting the seed phrase in parts and how it needs less recovery attempts if any of the words fail. Can you explain better? All these sounds kind of not correct to me.

You are right that 12 and 24 word seed phrases provide the same level of security and as I said in my previous post, even in theory, a 24 word seed phrase isn't more secure than a 12 word seed phrase.

Even though PrivacyG is wrong that a 24 word seed phrase is more secure than a 12 word seed phrase, he is right that recovering a 24 word seed phrase requires fewer attempts if one word is missing.
As you know, a BIP39 seed phrase includes a checksum. In a 12 word seed phrase, the checksum is 4 bits long, while in a 24 word seed phrase, the checksum is 8 bits long. Therefore, if you are missing one word from a 12 word seed phrase and want to brute-force it, there will be 128 possibilities. However, if you have a 24 word seed phrase, there will be only 8 possibilities.

[ZAINmalik75]

When it comes to Bitcoin wallet, isn't adding more security is everything?

Why are some people saying that 24 seed phrases are stronger than 12 seed words?
And some advices on this forum is showing that 12 or 24 doesn't matter..

Keeping recovery seed offline is the best thing to do but if more words can protect your Bitcoin wallet why not recommend that? I don't know much, I am just trying to learn

The security is the same because with a 12 word seed phrase, you will have 2 to the power of 128 possible combinations. To put that into perspective, it would take the world’s most powerful supercomputer trillions of years to guess the right combination. Now with a 24 word seed phrase, the combinations become 2 to the power of 256.

But the rest of the members are right. The real threat is not from using a lower word seed phrase, but from human error. If you are writing down, storing, or typing even those 24 words in a place that is easily accessible to others, like online storage such as Google Drive, you could still lose the funds, or connecting your wallet with a spam site. Always keep your seed phrase offline, write it carefully, and never overcomplicate security to the point that you might forget what you did after some time.

[Charles-Tim]

Even though PrivacyG is wrong that a 24 word seed phrase is more secure than a 12 word seed phrase, he is right that recovering a 24 word seed phrase requires fewer attempts if one word is missing.
As you know, a BIP39 seed phrase includes a checksum. In a 12 word seed phrase, the checksum is 4 bits long, while in a 24 word seed phrase, the checksum is 8 bits long. Therefore, if you are missing one word from a 12 word seed phrase and want to brute-force it, there will be 128 possibilities. However, if you have a 24 word seed phrase, there will be only 8 possibilities.

He meant missing. I thought he meant *failed* which was what he posted. I was thinking how can the right seed phrase fail to recover a wallet.

[uchegod-21]

OP, you are bothered about the less important things as far as your Bitcoin security is concerned while ignoring the very important ones, which put your bitcoins at greater risk if you care less about them.

You should be bothered about where you store your bitcoins. Hot wallets expose your wallet to online attacks because they are connected to the internet.

You should be bothered about theft and unauthorized access to your wallet, especially from people you trust. Disclosing your seed phrase grants access.

You should be bothered about poor backup methods. Saving your seed phrase online or storing it in places that are not secure can make you lose your bitcoins.

You should be bothered about phishing links and many other things.

12 or 24-word seed phrases do not put your bitcoins at risk.

[Patikno]

When it comes to Bitcoin wallet, isn't adding more security is everything?

Why are some people saying that 24 seed phrases are stronger than 12 seed words?
And some advices on this forum is showing that 12 or 24 doesn't matter..

Keeping recovery seed offline is the best thing to do but if more words can protect your Bitcoin wallet why not recommend that? I don't know much, I am just trying to learn

Like forum friend stated here, a 24-word seed phrase is clearly safer, and I completely agree with that, especially when it comes to brute-force attempts. Simply put, if a few words (say 10 or 11) of your 12-word seed phrase were exposed, there is a chance the others could easily be guessed using brute-force techniques. So, you would be safer if you used a 24-word seed phrase.

Well, some reasons, such as "recovery" or "memorization," might be the reason someone sticks with a 12-word seed phrase, and I think that is perfectly fine, as long as they are well-guarded and don't let it be easily exposed or discovered by others.

