Your keys, your Bitcoin. Not your keys, not your Bitcoin.
—Andreas Antonopoulos
The python-slip39 project (and the SLIP-39 macOS/win32 App) exists to assist in the safe creation, backup and documentation of Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) Wallet seeds and derived accounts, with various SLIP-39 sharing parameters. It generates the new random wallet seed, and generates the expected standard Ethereum account(s) (at derivation path m/44’/60’/0’/0/0 by default) and Bitcoin accounts (at Bech32 derivation path m/84’/0’/0’/0/0 by default), with wallet address and QR code (compatible with Trezor and Ledger derivations). It produces the required SLIP-39 phrases, and outputs a single PDF containing all the required printable cards to document the seed (and the specified derived accounts).
On an secure (ideally air-gapped) computer, new seeds can safely be generated (without
trusting this program) and the PDF saved to a USB drive for printing (or directly printed without
the file being saved to disk.). Presently, slip39 can output example ETH, BTC, LTC, DOGE, BNB,
CRO and XRP addresses derived from the seed, to illustrate what accounts are associated with the
backed-up seed. Recovery of the seed to a Trezor “Model T” is simple, by entering the mnemonics
right on the device.
We also support the backup of existing insecure and unreliable 12- or 24-word BIP-39 Mnemonic Phrases as SLIP-39 Mnemonic cards, for existing BIP-39 hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano, etc.! Recover from your existing BIP-39 Seed Phrase Mnemonic, select “Using BIP-39” (and enter your BIP-39 passphrase), and generate a set of SLIP-39 Mnemonic cards. Later, use the SLIP-39 App to recover from your SLIP-39 Mnemonic cards, click “Using BIP-39” to get your BIP-39 Mnemonic back, and use it (and your passphrase) to recover your accounts to your Ledger (or other) hardware wallet.
Output of BIP-38 or JSON encrypted Paper Wallets is also supported, for import into standard software cryptocurrency wallets.
For both BIP-39 and SLIP-39, a 128- or 256-bit random “seed” is the source of an unlimited sequence of Ethereum and Bitcoin Heirarchical Deterministic (HD) derived Wallet accounts. Anyone who can obtain this seed gains control of all Ethereum, Bitcoin (and other) accounts derived from it, so it must be securely stored.
Losing this seed means that all of the HD Wallet accounts are permanently lost. It must be both backed up securely, and be readily accessible.
Therefore, we must:
- Ensure that nobody untrustworthy can recover the seed, but
- Store the seed in many places, probably with several (some perhaps untrustworthy) people.
How can we address these conflicting requirements?
Satoshi Lab’s (Trezor) SLIP-39 uses SSSS to distribute the ability to recover the key to 1 or more “groups”. Collecting the mnemonics from the required number of groups allows recovery of the seed.
For BIP-39, the number of groups is always 1, and the number of mnemonics required for that group is always 1. This selection is both insecure (easy to accidentally disclose) and unreliable (easy to accidentally lose), but since most hardware wallets only accept BIP-39 phrases, we also provide a way to backup your BIP-39 phrase using SLIP-39!
For SLIP-39, you specify a “group_threshold” of how many of your groups must be successfully collected, to recover the seed; this seed is (conceptually) split between 1 or more groups (though not in reality – each group’s data alone gives away no information about the seed).
For example, you might have First, Second, Fam and Frens groups, and decide that any 2 groups can be combined to recover the seed. Each group has members with varying levels of trust and persistence, so have different number of Members, and differing numbers Required to recover that group’s data:
| Group | Required | Members | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| <r> | <l> | |||
| First | 1 | / | 1 | Stored at home |
| Second | 1 | / | 1 | Stored in office safe |
| Fam | 2 | / | 4 | Distributed to family members |
| Frens | 3 | / | 6 | Distributed to friends and associates |
The account owner might store their First and Second group data in their home and office safes. These are 1/1 groups (1 required, and only 1 member, so each of these are 1-card groups.)
If the Seed needs to be recovered, collecting the First and Second cards from the home and office safe is sufficient to recover the Seed, and re-generate all of the HD Wallet accounts.
Only 2 Fam group member’s cards must be collected to recover the Fam group’s data. So, if the HD Wallet owner loses their home (and the one and only First group card) in a fire, they could get the one Second group card from the office safe, and also 2 cards from Fam group members, and recover the Seed and all of their wallets.
If catastrophe strikes and the wallet owner dies, and the heirs don’t have access to either the First (at home) or Second (at the office) cards, they can collect 2 Fam cards and 3 Frens cards (at the funeral, for example), completing the Fam and Frens groups’ data, and recover the Seed, and all derived HD Wallet accounts.
Since Frens are less likely to persist long term, we’ll produce more (6) of these cards. Depending on how trustworthy the group is, adjust the Fren group’s Required number higher (less trustworthy, more likely to know each-other, need to collect more to recover the group), or lower (more trustworthy, less likely to collude, need less to recover).
Generating a new SLIP-39 encoded Seed is easy, with results available as PDF and text. Any number of derived HD wallet account addresses can be generated from this Seed, and the Seed (and all derived HD wallets, for all cryptocurrencies) can be recovered by collecting the desired groups of recover card phrases. The default recovery groups are as described above.
This is what the first page of the output SLIP-39 mnemonic cards PDF looks like:
Run the following to obtain a PDF file containing business cards with the default SLIP-39 groups for a new account Seed named “Personal”; insert a USB drive to collect the output, and run:
$ python3 -m pip install slip39 # Install slip39 in Python3 $ cd /Volumes/USBDRIVE/ # Change current directory to USB $ python3 -m slip39 Personal # Or just run "slip39 Personal" 2021-12-25 11:10:38 slip39 ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0xb44A2011A99596671d5952CdC22816089f142FB3 2021-12-25 11:10:38 slip39 Wrote SLIP-39-encoded wallet for 'Personal' to:\ Personal-2021-12-22+15.45.36-0xb44A2011A99596671d5952CdC22816089f142FB3.pdf
The resultant PDF will be output into the designated file.
This PDF file contains business card sized SLIP-39 Mnemonic cards, and will print on a single
page of 8-1/2”x11” paper or card stock, and the cards can be cut out (--card index, credit,
half (page), third and quarter are also available, as well as 4x6 photo and custom
"(<h>,<w>),<margin>").
To get the data printed on the terminal as in this example (so you could write it down on cards
instead), add a -v (to see it logged in a tabular format), or --text to have it printed to
stdout in full lines (ie. for pipelining to other programs).
The Trezor hardware wallet natively supports the input of SLIP-39 Mnemonics. However, most software wallets do not (yet) support SLIP-39. So, how do we load the Crypto wallets produced from our Seed into software wallets such as the Metamask plugin or the Brave browser, for example?
