A simple explanation about BIP38

[ofirbeigel]

Hey guys, I've been trying to figure out for a while what does BIP38 stand for. After doing some research online I created this short video about it. Hope you enjoy.

Here's the summary:

BIP38 is basically a standard way to encrypt a Bitcoin private key with a password. So if someone finds your encrypted key he can’t decipher it without knowing the password.

BIP stands for Bitcoin Improvment Protocol – meaning if you have an idea to make Bitcoin better you can draft it up and if it’s accepted by the community they will start using it. So BIP38 is just the 38th proposal submitted to the Bitcoin Improvement Protocol which is currently adopted by Bitcoin users for protecting their private keys.

There are 2 ways you can use BIP38. The first is to encrypt an existing private key with a password.

The second way to use BIP38 is to let someone else create a private key for you and not allow them to spend your Bitcoins.  So if you buy a physical Bitcoin for example, you’ll notice they have a private key printed on them and the guy who created them knows that key. So having BIP38 allows the creation of these coins and still protect you from the seller’s ability to spend them.

Keep in mind that private keys encrypted with BIP38 will usually start with 6p instead of the usual 5j.

If you want to see how to encrypt your private key with BIP38 just follow the link at the beginning of the post.

[1715185087]

1715185087

[Newar]

In case you ever wonder about BIPs again, here's the list:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips



I'm not quite sure you got your second way right. Or maybe I don't understand you correctly. If somebody else creates the key they know it. You can encrypt that key afterwards as many times as you please, they still know the key and as such can use it to sign transactions.

[Hfleer]

@ physical bitcoin coins:

The creator had to know the password at some point right? Or do you send him the privatekey yourself? Otherwise he would know the privatekey and the password, which would give him complete control if he wanted. BIP38 would be useless then.

[bitbaby]

In case you ever wonder about BIPs again, here's the list:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips



I'm not quite sure you got your second way right. Or maybe I don't understand you correctly. If somebody else creates the key they know it. You can encrypt that key afterwards as many times as you please, they still know the key and as such can use it to sign transactions.

Same, I understood the first part clearly and it was very informative as I didn't know what BIP38 stands for. I use it with almost all my keys but never really gave a thought as to what it is, just knew that it was an encryption program.

The second part can't be right, maybe OP can explain what he meant but if someone knows the key to your address it doesn't matter if you encrypt it afterwards. And that's the whole point of encrypting it with BIP38, so even if someone gets to your key, they can't use it without knowing the password for it.

[Kprawn]

I also do not get it... I thought you choose to use BIP38 when you create the address. {As a added security feature } So the creator of the address will have the pass phrase, if he created it.

The OP's post does not make sense. I will not trust someone to create a address for me, if I have to provide the pass phrase and he knows what it is.

Would you care to explain this?

However, if you created some kind of system that creates BIP38 addresses and the user type his pass phrase, without the knowledge of the creator, it might work, if the creators device store no information on the device. {With all the bad firmware out there, I doubt that it would be possible or that I would trust such a system}