Personally, I have never heard of a case of a wallet being hacked purely by guessing the entire phrase. What I often hear about are; hacks involving phishing attempts, and virus or malware injections. So, I think the most important thing to prioritize is: how we secure our wallets from cyberattacks, and avoid exposing them to potential threats. Cmiiw.

[Findingnemo]

When it comes to Bitcoin wallet, isn't adding more security is everything?

Why are some people saying that 24 seed phrases are stronger than 12 seed words?
And some advices on this forum is showing that 12 or 24 doesn't matter..

Already you have the explanation why 12 words is enough, and he is my oversimplified version. If it takes 12 seed word to brute force million years and if it takes 1 billion year for the 24 words then it doesn't really make a big difference in the real world because we are not going to live that long which is why 12 words is enough to say you are secured.

[Alphakilo]

When it comes to Bitcoin wallet, isn't adding more security is everything?

Why are some people saying that 24 seed phrases are stronger than 12 seed words?
And some advices on this forum is showing that 12 or 24 doesn't matter..

Already you have the explanation why 12 words is enough, and he is my oversimplified version. If it takes 12 seed word to brute force million years and if it takes 1 billion year for the 24 words then it doesn't really make a big difference in the real world because we are not going to live that long which is why 12 words is enough to say you are secured.

When we try to be overly secure our wallet by using 24 word seed instead of 12 word seed, we are simply making ourselves more responsible for the safety of our wallet because imagine a case where it's difficult to save the 24 word seed, knowing fully well that both a 12 word seed and 24 word seed phrases can't be brute forced or guessed by a human or computer yet we opt to make it more complex to ourselves that it can be forgotten easily or too cumbersome to keep safe.

Complexity they say, is the enemy of security and that's why it's good to keep things simple enough that we can remember instead of trying to be too complex and forget the right information.
The fear is accidentally locking yourself out of your wallet because you thought using 24 word seed is better only to find out that both are secure and good for protection of our funds anyways.

[famososMuertos]

OP: There are several configurations besides the ones you mentioned and the corrections you received, for example, the 12+1 phrase, an interesting way to manage two completely different wallets, or a "dual-firm" wallet, etc.

In reality, it's better to be more specific with your question than to be so generic. Furthermore, nowadays there's no excuse for not having a clear understanding of this topic, and ultimately, believe in yourself; understanding it on your own is always better than someone else's explanation.

[X-ray]

Choose whatever fits you, 12 seed phrase or 24 both are secure, other one is more secure than the other doesn't mean one of them is insecure.

If you are creating hot wallet, for transaction, something that you will discard and not for long term, nothing wrong with choosing 12 seed phrase.

The main problem with seed phrase is where you store it. These seed phrase, doesn't matter if it's 12 or 24 usually get its phrases leaked all at once because how people store it.

When that happens, even if it's 256 bits of entropy doesn't mean anything.

[ThemePen]

The principle of providing your digital wallet with additional protection layer is excellent achievement, yet there are several points that you need to know about methods of cryptography. I think best bet to go with that is to remain in twelve word structure since it significantly helps to minimize the risk of human error. A sequence of 24 words has greater theoretical resistance to future threats of quantum computing, but it also poses twice the chance of typing word wrong, or losing fragment of paper, or knocking up your backup system. No computer will ever guess shorter sequence anyway so most important thing is not hacker who is guessing the keys, but your memory or storage behavior. It stores your backup in entirely off line medium that is durable, and it is actually that which will ensure your money is safe, other than additional words that can make it more difficult to operate with.

[univla]

Generally speaking, a 24-word seed phrase theoretically provides more entropy or randomness than a 12-word one, so 24-words are stronger from a brute-force perspective. But the real problem is that even a well-crafted 12-word seed phrase is so strong that it is practically impossible to break it by brute-force. So for most ordinary users, the difference between 12 words and 24 words is not a major security issue.
The main risk usually lies elsewhere. For example, someone puts the seed phrase online, takes a screenshot, saves it to Google Drive or email, writes the seed on a phishing website, uses a fake wallet, or stores the seed backup in a place where someone else can see it. If you make these mistakes, even a 24-word seed phrase will not be secure.