The slip39.gui (and the macOS/win32 SLIP-39.App) support output of standard BIP-38 encrypted wallets
for Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies such as BTC, LTC and DOGE. It also outputs encrypted Ethereum
JSON wallets for ETH. Here is how to produce them (from a test secret Seed; exclude --secret
ffff... for yours!):
slip39 -c ETH -c BTC -c DOGE -c LTC --secret ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff \
--no-card --wallet password --wallet-hint 'bad:pass...' 2>&12022-11-06 06:14:14 slip39 It is recommended to not use '-s|--secret <hex>'; specify '-' to read from input 2022-11-06 06:14:14 slip39 It is recommended to not use '-w|--wallet <password>'; specify '-' to read from input 2022-11-06 06:14:14 slip39.layout ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1 2022-11-06 06:14:14 slip39.layout BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 : bc1q9yscq3l2yfxlvnlk3cszpqefparrv7tk24u6pl 2022-11-06 06:14:14 slip39.layout DOGE m/44'/3'/0'/0/0 : DN8PNN3dipSJpLmyxtGe4EJH38EhqF8Sfy 2022-11-06 06:14:14 slip39.layout LTC m/84'/2'/0'/0/0 : ltc1qe5m2mst9kjcqtfpapaanaty40qe8xtusmq4ake 2022-11-06 06:14:17 slip39.layout Writing SLIP39-encoded wallet for 'SLIP39' to: SLIP39-2022-11-06+06.14.15-ETH-0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1.pdf
And what they look like:
To recover your real SLIP-39 Seed Entropy and print wallets, use the SLIP-39 App’s “Recover”
Controls, or to do so on the command-line, use slip39-recover:
slip39-recovery -v \
--mnemonic "material leaf acrobat romp charity capital omit skunk change firm eclipse crush fancy best tracks flip grownup plastic chew peanut" \
--mnemonic "material leaf beard romp disaster duke flame uncover group slice guest blue gums duckling total suitable trust guitar payment platform" \
2>&12022-11-06 06:14:24 slip39.recovery Recovered 128-bit SLIP-39 Seed Entropy with 2 (all) of 2 supplied mnemonics; Seed decoded from SLIP-39 Mnemonics w/ no passphrase 2022-11-06 06:14:24 slip39.recovery Recovered SLIP-39 secret; To re-generate SLIP-39 wallet, send it to: python3 -m slip39 --secret - ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
You can run this as a command-line pipeline. Here, we use some SLIP-39 Mnemonics that encode the ffff... Seed Entropy;
note that the wallets match those output above:
slip39-recovery \
--mnemonic "material leaf acrobat romp charity capital omit skunk change firm eclipse crush fancy best tracks flip grownup plastic chew peanut" \
--mnemonic "material leaf beard romp disaster duke flame uncover group slice guest blue gums duckling total suitable trust guitar payment platform" \
| slip39 -c ETH -c BTC -c DOGE -c LTC --secret - \
--no-card --wallet password --wallet-hint 'bad:pass...' \
2>&12022-11-06 06:14:28 slip39 It is recommended to not use '-w|--wallet <password>'; specify '-' to read from input 2022-11-06 06:14:28 slip39.layout ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1 2022-11-06 06:14:28 slip39.layout BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 : bc1q9yscq3l2yfxlvnlk3cszpqefparrv7tk24u6pl 2022-11-06 06:14:28 slip39.layout DOGE m/44'/3'/0'/0/0 : DN8PNN3dipSJpLmyxtGe4EJH38EhqF8Sfy 2022-11-06 06:14:28 slip39.layout LTC m/84'/2'/0'/0/0 : ltc1qe5m2mst9kjcqtfpapaanaty40qe8xtusmq4ake 2022-11-06 06:14:32 slip39.layout Writing SLIP39-encoded wallet for 'SLIP39' to: SLIP39-2022-11-06+06.14.29-ETH-0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1.pdf
While the SLIP-39 Seed is not cryptocurrency-specific (any wallet for any cryptocurrency can be
derived from it), each type of cryptocurrency has its own standard derivation path
(eg. m/44'/3'/0'/0/0 for DOGE), and its own address representation (eg. Bech32 at
m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 for BTC eg. bc1qcupw7k8enymvvsa7w35j5hq4ergtvus3zk8a8s).
When you import your SLIP-39 Seed into a Trezor, you gain access to all derived HD cryptocurrency wallets supported directly by that hardware wallet, and indirectly, to any coin and/or blockchain network supported by any wallet software (eg. Metamask).
| Crypto | Semantic | Path | Address | Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETH | Legacy | m/44’/60’/0’/0/0 | 0x… | |
| BNB | Legacy | m/44’/60’/0’/0/0 | 0x… | Beta |
| CRO | Bech32 | m/44’/60’/0’/0/0 | crc1… | Beta |
| BTC | Legacy | m/44’/ 0’/0’/0/0 | 1… | |
| SegWit | m/44’/ 0’/0’/0/0 | 3… | ||
| Bech32 | m/84’/ 0’/0’/0/0 | bc1… | ||
| LTC | Legacy | m/44’/ 2’/0’/0/0 | L… | |
| SegWit | m/44’/ 2’/0’/0/0 | M… | ||
| Bech32 | m/84’/ 2’/0’/0/0 | ltc1… | ||
| DOGE | Legacy | m/44’/ 3’/0’/0/0 | D… |
These coins are natively supported both directly by the Trezor hardware wallet, and by most
software wallets and “web3” platforms that interact with the Trezor, or can import the BIP-38
or Ethereum JSON Paper Wallets produced by python-slip39.
The Binance Smart Chain uses standard Ethereum addresses; support for the BSC is added directly
to the wallet software; here are the instructions for adding BSC support for the Trezor
hardware wallet, using the Metamask software wallet. In python-slip39, BNB is simply an alias for
ETH, since the wallet addresses and Ethereum JSON Paper Wallets are identical.
The Cronos chain (formerly known as the Crypto.org chain). It is the native chain of the crypto.com CRO coin.
Cronos also uses Ethereum addresses on the m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 derivation path, but represents
them as Bech32 addresses with a “crc” prefix, eg. crc19a6r74dvfxjyvjzf3pg9y3y5rhk6rds2c9265n.
As with BNB, the wallet must support the Cronos blockchain; instructions exist for adding CRO
support for the Trezor hardware wallet, using the Metamask software wallet.
If you prefer a graphical user-interface, try the macOS/win32 SLIP-39.App. You can run it directly if
you install Python 3.9+ from python.org/downloads or using homebrew brew install
[email protected]. Then, start the GUI in a variety of ways:
slip39-gui python3 -m slip39.gui
Alternatively, download and install the macOS/win32 GUI App .zip, .pkg or .dmg installer from github.com/pjkundert/python-slip-39/releases.
From the command line, you can create SLIP-39 Seed Mnemonic card PDFs.
The full command-line argument synopsis for slip39 is:
slip39 --help 2>&1 | sed 's/^/: /' # (just for output formatting): usage: slip39 [-h] [-v] [-q] [-o OUTPUT] [-t THRESHOLD] [-g GROUP] [-f FORMAT] : [-c CRYPTOCURRENCY] [-p PATH] [-j JSON] [-w WALLET] : [--wallet-hint WALLET_HINT] [--wallet-format WALLET_FORMAT] : [-s SECRET] [--bits BITS] [--using-bip39] : [--passphrase PASSPHRASE] [-C CARD] [--no-card] [--paper PAPER] : [--cover] [--no-cover] [--text] [--watermark WATERMARK] : [names ...] : : Create and output SLIP-39 encoded Seeds and Paper Wallets to a PDF file. : : positional arguments: : names Account names to produce; if --secret Entropy is : supplied, only one is allowed. : : options: : -h, --help show this help message and exit : -v, --verbose Display logging information. : -q, --quiet Reduce logging output. : -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT : Output PDF to file or '-' (stdout); formatting w/ : name, date, time, crypto, path, address allowed : -t THRESHOLD, --threshold THRESHOLD : Number of groups required for recovery (default: half : of groups, rounded up) : -g GROUP, --group GROUP : A group name[[<require>/]<size>] (default: <size> = 1, : <require> = half of <size>, rounded up, eg. : 'Frens(3/5)' ). : -f FORMAT, --format FORMAT : Specify crypto address formats: legacy, segwit, : bech32; default: ETH:legacy, BTC:bech32, LTC:bech32, : DOGE:legacy, CRO:bech32, BNB:legacy, XRP:legacy : -c CRYPTOCURRENCY, --cryptocurrency CRYPTOCURRENCY : A crypto name and optional derivation path (eg. : '../<range>/<range>'); defaults: ETH:m/44'/60'/0'/0/0, : BTC:m/84'/0'/0'/0/0, LTC:m/84'/2'/0'/0/0, : DOGE:m/44'/3'/0'/0/0, CRO:m/44'/60'/0'/0/0, : BNB:m/44'/60'/0'/0/0, XRP:m/44'/144'/0'/0/0 : -p PATH, --path PATH Modify all derivation paths by replacing the final : segment(s) w/ the supplied range(s), eg. '.../1/-' : means .../1/[0,...) : -j JSON, --json JSON Save an encrypted JSON wallet for each Ethereum : address w/ this password, '-' reads it from stdin : (default: None) : -w WALLET, --wallet WALLET : Produce paper wallets in output PDF; each wallet : private key is encrypted this password : --wallet-hint WALLET_HINT : Paper wallets password hint : --wallet-format WALLET_FORMAT : Paper wallet size; half, third, quarter or : '(<h>,<w>),<margin>' (default: quarter) : -s SECRET, --secret SECRET : Use the supplied 128-, 256- or 512-bit hex value as : the secret seed; '-' reads it from stdin (eg. output : from slip39.recover) : --bits BITS Ensure that the seed is of the specified bit length; : 128, 256, 512 supported. : --using-bip39 Generate Seed from secret Entropy using BIP-39 : generation algorithm (encode as BIP-39 Mnemonics, : encrypted using --passphrase) : --passphrase PASSPHRASE : Encrypt the master secret w/ this passphrase, '-' : reads it from stdin (default: None/'') : -C CARD, --card CARD Card size; business, credit, index, half, third, : quarter, photo or '(<h>,<w>),<margin>' (default: : business) : --no-card Disable PDF SLIP-39 mnemonic card output : --paper PAPER Paper size (default: Letter) : --cover Produce PDF SLIP-39 cover page : --no-cover Disable PDF SLIP-39 cover page : --text Enable textual SLIP-39 mnemonic output to stdout : --watermark WATERMARK : Include a watermark on the output SLIP-39 mnemonic : cards
