Author: Ethan Kosakovsky 2020-03-22 11:58:53
Published on: 2020-03-22T11:58:53+00:00
Ethan Kosakovsky has proposed a new standard, called Deterministic Entropy From BIP32 Keychains, to solve the problem of "too many seeds and too many backups". The proposal aims to provide a way to derive entropy from a hierarchical deterministic (HD) keychain path in order to deterministically derive the initial entropy used to create keychain mnemonics and seeds. The motivation behind his proposal is that due to various wallet implementations and security models, the average user may be faced with the need to handle an ever-growing number of seeds/mnemonics. The proposal details a way to deterministically derive the initial entropy used for new root keychains using a single BIP32 style "master root key".For this purpose, he introduced a derivation scheme that uses the format `m/83696968'/type'/index'` where `type` is the final seed type, and `index` in the key index of the hardened child private key. The proposal can be implemented on devices that store the HD seed as a BIP39 mnemonic, Electrum seed, or BIP32 root key.The proposal could be split into multiple discrete BIPs in the same way that BIP32 described the derivation mechanics, BIP39 the input encoding with mnemonics, and the derivation paths like BIP44, BIP49 and BIP84, but it has been avoided to reduce complexity. Test cases have been provided for 128-bit, 256-bit, WIF for Bitcoin Core, and 25 word Monero mnemonic.The context provided includes a child BIP39 seed '4e5c82be6455ecf0884d9475435e29a9afb9acf70b07296d7e5039c866e4d54647706918b9d14909dfbd7071a4b7aee8a4ad0ac2bf48f0a09a8899dd28564418' and a child BIP32 root key 'xprv9s21ZrQH143K2kekJsK9V6t4ZKwHkY1Q3umxuaAhdZKGxCMpHiddLdYUQBoynszpwnk5upoC788LiT5MZ5q1vUABXG7AMyZK5UjD9iyL7Am'.The references for this context include BIP32 and BIP39. Additionally, this BIP is dual-licensed under the Open Publication License and BSD 2-clause license. The context does not provide much information about the significance or use of the child BIP39 seed and BIP32 root key. However, it is clear that these are important components in Bitcoin development and are being discussed on the bitcoin-dev mailing list.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T00:06:15.814073+00:00