What is a mnemonic phrase?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 4 min
In short
A mnemonic phrase encodes a wallet's master random value as words a human can copy by hand. 'Seed phrase' and 'recovery phrase' refer to the same thing. The words restore the entire wallet — and hand it to anyone else who reads them.
Key points
- The same thing as a seed or recovery phrase
- Usually 12 or 24 words, and the order matters
- Standard word lists exist for languages other than English
- Anyone asking you to type it is running a scam
Definition
A string of words, drawn from a standardised list, that encodes the random value a wallet was generated from. Re-entering the same words in the same order regenerates the same keys.
Computers are happy with bits; people are not, at least not with pen and paper. So a 128- or 256-bit random value is sliced into 11-bit chunks, and each chunk indexes one of 2,048 words. Eleven bits covers 0–2047 exactly. Twelve words carry 132 bits, twenty-four carry 264.
The words plus their order are a single value. Swap two of them and you restore a completely different wallet. A misspelling is usually caught by the checksum, but an unlucky change that still validates opens an empty wallet — and people conclude their funds vanished when in fact they opened the wrong door.
The standard also defines word lists for Japanese, Spanish, Chinese and others. Since not every wallet app supports every list, an English phrase is the safer choice if you might one day restore into different software.
Watch out for
- · Photos, cloud notes and password managers turn one account breach into total loss
- · No legitimate wallet or support agent will ever ask for the phrase
- · Storing the words 'scrambled for safety' usually means you cannot restore it either