Later, if you need to recover the wallet seed, keep entering SLIP-39 mnemonics into
slip39-recovery until the secret is recovered (invalid/duplicate mnemonics will be ignored):
$ python3 -m slip39.recovery # (or just "slip39-recovery") Enter 1st SLIP-39 mnemonic: ab c Enter 2nd SLIP-39 mnemonic: veteran guilt acrobat romp burden campus purple webcam uncover ... Enter 3rd SLIP-39 mnemonic: veteran guilt acrobat romp burden campus purple webcam uncover ... Enter 4th SLIP-39 mnemonic: veteran guilt beard romp dragon island merit burden aluminum worthy ... 2021-12-25 11:03:33 slip39.recovery Recovered SLIP-39 secret; Use: python3 -m slip39 --secret ... 383597fd63547e7c9525575decd413f7
Finally, re-create the wallet seed, perhaps including an encrypted JSON Paper Wallet for import of
some accounts into a software wallet (use --json password to output encrypted Ethereum JSON
wallet files):
slip39 --secret 383597fd63547e7c9525575decd413f7 --wallet password --wallet-hint bad:pass... 2>&12022-11-06 06:14:45 slip39 It is recommended to not use '-s|--secret <hex>'; specify '-' to read from input 2022-11-06 06:14:45 slip39 It is recommended to not use '-w|--wallet <password>'; specify '-' to read from input 2022-11-06 06:14:45 slip39.layout ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0xb44A2011A99596671d5952CdC22816089f142FB3 2022-11-06 06:14:45 slip39.layout BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 : bc1qcupw7k8enymvvsa7w35j5hq4ergtvus3zk8a8s 2022-11-06 06:14:47 slip39.layout Writing SLIP39-encoded wallet for 'SLIP39' to: SLIP39-2022-11-06+06.14.46-ETH-0xb44A2011A99596671d5952CdC22816089f142FB3.pdf
slip39-recovery --help 2>&1 | sed 's/^/: /' # (just for output formatting): usage: slip39-recovery [-h] [-v] [-q] [-m MNEMONIC] [-e] [-b] [-u] [--binary] : [-p PASSPHRASE] : : Recover and output secret Seed from SLIP-39 or BIP-39 Mnemonics : : options: : -h, --help show this help message and exit : -v, --verbose Display logging information. : -q, --quiet Reduce logging output. : -m MNEMONIC, --mnemonic MNEMONIC : Supply another SLIP-39 (or a BIP-39) mnemonic phrase : -e, --entropy Return the BIP-39 Mnemonic Seed Entropy instead of the : generated Seed (default: False) : -b, --bip39 Recover Entropy and generate 512-bit secret Seed from : BIP-39 Mnemonic + passphrase : -u, --using-bip39 Recover Entropy from SLIP-39, generate 512-bit secret : Seed using BIP-39 Mnemonic + passphrase : --binary Output seed in binary instead of hex : -p PASSPHRASE, --passphrase PASSPHRASE : Decrypt the SLIP-39 or BIP-39 master secret w/ this : passphrase, '-' reads it from stdin (default: None/'') : : If you obtain a threshold number of SLIP-39 mnemonics, you can recover the original : secret Seed Entropy, and then re-generate one or more wallets from it. : : Enter the mnemonics when prompted and/or via the command line with -m |--mnemonic "...". : : The secret Seed Entropy can then be used to generate a new SLIP-39 encoded wallet: : : python3 -m slip39 --secret = "ab04...7f" : : SLIP-39 Mnemonics may be encrypted with a passphrase; this is *not* Ledger-compatible, so it rarely : recommended! Typically, on a Trezor "Model T", you recover using your SLIP-39 Mnemonics, and then : use the "Hidden wallet" feature (passwords entered on the device) to produce alternative sets of : accounts. : : BIP-39 Mnemonics can be backed up as SLIP-39 Mnemonics, in two ways: : : 1) The actual BIP-39 standard 512-bit Seed can be generated by supplying --passphrase, but only at : the cost of 59-word SLIP-39 mnemonics. This is because the *output* 512-bit BIP-39 Seed must be : stored in SLIP-39 -- not the *input* 128-, 160-, 192-, 224-, or 256-bit entropy used to create the : original BIP-39 mnemonic phrase. : : 2) The original BIP-39 12- or 24-word, 128- to 256-bit Seed Entropy can be recovered by supplying : --entropy. This modifies the BIP-39 recovery to return the original BIP-39 Mnemonic Entropy, before : decryption and seed generation. It has no effect for SLIP-39 recovery.
The tools can be used in a pipeline to avoid printing the secret. Here we generate some mnemonics, sorting them in reverse order so we need more than just the first couple to recover. Observe the Ethereum wallet address generated.
Then, we recover the master secret seed in hex with slip39-recovery, and finally send it to
slip39 --secret - to re-generate the same wallet as we originally created.
( python3 -m slip39 --text --no-card \
| ( sort -r ; echo "...later..." 1>&2 ) \
| python3 -m slip39.recovery \
| python3 -m slip39 --secret - --no-card \
) 2>&12022-11-06 06:14:57 slip39.layout ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0xf28DaC854475631D3729f1FA9E7F58DA419EBA1c 2022-11-06 06:14:57 slip39.layout BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 : bc1qhs5a0tnl6y33g3uyk49k0vr8qq2phqrf5ph064 ...later... 2022-11-06 06:14:58 slip39.layout ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0xf28DaC854475631D3729f1FA9E7F58DA419EBA1c 2022-11-06 06:14:58 slip39.layout BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 : bc1qhs5a0tnl6y33g3uyk49k0vr8qq2phqrf5ph064
A primary use case for python-slip39 will be to backup an existing BIP-39 Mnemonic Phrase to
SLIP-39 cards, so here it is:
python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --entropy \
--mnemonic "zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong" \
| python3 -m slip39 --using-bip39 --secret -
For systems that require a stream of groups of wallet Addresses (eg. for preparing invoices for
clients, with a choice of cryptocurrency payment options), slip-generator can produce a stream
of groups of addresses.
slip39-generator --help --version | sed 's/^/: /' # (just for output formatting): usage: slip39-generator [-h] [-v] [-q] [-s SECRET] [-f FORMAT] [--xpub]
: [--no-xpub] [-c CRYPTOCURRENCY] [--path PATH]
: [-d DEVICE] [--baudrate BAUDRATE] [-e ENCRYPT]
: [--decrypt ENCRYPT] [--enumerated] [--no-enumerate]
: [--receive] [--corrupt CORRUPT]
:
: Generate public wallet address(es) from a secret seed
:
: options:
: -h, --help show this help message and exit
: -v, --verbose Display logging information.
: -q, --quiet Reduce logging output.
: -s SECRET, --secret SECRET
: Use the supplied 128-, 256- or 512-bit hex value as
: the secret seed; '-' (default) reads it from stdin
: (eg. output from slip39.recover)
: -f FORMAT, --format FORMAT
: Specify crypto address formats: legacy, segwit,
: bech32; default: ETH:legacy, BTC:bech32, LTC:bech32,
: DOGE:legacy, CRO:bech32, BNB:legacy, XRP:legacy
: --xpub Output xpub... instead of cryptocurrency wallet
: address (and trim non-hardened default path segments)
: --no-xpub Inhibit output of xpub (compatible w/ pre-v10.0.0)
: -c CRYPTOCURRENCY, --cryptocurrency CRYPTOCURRENCY
: A crypto name and optional derivation path (default:
: "ETH:{Account.path_default('ETH')}"), optionally w/
: ranges, eg: ETH:../0/-
: --path PATH Modify all derivation paths by replacing the final
: segment(s) w/ the supplied range(s), eg. '.../1/-'
: means .../1/[0,...)
