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Questions tagged [bip32-hd-wallets]

BIP32, or Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets. HD wallets are wallets that can be shared amongst different wallet implementation with or without the ability to spend coins. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki

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ELI5: What's the difference between a child-key and a hardened child-key in BIP32

I've read BIP32, and I do understand it more or less. Could someone please explain to me like I'm 5 years old what the difference between a child-key and a hardened child-key is? I'm trying to add HD wallet generation to a service I'm building. I…
Amin Shah Gilani
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What is the wallet "word seed" that is commonly used in popular wallets clients and what does it do?

I've been using a pretty old version of Multibit classic and recently decided to upgrade. I tried out Multibit HD and Electrum and noticed that both have me set up a wallet with a "word seed". It's just a string of random words that is apparently…
frеdsbend
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Derivation of parent private key from non-hardened child

Quote from BIP 32: One weakness that may not be immediately obvious, is that knowledge of a parent extended public key plus any non-hardened private key descending from it is equivalent to knowing the parent extended private key (and thus every…
meshcollider
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How are different addresses generated from the same private key?

I was reading in the "Technical background of version 1 Bitcoin addresses" that addresses are a function of the private key. More or less: Private Key -> Public Key -> Address If the public key is the only input needed to generate an address, how…
ciczan
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What is the status of hierarchical deterministic wallets (BIP32)

BIP32 specifies hierarchical deterministic wallets, where a master seed fully determines a whole tree of keypairs that can be arbitrarily branched. It also introduces the notions of internal and external keypair chains that can be used independently…
Noah
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Key derivation in HD wallets using the extended private key vs hardened derivation

I am reading the book Mastering Bitcoin and confused about wallet key derivations in Chapter 4. Keys, Addresses, Wallets. The book first mentions a private child key derivation where the child private key is derived from three inputs: (parent public…
user1
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Best Practices for hardened keys in HD wallets?

Essentially, I am seeking to know where in an HD wallet tree structure should hardened keys be used. For example: Shouldn't all child keys of the master extended key be hardened? Should all extended public keys that are shared have the immediate…
morsecoder
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Is the Electrum seed compatible with other wallets?

Apologies if this is a simple question - a newbie here! I'm trying to understand backups. If I use Electrum to make a back up (including the 12 word seed password), will I then need to use Electrum to restore my BTC/ or can I use a different piece…
Nag
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What BIP32 derivation path does Electrum use?

Electrum 2.0 and up uses BIP0032 internally. I want to write code that generates the same addresses. I can't find any information about this online. What BIP32 paths does it use to generate addresses?
Nick ODell
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BIP32 recommends a 256 bit seed. Why do most Bitcoin wallets only use a 128 bit seed?

According to BIP32's "Master key generation" section, "256 bits is advised". See https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki#Master_key_generation Why did BIP32 consider 256 bits to be the recommended seed size, and why did the…
knaccc
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How to restore Bitcoin Core HD wallet private keys by master key?

Since version 0.13.0 Bitcoin Core supports HD wallets. In a .txt dump of the wallet (created by JSON-RPC dumpwallet command), one can find an "extended private masterkey" which is intended to be used for generation of rest of the private keys. How…
talalai88
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How to get public master key of a Ledger wallet?

I have a ledger Nano S and would like to know how to extract the public master key of its wallet, in order to do HD key derivation in an external process. Is there a way or is this info never exposed in any way?
knocte
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Pros/Cons/Limitations of Mnemonic Phrases - BIP39

BIP39 mnemonic phrases replace considerations about how to store one private key, with considerations about how to store the seed to a series of private keys. The idea is that the private keys are hard to remember, worse to write down, and prone to…
CQM
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HD wallets and address reuse

HD wallets create a series of addresses, and then when one address has received an input it will give you a new address that hasn't received inputs yet So in the idea of you sending yourself bitcoin from an exchange, and having different addresses…
CQM
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Retrieving all the funds from BIP32 derived wallets

An ecommerce site is using BIP32 wallets for receiving order payments from a tree of child keys where each leaf node is unique to one purchase transaction. Is it common for the site to immediately send the received coins to its superwallet (master…
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