[JeffBrad12]

Brute-forcing seed phrases was never a problem, I never seen anyone getting their seed phrase brute-forced in my life but if you want security 24 seed phrases is better I guess. From my experience personally backing up 24 seed phrase is a pain when you write it down yourself or put it inside metal seed phrase storage and retyping it back again to a newly installed wallet is a pain as well.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Let's end the 12 vs 24 words seed phrase debate once and for all.

Both are secure. No, a 24 one is not more secure than a 12 one. No attacker will ever brute force a seed phrase from zero. It's easier to brute force the Bitcoin private key directly than a seed phrase with no hints. The reason why wallets allow you to pick between a 12 and 24 words is because of a tradeoff; the more the words, the easier it is to brute force the seed phrase with 3-4 words missing. This is because the checksum is greater with 24 words, and you can skip a lot more invalid seed phrases this way. But the downside is that you're writing down 24 words instead of just 12.  

That's it. Both secure. None is "more secure".

The insecure issue from 24 words seed phrase is similar to practice of seed splitting. Some people can think that if they split their seed words, it increases security of their wallet backups but in fact this seed splitting practice is very dangerous. If they lose part of their seed phrase from the splittings, they will not be able to recover their wallets, and that's not how secure the wallet backup is.

That risk is warned there
How to backup a seed phrase?
Why is seed splitting a bad idea?

[wmiran]

More words sounds better, but in practice it doesn’t change much.

12 and 24 seed phrases are both already extremely hard to crack. The real weak point is usually not the math, it’s people losing it, storing it badly, or getting tricked into revealing it.

So yes, 24 is technically stronger, but 12 is already more than enough if you keep it safe offline. The focus should be protection, not just length.

[riscohen4]

12 and 24 word seed phrase has the same bits of security which is 128 bits. 12 words seed phrase is absolutely enough.

What people should be careful about is not the length of their seed phrase, it is about the types of wallets they should have for different purposes and how they stay away from being scammed and also avoid their wallet to be hacked.

For better security, cold wallets are better.
For frequent use with small amount of money, desktop and mobile wallet are good, but still making sure you avoid malware.

By looking at this everybody should know that 12 word seed phrase is enough. Not need for 24. But what should be on people's mind is not the length but how it can be secured. If you look closely people will say the more the longer the more the secured. But no. 12 is still long.

I do not understand how 24 words seed phrase allows flexibility of splitting the seed phrase in parts and how it needs less recovery attempts if any of the words fail. Can you explain better? All these sounds kind of not correct to me.

You are right that 12 and 24 word seed phrases provide the same level of security and as I said in my previous post, even in theory, a 24 word seed phrase isn't more secure than a 12 word seed phrase.

Even though PrivacyG is wrong that a 24 word seed phrase is more secure than a 12 word seed phrase, he is right that recovering a 24 word seed phrase requires fewer attempts if one word is missing.
As you know, a BIP39 seed phrase includes a checksum. In a 12 word seed phrase, the checksum is 4 bits long, while in a 24 word seed phrase, the checksum is 8 bits long. Therefore, if you are missing one word from a 12 word seed phrase and want to brute-force it, there will be 128 possibilities. However, if you have a 24 word seed phrase, there will be only 8 possibilities.

Practically, there’s no difference. 12 or 24, it’s the same to me. But I honestly don’t know why some wallets default is 24. But your checksum explanation is quite good. I have a question: does it matter if the seed phrase was never exposed in the first place?

[hosemary]

I have a question: does it matter if the seed phrase was never exposed in the first place?

I'm not sure I am understading your question correctly, because it's pretty obvious that you should keep your seed phrase secure and never expose it to others. If your seed phrase is exposed to others, you are at risk of losing all your funds and it no longer matters whether your seed phrase is 12 words long or 24 words long.

[OcTradism]

I have a question: does it matter if the seed phrase was never exposed in the first place?

"Was never exposed in the first place"?

Did you want to ask that is it good if you create your wallet offline?
If it is your thinking, it's a good practice honestly.

Because if you use a non custodial and open source wallet, you can have everything ready on your device, and you can turn off the Internet connection before creating your wallet. You can even use an air gap device when creating your wallet after downloading a wallet software.

Similarly, do it offline when you are recovering your wallet by using any wallet recovery software.