: -d DEVICE, --device DEVICE
: Use this serial device to transmit (or --receive)
: records
: --baudrate BAUDRATE Set the baud rate of the serial device (default:
: 115200)
: -e ENCRYPT, --encrypt ENCRYPT
: Secure the channel from errors and/or prying eyes with
: ChaCha20Poly1305 encryption w/ this password; '-'
: reads from stdin
: --decrypt ENCRYPT
: --enumerated Include an enumeration in each record output (required
: for --encrypt)
: --no-enumerate Disable enumeration of output records
: --receive Receive a stream of slip.generator output
: --corrupt CORRUPT Corrupt a percentage of output symbols
:
: Once you have a secret seed (eg. from slip39.recovery), you can generate a sequence
: of HD wallet addresses from it. Emits rows in the form:
:
: <enumeration> [<address group(s)>]
:
: If the output is to be transmitted by an insecure channel (eg. a serial port), which may insert
: errors or allow leakage, it is recommended that the records be encrypted with a cryptographic
: function that includes a message authentication code. We use ChaCha20Poly1305 with a password and a
: random nonce generated at program start time. This nonce is incremented for each record output.
:
: Since the receiver requires the nonce to decrypt, and we do not want to separately transmit the
: nonce and supply it to the receiver, the first record emitted when --encrypt is specified is the
: random nonce, encrypted with the password, itself with a known nonce of all 0 bytes. The plaintext
: data is random, while the nonce is not, but since this construction is only used once, it should be
: satisfactory. This first nonce record is transmitted with an enumeration prefix of "nonce".
Addresses can be produced in plaintext or encrypted, and output to stdout or to a serial port.
echo ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff | slip39-generator --secret - --path '../-3' 2>&1
0: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'/0/0", "0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'/0/0", "bc1q9yscq3l2yfxlvnlk3cszpqefparrv7tk24u6pl"]]
1: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'/0/1", "0x8D342083549C635C0494d3c77567860ee7456963"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'/0/1", "bc1qnec684yvuhfrmy3q856gydllsc54p2tx9w955c"]]
2: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'/0/2", "0x52787E24965E1aBd691df77827A3CfA90f0166AA"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'/0/2", "bc1q2snj0zcg23dvjpw7m9lxtu0ap0hfl5tlddq07j"]]
3: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'/0/3", "0xc2442382Ae70c77d6B6840EC6637dB2422E1D44e"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'/0/3", "bc1qxwekjd46aa5n0s3dtsynvtsjwsne7c5f5w5dsd"]]
To produce accounts from a BIP-39 or SLIP-39 seed, recover it using slip39-recovery.
Here’s an example of recovering a test BIP-39 seed; note that it yields the well-known ETH
0xfc20...1B5E and BTC bc1qk0...gnn2 accounts associated with this test Mnemonic:
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --mnemonic 'zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong' \
| python3 -m slip39.generator --secret - --path '../-3' --format 'BTC:segwit' --crypto 'DOGE' ) 2>&1
0: [["DOGE", "m/44'/3'/0'/0/0", "DTMaJd8wqye1fymnjxZ5Cc5QkN1w4pMgXT"], ["BTC", "m/44'/0'/0'/0/0", "3KcPbsc9NYWwoi9ykJ3KPmmh41L2fZezJe"]]
1: [["DOGE", "m/44'/3'/0'/0/1", "DGkL2LD5FfccAaKtx8G7TST5iZwrNkecTY"], ["BTC", "m/44'/0'/0'/0/1", "3GZ22fkDYPY3AhpZE2MbtyxbJJE1ZrWcQS"]]
2: [["DOGE", "m/44'/3'/0'/0/2", "DQa3SpFZH3fFpEFAJHTXZjam4hWiv9muJX"], ["BTC", "m/44'/0'/0'/0/2", "3DCaNJnndHE7Vqv5hgLiiLwDAFCgWDMaK7"]]
3: [["DOGE", "m/44'/3'/0'/0/3", "DTW5tqLwspMY3NpW3RrgMfjWs5gnpXtfwe"], ["BTC", "m/44'/0'/0'/0/3", "3PYjoq3gT8qNQ8g3HVP9sHZdGMT5qAhW4v"]]
We can encrypt the output, to secure the sequence (and due to integrated MACs, ensures no errors occur over an insecure channel like a serial cable):
( slip39-recovery --bip39 --mnemonic 'zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong' \
| slip39-generator --secret - --path '../-3' --encrypt 'password' ) 2>&1 \
| sed -E 's/^(.{100})(.{1,})$/\1.../' # (shorten output)
nonce: 06b795e5223df33f0db920a25a96fca93594343b4f18cc86c196d946
0: c8b4c7181974f6f1e51ce2b305df3a243b849d5784f365e1d69bd9593450324dcc0723502295c14ea43ba9e706047...
1: 2df410189c325bdcf04c951d40d1e8afc3e2bfab15cf1bcf8431b8ffc540838df2b884651eef888fa6baaf9c9f364...
2: 2c6124efecdd9e82bb45c6d4376c2ac9aa79168f0ea357423cf4160689463d3ba5ae4286a2b296fc68c4561f224ca...
3: 542ff6434688bf47a6ad0de8f15c851595b8d06f87d02ee6495da1cab2cea96ae2fdcc770104a6aa367fa77f3e3db...
On the receiving computer, we can decrypt and recover the stream of accounts from the wallet seed; any rows with errors are ignored:
( slip39-recovery --bip39 --mnemonic 'zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong' \
| slip39-generator --secret - --path '../-3' --encrypt 'password' \
| slip39-generator --receive --decrypt 'password' ) 2>&1
0: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'/0/0", "0xfc2077CA7F403cBECA41B1B0F62D91B5EA631B5E"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'/0/0", "bc1qk0a9hr7wjfxeenz9nwenw9flhq0tmsf6vsgnn2"]]
1: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'/0/1", "0xd1a7451beB6FE0326b4B78e3909310880B781d66"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'/0/1", "bc1qkd33yck74lg0kaq4tdcmu3hk4yruhjayxpe9ug"]]
2: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'/0/2", "0x578270B5E5B53336baC354756b763b309eCA90Ef"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'/0/2", "bc1qvr7e5aytd0hpmtaz2d443k364hprvqpm3lxr8w"]]
3: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'/0/3", "0x909f59835A5a120EafE1c60742485b7ff0e305da"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'/0/3", "bc1q6t9vhestkcfgw4nutnm8y2z49n30uhc0kyjl0d"]]
If you prefer, you can output “xpub…” format public keys, instead of account addresses. By default, this will elide the non-hardened portion of the default addresses – use the “xpub…” keys to produce the remaining non-hardened portion of the HD wallet paths locally.
