Why is the 12-word recovery phrase so important? (2024)

FAQs

Is the 12-word seed phrase enough? ›

Adequate Protection: With 2^128 possible combinations, the 12-word seed is a fortress against brute-force attacks. For most users, this level of security is more than sufficient to safeguard their digital assets.

A seed phrase, also known as a Secret Recovery Phrase (SRP) or mnemonic, is simply a collection of words that allows you to restore your entire crypto wallet. It's those 12-24 English words that your wallet presented you with while setting it up.

Your secret recovery phrase is the key to your wallet and controls access to all your crypto. A secret recovery phrase is a set of words that correspond to numbers. These numbers make up a seed integer that generates all of the private keys in your wallet. Each address for every crypto has its own private key.

For easy usage, Trust Wallet encrypts all assets' private keys to create one master private key, which is then run through an algorithm to generate a unique 12-word phrase known as the Recovery Phrase. Upon signing up, you will be assigned a wallet that you must back up with your recovery phrase immediately.

The Importance of Seed Phrases

Seed phrases are a common method in the crypto industry for recovering inaccessible or misplaced wallets. They function as a safety measure for self-custodied digital assets. Both hot wallets (online wallets) and cold wallets (offline wallets) can use a seed phrase for recovery.

However, seed phrases are considered very secure by modern standards. With a 12- or 24-word seed phrase out of 2048 possible words, determining the right words in the right sequence is almost impossible.

Once you lose it – you lose access to your funds. We don't store any of your private information on our servers. The 12-word backup phrase is only encrypted on your device. If someone asks you to provide your 12-word phrase for any reason – never do it!

In practice, it is highly unlikely that an attacker could guess or brute-force a 12-word recovery seed with 128 bits of entropy in a feasible amount of time. Thus, a 12-word seed offers a high level of security that is sufficient for most users, striking a balance between security and ease of use.

Your Secret Recovery Phrase (SRP) is a unique 12-word phrase that is generated when you first set up MetaMask. Your funds are connected to that phrase. If you ever lose your password, your SRP allows you to recover your wallet and your funds.

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What if someone steals my recovery phrase? ›

Losing the backup seed phrase or recovery words for a cryptocurrency hardware wallet can be a catastrophic event for any cryptocurrency holder. In this case, the person might not be able to access their coins anymore, and the funds stored on the hardware wallet could be lost forever.

A recovery phrase (or “seed phrase”) is basically a human-readable form of your wallet's private key—the unique, secret passcode used to authenticate and encrypt your wallet access.

Definition of the secret phrase. A secret phrase, also known as a seed phrase, recovery phrase or mnemonic phrase, is a sequence of words that are used to generate the private key for a blockchain wallet. The private key is used to access and manage the funds associated with the wallet's corresponding public address.

Please be informed that it is impossible to recover the wallet without the recovery phrase or private key. You should have a backup stored in a safe place. Also, the Trust Wallet team does not keep a log of your recovery phrases for your security.

It's a string of 12 lowercase words that is randomly generated for you when you're setting up your Atomic Wallet for the first time.

Take the example of a crypto seed phrase, consisting of only 12 words. People tend to think that it is easy to guess a seed phrase. However, remember that the possible word list contains 2,048 distinct words. Guessing a 12-word seed phrase in the proper sequence has a probability of 2048 to the power of 12.

When you enter 12 words on your computer in random order, the entropy in random order may not be sufficient to ensure a high level of security. In this case, using a 24-word seed is essential.

Given a sufficiently random process or wallet software, both a 12 or 24 word seed will be safe. In terms of brute-forcing the private key, both a 12-word seed phrase and a 24-word seed phrase offer the same level of security if they are generated using a strong random number generator.

Seed phrases are made up of a list of words, and each word is unique. However, you don't need to enter the entire word to recover your wallet. In fact, you only need to enter or store the first four letters of each word.