Author: Thomas Voegtlin 2015-03-11 14:58:05
Published on: 2015-03-11T14:58:05+00:00
In a response to Mike Hearn, Thomas Voegtlin explains that a BIP39 seed phrase will not work in Electrum, and vice versa. He expresses his disagreement with BIP39, citing two problems he has with it. Firstly, the seed phrase does not include a version number, which means that when Electrum users are given a seed phrase, they should be able to continue using it in future versions. Conversely, BIP39 seed phrases do not include a version number at all, and innovation is allowed only within the framework of BIP32. In addition, having to explore the branches of the BIP32 tree in order to determine the type of wallet attached to a seed might be somewhat inefficient. Secondly, BIP39 requires a fixed wordlist, which means that BIP39 will probably never leave the 'draft' stage until all languages of the world have been added. Voegtlin also explains that in order to support the old Electrum v1 seeds, all future versions of Electrum will have to include the old wordlist. In addition, when generating new seed phrases, Electrum now has to avoid collisions with old seed phrases, because the old ones did not have a version number. Electrum v2 derives both its private keys and its checksum/version number using a hash of the seed phrase. This means that wordlists can be added and modified in the future, without breaking existing seed phrases. It also means that it will be very easy for other wallets to support Electrum seedphrases: it requires about 20 lines of code, and no wordlist is required.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T18:12:51.203451+00:00