For example, assume you must produce a sequence of accounts for each client client of your company to deposit into. Your highly secure serial-connected “key enclave” system (which must know your HD wallet seed) emits a sequence of xpubkeys for each new client over a serial cable, to your accounting system:
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --mnemonic 'zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong' \
| python3 -m slip39.generator --secret - --xpub --path "../-2'" --encrypt 'password' \
| python3 -m slip39.generator -v --receive --decrypt 'password' ) 2>&1
2022-11-06 06:15:34 slip39.generator Decrypting accountgroups with nonce: 82717b4478eba297d7410809
0: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/0'", "xpub6C2y6te3rtGg9SspDDFbjGEgn7yxc5ZzzkBk62yz3GRKvuqdaMDS7NUbesTJ44FprxAE7hvm5ZQjDMbYWehdJQsyBCP3mL87nnB4cB47HGS"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'", "zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMSnpmczjENMT3NvVF7q5MySww6uxitUsBYgkZLeBywrcwUWhW5YkeY2aS7xc45APPgfA6s6wWfG2gnfABq6TDz9zqeMu2JCY"]]
1: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/1'", "xpub6C2y6te3rtGgCPb4Gi89Qin7Da2dvnnHSuR9rLQV6bWQKiyfKyjtVzr2n9mKmTEHzr4rzK78LmdSXLSzvpZqVs4ussUU8NyXpt9nWWbKG3C"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/1'", "zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMUaSe3aGDqWk4uMTwcrFwytkKuDGmi3ofUkJ4dQxXHZwiXWbHHrELJAor8xGs61F8sbKS2JdQkLZRnu5PGktmr6F32nEBUBb"]]
2: [["ETH", "m/44'/60'/2'", "xpub6C2y6te3rtGgENnaK62SyPawqKvbde17wc2ndMGFWi2yAkk3piwEY9QK8egtE9ye9uoqiqs5WV3MTNCCP2qjUNDb8cmSg4ZsVnwQnkziXVh"], ["BTC", "m/84'/0'/2'", "zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMYx2sQPuZgceniniRXDK5tELiREjxfSGJENNxuQD3u2yfpRqnNE1JeH14Pa7MVGrofDJtyXw252ws9HgRcd82X2M4KzkUfpZ"]]
As required (throttled by hardward the serial cable RTS/CTS signals) your accounting system receives these “xpub…” addresses:
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --mnemonic 'zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong' \
| python3 -m slip39.generator --secret - --xpub --path "../-2'" --encrypt 'password' \
| python3 -m slip39.generator -v --receive --decrypt 'password' \
| while IFS=':' read num json; do \
echo "--- $(( num ))"; \
echo "$json" | jq -c '.[]'; \
done \
) 2>&1
2022-11-06 06:15:38 slip39.generator Decrypting accountgroups with nonce: 449e69c4ffb096455e4a5ed8 --- 0 ["ETH","m/44'/60'/0'","xpub6C2y6te3rtGg9SspDDFbjGEgn7yxc5ZzzkBk62yz3GRKvuqdaMDS7NUbesTJ44FprxAE7hvm5ZQjDMbYWehdJQsyBCP3mL87nnB4cB47HGS"] ["BTC","m/84'/0'/0'","zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMSnpmczjENMT3NvVF7q5MySww6uxitUsBYgkZLeBywrcwUWhW5YkeY2aS7xc45APPgfA6s6wWfG2gnfABq6TDz9zqeMu2JCY"] --- 1 ["ETH","m/44'/60'/1'","xpub6C2y6te3rtGgCPb4Gi89Qin7Da2dvnnHSuR9rLQV6bWQKiyfKyjtVzr2n9mKmTEHzr4rzK78LmdSXLSzvpZqVs4ussUU8NyXpt9nWWbKG3C"] ["BTC","m/84'/0'/1'","zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMUaSe3aGDqWk4uMTwcrFwytkKuDGmi3ofUkJ4dQxXHZwiXWbHHrELJAor8xGs61F8sbKS2JdQkLZRnu5PGktmr6F32nEBUBb"] --- 2 ["ETH","m/44'/60'/2'","xpub6C2y6te3rtGgENnaK62SyPawqKvbde17wc2ndMGFWi2yAkk3piwEY9QK8egtE9ye9uoqiqs5WV3MTNCCP2qjUNDb8cmSg4ZsVnwQnkziXVh"] ["BTC","m/84'/0'/2'","zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMYx2sQPuZgceniniRXDK5tELiREjxfSGJENNxuQD3u2yfpRqnNE1JeH14Pa7MVGrofDJtyXw252ws9HgRcd82X2M4KzkUfpZ"]
Then, it generates each client’s sequence of addresses locally: you are creating HD wallet accounts from each “xpub…” key, and adding the remaining non-hardened HD wallet path segments:
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --mnemonic 'zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong' \
| python3 -m slip39.generator --secret - --xpub --path "../-2'" --encrypt 'password' \
| python3 -m slip39.generator -v --receive --decrypt 'password' \
| while IFS=':' read num json; do \
echo "--- $(( num ))"; \
echo "$json" | jq -cr '.[]|"--crypto " + .[0] + " --secret " + .[2]' | while read command; do \
python3 -m slip39.cli -v --no-json addresses $command --paths m/0/-2; \
done; \
done \
) 2>&1
2022-11-06 06:16:02 slip39.generator Decrypting accountgroups with nonce: 5d4ba8f8a6849c526524ad9c --- 0 ETH m/0/0 0xfc2077CA7F403cBECA41B1B0F62D91B5EA631B5E ETH m/0/1 0xd1a7451beB6FE0326b4B78e3909310880B781d66 ETH m/0/2 0x578270B5E5B53336baC354756b763b309eCA90Ef BTC m/0/0 bc1qk0a9hr7wjfxeenz9nwenw9flhq0tmsf6vsgnn2 BTC m/0/1 bc1qkd33yck74lg0kaq4tdcmu3hk4yruhjayxpe9ug BTC m/0/2 bc1qvr7e5aytd0hpmtaz2d443k364hprvqpm3lxr8w --- 1 ETH m/0/0 0x9176A747BA67C1d7F80AaDC930180b4183AfB5c4 ETH m/0/1 0xa1409B655aC3e09eF261de00BAa4e85bD2820AA4 ETH m/0/2 0xae22C13Ef5891Ed835C24Ed5090542DFa748c21F BTC m/0/0 bc1q8pqnqs573vx3qdp0xp6qdqzvnvy8px24rxh9lp BTC m/0/1 bc1qwtc58u4mmnxa29u8j07e6lmqpnrs38vefy3y24 BTC m/0/2 bc1qg9s8qzm0lcetfv6umhlm3evtca5zsqv7elqd5s --- 2 ETH m/0/0 0x32A8b066c5dbD37147766491A32A612d313fda25 ETH m/0/1 0xff8b88b975f9C296531C1E93d5e4f28757b4571A ETH m/0/2 0xc95Bdf50CA542E1B689f5C06e2D8bAd0625Dfa23 BTC m/0/0 bc1q09zpchmkcnny90ghkg76gd69dvaf57qwcsrhes BTC m/0/1 bc1qjytdyw6zramwt4nvvpte93hfry2d4xhhqn0xg4 BTC m/0/2 bc1qcummre0pxv5xj4gvyut0t84vfwjd6eu7r387v4
You’ll notice that, after this elaborate exercise of generating xpubkeys, encrypted transmission and recovery, generating accounts from the xpubkeys, and producing multiples addresses using the remainder of the original HD wallet paths: the output addresses are identical to those generated directly from the BIP-39 Mnemonic Phrase:
secret=$( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --mnemonic 'zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong' );
for crypto in BTC ETH; do
python3 -m slip39.cli -v --no-json addresses --secret $secret --crypto $crypto --paths "../-2"
done
BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 bc1qk0a9hr7wjfxeenz9nwenw9flhq0tmsf6vsgnn2 BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/1 bc1qkd33yck74lg0kaq4tdcmu3hk4yruhjayxpe9ug BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/2 bc1qvr7e5aytd0hpmtaz2d443k364hprvqpm3lxr8w ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 0xfc2077CA7F403cBECA41B1B0F62D91B5EA631B5E ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/1 0xd1a7451beB6FE0326b4B78e3909310880B781d66 ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/2 0x578270B5E5B53336baC354756b763b309eCA90Ef
What if you or your company wants to accept Crypto payments, and needs to generate a sequence of wallets unique to each client? You can use an xpubkey and then generate a sequence of unique addresses from that, which doesn’t disclose any of your private key material:
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --mnemonic 'zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong' \
| python3 -m slip39.generator --secret - --xpub --path "../-2'" --crypto BTC
) 2>&1 0: [["BTC", "m/84'/0'/0'", "zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMSnpmczjENMT3NvVF7q5MySww6uxitUsBYgkZLeBywrcwUWhW5YkeY2aS7xc45APPgfA6s6wWfG2gnfABq6TDz9zqeMu2JCY"]]
1: [["BTC", "m/84'/0'/1'", "zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMUaSe3aGDqWk4uMTwcrFwytkKuDGmi3ofUkJ4dQxXHZwiXWbHHrELJAor8xGs61F8sbKS2JdQkLZRnu5PGktmr6F32nEBUBb"]]
2: [["BTC", "m/84'/0'/2'", "zpub6rD5AGSXPTDMYx2sQPuZgceniniRXDK5tELiREjxfSGJENNxuQD3u2yfpRqnNE1JeH14Pa7MVGrofDJtyXw252ws9HgRcd82X2M4KzkUfpZ"]]
Since you have to generate such an xpubkey from a “hardened” path, such as with slip39.generate
--xpub ..., you still need to run that tool chain on some secure “air gapped” computer. So,
how do you do that safely, knowing that you need to input your SLIP-39 or BIP-39 Mnemonics on
that computer? Especially, if you want to do this under any kind of automation, and deliver the
output xpubkey to your insecure business computer systems?
One solution is to have the computer hosting your Seed or Mnemonic private key material only connected to your business computer systems with a guaranteed safe mechanism. Definitely not with any kind of general purpose network system!
The solution: The RS-232 Serial Port
With USB to DB-9 female to DB-9 male serial adapters, any small computer with USB ports (such as the Raspberry Pi 400) can be connected serially and serve as your “secure” computer, storing your Seed Mnemonic.
Remember to disable all other wired and wireless networking!
The RS-232 port on the “secure” computer can be protected from all incoming data transmissions, make an exploit effectively impossible, while still allowing outgoing data (the generated xpubkeys).
A DB-9 serial breakout board or custom serial adapter be easily constructed that disconnects pin 3 (TXD) on the “business” side from pin 2 (RXD) on the “secure” side, eliminating any chance of data being sent to the “secure” side. The only electronic connection that transmits data to the “secure” side is the hardware flow control pin 7 (RTS) to pin 8 (CTS). An exploit using this single-bit approach vector is … unlikely. :)
Provide SLIP-39 Mnemonic set creation from a 128-bit master secret, and recovery of the secret from a subset of the provided Mnemonic set.
Creates a set of SLIP-39 groups and their mnemonics.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| name | Who/what the account is for |
| group_threshold | How many groups’ data is required to recover the account(s) |
| groups | Each group’s description, as {“<group>”:(<required>, <members>), …} |
| master_secret | 128-bit secret (default: from secrets.token_bytes) |
| passphrase | An optional additional passphrase required to recover secret (default: “”) |
| using_bip39 | Produce wallet Seed from master_secret Entropy using BIP-39 generation |
| iteration_exponent | For encrypted secret, exponentially increase PBKDF2 rounds (default: 1) |
| cryptopaths | A number of crypto names, and their derivation paths ] |
| strength | Desired master_secret strength, in bits (default: 128) |
Outputs a slip39.Details namedtuple containing:
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| name | (same) |
| group_threshold | (same) |
| groups | Like groups, w/ <members> = [“<mnemonics>”, …] |
| accounts | Resultant list of groups of accounts |
| using_bip39 | Seed produced from entropy using BIP-39 generation |
This is immediately usable to pass to slip39.output.
import codecs
import random
from tabulate import tabulate
#
# NOTE:
#
# We turn off randomness here during SLIP-39 generation to get deterministic phrases;
# during normal operation, secure entropy is used during mnemonic generation, yielding
# random phrases, even when the same seed is used multiple times.
#
import shamir_mnemonic
shamir_mnemonic.shamir.RANDOM_BYTES = lambda n: b'\00' * n
import slip39
cryptopaths = [("ETH","m/44'/60'/0'/0/-2"), ("BTC","m/44'/0'/0'/0/-2")]
master_secret = b'\xFF' * 16
passphrase = b""
create_details = slip39.create(
"Test", 2, { "Mine": (1,1), "Fam": (2,3) },
master_secret=master_secret, passphrase=passphrase, cryptopaths=cryptopaths )
print( tabulate( [
[
f"{g_name}({g_of}/{len(g_mnems)}) #{g_n+1}:" if l_n == 0 else ""
] + words
for g_name,(g_of,g_mnems) in create_details.groups.items()
for g_n,mnem in enumerate( g_mnems )
for l_n,(line,words) in enumerate(slip39.organize_mnemonic(
mnem, label=f"{g_name}({g_of}/{len(g_mnems)}) #{g_n+1}:" ))
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| Mine(1/1) #1: | 1 academic | 8 safari | 15 standard |
| 2 acid | 9 drug | 16 angry | |
| 3 acrobat | 10 browser | 17 similar | |
| 4 easy | 11 trash | 18 aspect | |
| 5 change | 12 fridge | 19 smug | |
| 6 injury | 13 busy | 20 violence | |
| 7 painting | 14 finger | ||
| Fam(2/3) #1: | 1 academic | 8 prevent | 15 dwarf |
| 2 acid | 9 mouse | 16 dream | |
| 3 beard | 10 daughter | 17 flavor | |
| 4 echo | 11 ancient | 18 oral | |
| 5 crystal | 12 fortune | 19 chest | |
| 6 machine | 13 ruin | 20 marathon | |
| 7 bolt | 14 warmth | ||
| Fam(2/3) #2: | 1 academic | 8 prune | 15 briefing |
| 2 acid | 9 pickup | 16 often | |
| 3 beard | 10 device | 17 escape | |
| 4 email | 11 device | 18 sprinkle | |
| 5 dive | 12 peanut | 19 segment | |
| 6 warn | 13 enemy | 20 devote | |
| 7 ranked | 14 graduate | ||
| Fam(2/3) #3: | 1 academic | 8 dining | 15 intimate |
| 2 acid | 9 invasion | 16 satoshi | |
| 3 beard | 10 bumpy | 17 hobo | |
| 4 entrance | 11 identify | 18 ounce | |
| 5 alarm | 12 anxiety | 19 both | |
| 6 health | 13 august | 20 award | |
| 7 discuss | 14 sunlight |
Add the resultant HD Wallet addresses:
print( tabulate( [
[ account.path, account.address ]
for group in create_details.accounts
for account in group
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| m/44’/60’/0’/0/0 | 0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1 |
| m/44’/0’/0’/0/0 | bc1qm5ua96hx30snwrwsfnv97q96h53l86ded7wmjl |
| m/44’/60’/0’/0/1 | 0x8D342083549C635C0494d3c77567860ee7456963 |
| m/44’/0’/0’/0/1 | bc1qwz6v9z49z8mk5ughj7r78hjsp45jsxgzh29lnh |
| m/44’/60’/0’/0/2 | 0x52787E24965E1aBd691df77827A3CfA90f0166AA |
| m/44’/0’/0’/0/2 | bc1q690m430qu29auyefarwfrvfumncunvyw6v53n9 |
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| name | (same as slip39.create) |
| group_threshold | (same as slip39.create) |
| groups | Like groups, w/ <members> = [“<mnemonics>”, …] |
| accounts | Resultant { “path”: Account, …} |
| using_bip39 | Generate Seed from Entropy via BIP-39 generation algorithm |
| card_format | ‘index’, ‘(<h>,<w>),<margin>’, … |
| paper_format | ‘Letter’, … |
| orientation | Force an orientation (default: portrait, landscape) |
| cover_text | Produce a cover page w/ the text (and BIP-39 Phrase if using_bip39) |
Layout and produce a PDF containing all the SLIP-39 details on cards for the crypto accounts, on the paper_format provided. Returns the paper (orientation,format) used, the FPDF, and passes through the supplied cryptocurrency accounts derived.
(paper_format,orientation),pdf,accounts = slip39.produce_pdf( *create_details )
pdf_binary = pdf.output()
print( tabulate( [
[ "Orientation:", orientation ],
[ "Paper:", paper_format ],
[ "PDF Pages:", pdf.pages_count ],
[ "PDF Size:", len( pdf_binary )],
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
Font named family=’sourcecode’ + features={(‘bold’,)} loading: /Users/perry/src/python-slip39/slip39/layout/font/SourceCodePro-Bold.ttf (as ‘sourcecodeB’)
| Orientation: | landscape |
| Paper: | Letter |
| PDF Pages: | 1 |
| PDF Size: | 19063 |
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| names | A sequence of Seed names, or a dict of { name: <details> } (from slip39.create) |
| master_secret | A Seed secret (only appropriate if exactly one name supplied) |
| passphrase | A SLIP-39 passphrase (not Trezor compatible; use “hidden wallet” phrase on device instead) |
| using_bip39 | Generate Seed from Entropy via BIP-39 generation algorithm |
| group | A dict of {“<group>”:(<required>, <members>), …} |
| group_threshold | How many groups are required to recover the Seed |
| cryptocurrency | A sequence of [ “<crypto>”, “<crypto>:<derivation>”, … ] w/ optional ranges |
| edit | Derivation range(s) for each cryptocurrency, eg. “../0-4/-9” is 9 accounts first 5 change addresses |
| card_format | Card size (eg. “credit”); False specifies no SLIP-39 cards (ie. only BIP-39 or JSON paper wallets) |
| paper_format | Paper size (eg. “letter”) |
| filename | A filename; may contain “…{name}…” formatting, for name, date, time, crypto path and address |
| filepath | A file path, if PDF output to file is desired; empty implies current dir. |
| printer | A printer name (or True for default), if output to printer is desired |
| json_pwd | If password supplied, encrypted Ethereum JSON wallet files will be saved, and produced into PDF |
| text | If True, outputs SLIP-39 phrases to stdout |
| wallet_pwd | If password supplied, produces encrypted BIP-38 or JSON Paper Wallets to PDF (preferred vs. json_pwd) |
| wallet_pwd_hint | An optional passphrase hint, printed on paper wallet |
| wallet_format | Paper wallet size, (eg. “third”); the default is 1/3 letter size |
| wallet_paper | Other paper format (default: Letter) |
| cover_page | A bool indicating whether to produce a cover page (default: True) |
For each of the names provided, produces a separate PDF containing all the SLIP-39 details and optionally encrypted BIP-38 paper wallets and Ethereum JSON wallets for the specified cryptocurrency accounts derived from the seed, and writes the PDF and JSON wallets to the specified file name(s).
slip39.write_pdfs( ... )
Takes a number of SLIP-39 mnemonics, and if sufficient group_threshold groups’ mnemonics are
present (and the options passphrase is supplied), the master_secret is recovered. This can
be used with slip39.accounts to directly obtain any Account data.
Note that the SLIP-39 passphrase is not checked; entering a different passphrase for the same set of mnemonics will recover a different wallet! This is by design; it allows the holder of the SLIP-39 mnemonic phrases to recover a “decoy” wallet by supplying a specific passphrase, while protecting the “primary” wallet.
Therefore, it is essential to remember any non-default (non-empty) passphrase used, separately and securely. Take great care in deciding if you wish to use a passphrase with your SLIP-39 wallet!
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| mnemonics | [“<mnemonics>”, …] |
| passphrase | Optional passphrase to decrypt secret Seed Entropy |
| using_bip39 | Use BIP-39 Seed generation from recover Entropy |
# Recover with the wrong password (on purpose, as a decoy wallet w/ a small amount)
recoverydecoy = slip39.recover(
create_details.groups['Mine'][1][:] + create_details.groups['Fam'][1][:2],
passphrase=b"wrong!"
)
recoverydecoy_hex = codecs.encode( recoverydecoy, 'hex_codec' ).decode( 'ascii' )
# But, recovering w/ correct passphrase yields our original Seed Entropy
recoveryvalid = slip39.recover(
create_details.groups['Mine'][1][:] + create_details.groups['Fam'][1][:2],
passphrase=passphrase
)
recoveryvalid_hex = codecs.encode( recoveryvalid, 'hex_codec' ).decode( 'ascii' )
print( tabulate( [
[ f"{len(recoverydecoy)*8}-bit secret (decoy):", f"{recoverydecoy_hex}" ],
[ f"{len(recoveryvalid)*8}-bit secret recovered:", f"{recoveryvalid_hex}" ]
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| 128-bit secret (decoy): | 2e522cea2b566840495c220cf79c756e |
| 128-bit secret recovered: | ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff |
Generate the 512-bit Seed from a BIP-39 Mnemonic + passphrase. Or, return the original 128- to
256-bit Seed Entropy, if as_entropy is specified.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| mnemonic | “<mnemonic>” |
| passphrase | Optional passphrase to decrypt secret Seed Entropy |
| as_entropy | Return the BIP-39 Seed Entropy, not the generated Seed |
Produce a BIP-39 Mnemonic from the supplied 128- to 256-bit Seed Entropy.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| entropy | The bytes of Seed Entropy |
| strength | Or, the number of bits of Entropy to produce (Default: 128) |
| language | Default is “english” |
If we already have a BIP-39 wallet, it would certainly be nice to be able to create nice, safe SLIP-39 mnemonics for it, and discard the unsafe BIP-39 mnemonics we have lying around, just waiting to be accidentally discovered and the account compromised!
Fortunately, we can do this! It takes a bit of practice to become comfortable with the process, but once you do – you can confidently discard your original insecure and unreliable BIP-39 Mnemonic backups.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to cleanly convert a BIP-39 generated wallet Seed into a SLIP-39 wallet. Both BIP-39 and SLIP-39 preserve the original 128- to 256-bit Seed Entropy (random) bits, but these bits are used very differently – and incompatibly – to generate the resultant wallet Seed.
In native SLIP-39, the original, recovered Seed Entropy (128- or 256-bits) is used directly by the BIP-44 wallet derivation. In BIP-39, the Seed entropy is not directly used at all! It is only indirectly used; the BIP-39 Seed Phrase (which contains the exact, original entropy) is used, as normalized text, as input to a hashing function, along with some other fixed text, to produce a 512-bit Seed, which is then fed into the BIP-44 wallet derivation process.
The least desirable method is to preserve the 512-bit output of the BIP-39 mnemonic phrase as a set of 512-bit (59-word) SLIP-39 Mnemonics. But first, lets review how BIP-39 works.
BIP-39 uses a single set of 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24 BIP-39 words to carefully preserve a specific
128 to 256 bits of initial Seed Entropy. Here’s a 128-bit (12-word) example using some fixed
“entropy” 0xFFFF..FFFF. You’ll note that, from the BIP-39 Mnemonic, we can either recover the
original 128-bit Seed Entropy, or we can generate the resultant 512-bit Seed w/ the correct
passphrase:
from mnemonic import Mnemonic
bip39_english = Mnemonic("english")
entropy = b'\xFF' * 16
entropy_hex = codecs.encode( entropy, 'hex_codec' ).decode( 'ascii' )
entropy_mnemonic = bip39_english.to_mnemonic( entropy )
recovered = slip39.recover_bip39( entropy_mnemonic, as_entropy=True )
recovered_hex = codecs.encode( recovered, 'hex_codec' ).decode( 'ascii' )
recovered_seed = slip39.recover_bip39( entropy_mnemonic, passphrase=passphrase )
recovered_seed_hex = codecs.encode( recovered_seed, 'hex_codec' ).decode( 'ascii' )
print( tabulate( [
[ "Original Entropy", entropy_hex ],
[ "BIP-39 Mnemonic", entropy_mnemonic ],
[ "Recovered Entropy", recovered_hex ],
[ "Recovered Seed", f"{recovered_seed_hex:.50}..." ],
], tablefmt='orgtbl'))
| Original Entropy | ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff |
| BIP-39 Mnemonic | zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong |
| Recovered Entropy | ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff |
| Recovered Seed | b6a6d8921942dd9806607ebc2750416b289adea669198769f2… |
Each word is one of a corpus of 2048 words; therefore, each word encodes 11 bits (2048 = 2**11) of entropy. So, we provided 128 bits, but 12*11 = 132. So where does the extra 4 bits of data come from?
It comes from the first few bits of a SHA256 hash of the entropy, which is added to the end of the supplied 128 bits, to reach the required 132 bits: 132 / 11 = 12 words.
This last 4 bits (up to 8 bits, for a 256-bit 24-word BIP-39) is checked, when validating the BIP-39 mnemonic. Therefore, making up a random BIP-39 mnemonic will succeed only 1 / 16 times on average, due to an incorrect checksum 4-bit (16 = 2**4) . Lets check:
def random_words( n, count=100 ):
for _ in range( count ):
yield ' '.join( random.choice( bip39_english.wordlist ) for _ in range( n ))
successes = sum(
bip39_english.check( m )
for i,m in enumerate( random_words( 12, 10000 ))) / 100
print( tabulate( [
[ "Valid random 12-word mnemonics:", f"{successes}%" ],
[ "Or, about: ", f"1 / {100/successes:.3}" ],
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| Valid random 12-word mnemonics: | 5.71% |
| Or, about: | 1 / 17.5 |
Sure enough, about 1/16 random 12-word phrases are valid BIP-39 mnemonics. OK, we’ve got the contents of the BIP-39 phrase dialed in. How is it used to generate accounts?
Unfortunately, BIP-39 does not use the carefully preserved 128-bit entropy to generate the wallet! Nope, it is stretched to a 512-bit seed using PBKDF2 HMAC SHA512. The normalized text (not the Entropy bytes) of the 12-word mnemonic is then used (with a salt of “mnemonic” plus an optional passphrase, “” by default), to obtain the 512-bit seed:
seed = bip39_english.to_seed( entropy_mnemonic )
seed_hex = codecs.encode( seed, 'hex_codec' ).decode( 'ascii' )
print( tabulate( [
[ f"{len(seed)*8}-bit seed:", f"{seed_hex:.50}..." ]
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| 512-bit seed: | b6a6d8921942dd9806607ebc2750416b289adea669198769f2… |
Finally, this 512-bit seed is used to derive HD wallet(s). The HD Wallet key derivation process consumes whatever seed entropy is provided (512 bits in the case of BIP-39), and uses HMAC SHA512 with a prefix of b”Bitcoin seed” to stretch the supplied seed entropy to 64 bytes (512 bits). Then, the HD Wallet path segments are iterated through, permuting the first 32 bytes of this material as the key with the second 32 bytes of material as the chain node, until finally the 32-byte (256-bit) Ethereum account private key is produced. We then use this private key to compute the rest of the Ethereum account details, such as its public address.
path = "m/44'/60'/0'/0/0"
bip39_eth_hd = slip39.account( seed, 'ETH', path )
print( tabulate( [
[ f"{len(bip39_eth_hd.key)*4}-bit derived key path:", f"{path}" ],
[ "Produces private key: ", f"{bip39_eth_hd.key}" ],
[ "Yields Ethereum address:", f"{bip39_eth_hd.address}" ],
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| 256-bit derived key path: | m/44’/60’/0’/0/0 |
| Produces private key: | 7af65ba4dd53f23495dcb04995e96f47c243217fc279f10795871b725cd009ae |
| Yields Ethereum address: | 0xfc2077CA7F403cBECA41B1B0F62D91B5EA631B5E |
Thus, we see that while the 12-word BIP-39 mnemonic careful preserves the original 128-bit entropy, this data is not directly used to derive the wallet private key and address. Also, since an irreversible hash is used to derive the Seed from the Mnemonic, we can’t reverse the process on the seed to arrive back at the BIP-39 mnemonic phrase.
Just like BIP-39 carefully preserves the original 128-bit Seed Entropy bytes in a single 12-word mnemonic phrase, SLIP-39 preserves the original 128- or 256-bit Seed Entropy in a set of 20- or 33-word Mnemonic phrases.
name,thrs,grps,acct,ub39 = slip39.create(
"Test", 2, { "Mine": (1,1), "Fam": (2,3) }, entropy )
print( tabulate( [
[ f"{g_name}({g_of}/{len(g_mnems)}) #{g_n+1}:" if l_n == 0 else "" ] + words
for g_name,(g_of,g_mnems) in grps.items()
for g_n,mnem in enumerate( g_mnems )
for l_n,(line,words) in enumerate(slip39.organize_mnemonic(
mnem, rows=7, cols=3, label=f"{g_name}({g_of}/{len(g_mnems)}) #{g_n+1}:" ))
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| Mine(1/1) #1: | 1 academic | 8 safari | 15 standard |
| 2 acid | 9 drug | 16 angry | |
| 3 acrobat | 10 browser | 17 similar | |
| 4 easy | 11 trash | 18 aspect | |
| 5 change | 12 fridge | 19 smug | |
| 6 injury | 13 busy | 20 violence | |
| 7 painting | 14 finger | ||
| Fam(2/3) #1: | 1 academic | 8 prevent | 15 dwarf |
| 2 acid | 9 mouse | 16 dream | |
| 3 beard | 10 daughter | 17 flavor | |
| 4 echo | 11 ancient | 18 oral | |
| 5 crystal | 12 fortune | 19 chest | |
| 6 machine | 13 ruin | 20 marathon | |
| 7 bolt | 14 warmth | ||
| Fam(2/3) #2: | 1 academic | 8 prune | 15 briefing |
| 2 acid | 9 pickup | 16 often | |
| 3 beard | 10 device | 17 escape | |
| 4 email | 11 device | 18 sprinkle | |
| 5 dive | 12 peanut | 19 segment | |
| 6 warn | 13 enemy | 20 devote | |
| 7 ranked | 14 graduate | ||
| Fam(2/3) #3: | 1 academic | 8 dining | 15 intimate |
| 2 acid | 9 invasion | 16 satoshi | |
| 3 beard | 10 bumpy | 17 hobo | |
| 4 entrance | 11 identify | 18 ounce | |
| 5 alarm | 12 anxiety | 19 both | |
| 6 health | 13 august | 20 award | |
| 7 discuss | 14 sunlight |
Since there is some randomness used in the SLIP-39 mnemonics generation process, we would get a
different set of words each time for the fixed “entropy” 0xFFFF..FF used in this example (if
we hadn’t manually disabled entropy for shamir_mnemonic, above), but we will always derive
the same Ethereum account 0x824b..19a1 at the specified HD Wallet derivation path.
print( tabulate( [
[ account.crypto, account.path, account.address ]
for group in create_details.accounts
for account in group
], tablefmt='orgtbl', headers=[ "Crypto", "HD Wallet Path:", "Ethereum Address:" ] ))
| Crypto | HD Wallet Path: | Ethereum Address: |
|---|---|---|
| ETH | m/44’/60’/0’/0/0 | 0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1 |
| BTC | m/44’/0’/0’/0/0 | bc1qm5ua96hx30snwrwsfnv97q96h53l86ded7wmjl |
| ETH | m/44’/60’/0’/0/1 | 0x8D342083549C635C0494d3c77567860ee7456963 |
| BTC | m/44’/0’/0’/0/1 | bc1qwz6v9z49z8mk5ughj7r78hjsp45jsxgzh29lnh |
| ETH | m/44’/60’/0’/0/2 | 0x52787E24965E1aBd691df77827A3CfA90f0166AA |
| BTC | m/44’/0’/0’/0/2 | bc1q690m430qu29auyefarwfrvfumncunvyw6v53n9 |
Lets prove that we can actually recover the original Seed Entropy from the SLIP-39 recovery Mnemonics; in this case, we’ve specified a SLIP-39 group_threshold of 2 groups, so we’ll use 1 Mnemonic from Mine, and 2 from the Fam group:
_,mnem_mine = grps['Mine']
_,mnem_fam = grps['Fam']
recseed = slip39.recover( mnem_mine + mnem_fam[:2] )
recseed_hex = codecs.encode( recseed, 'hex_codec' ).decode( 'ascii' )
print( tabulate( [
[ f"{len(recseed)*8}-bit Seed:", f"{recseed_hex}" ]
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| 128-bit Seed: | ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff |
And we’ll use the same style of code as for the BIP-39 example above, to derive the Ethereum address directly from this recovered 128-bit seed:
slip39_eth_hd = slip39.account( recseed, 'ETH', path )
print( tabulate( [
[ f"{len(slip39_eth_hd.key)*4}-bit derived key path:", f"{path}" ],
[ "Produces private key: ", f"{slip39_eth_hd.key}" ],
[ "Yields Ethereum address:", f"{slip39_eth_hd.address}" ],
], tablefmt='orgtbl' ))
| 256-bit derived key path: | m/44’/60’/0’/0/0 |
| Produces private key: | 6a2ec39aab88ec0937b79c8af6aaf2fd3c909e9a56c3ddd32ab5354a06a21a2b |
| Yields Ethereum address: | 0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1 |
And we see that we obtain the same Ethereum address 0x824b..1a2b as we originally got from
slip39.create above. However, this is not the same Ethereum wallet address obtained from
BIP-39 with exactly the same 0xFFFF...FF Seed Entropy, which was 0xfc20..1B5E!
This is due to the fact that BIP-39 does not use the recovered Seed Entropy to produce the seed like SLIP-39 does, but applies additional one-way hashing of the Mnemonic to produce a 512-bit Seed.
At no time in BIP-39 account derivation is the original 128-bit Seed Entropy used (directly) in the derivation of the wallet key. This differs from SLIP-39, which directly uses the 128-bit Seed Entropy recovered from the SLIP-39 Shamir’s Secret Sharing System recovery process to generate each HD Wallet account’s private key.
Furthermore, there is no point in the BIP-39 Seed Entropy to account generation where we could introduce a known 128-bit seed and produce a known Ethereum wallet from it, other than at the very beginning.
Therefore, our BIP-39 Backup via SLIP-39 strategy must focus on backing up the original 128- to 256-bit Seed Entropy, not the output Seed data!
Here are the two available methods for backing up insecure and unreliable BIP-39 Mnemonic phrases, using SLIP-39.
The first “Emergency Recovery” method allows you to recover your BIP-39 generated wallets without the passphrase, but does not support recovery using hardware wallets; you must output “Paper Wallets” and use them to recover the Cryptocurrency funds.
The second “Best Recovery: Using Recovered BIP-39 Mnemonic Phrase” allows us to recover the accounts to any standard BIP-39 hardware wallet! However, the SLIP-39 Mnemonics are not compatible with standard SLIP-39 wallets like the Trezor “Model T” – you have to use the recovered BIP-39 Mnemonic phrase to recover the hardware wallet.
There is one approach which can preserve an original BIP-39 generated wallet addresses, using SLIP-39 mnemonics.
It is clumsy, as it preserves the BIP-39 output 512-bit stretched seed, and the resultant 59-word SLIP-39 mnemonics cannot be used (at present) with the Trezor hardware wallet. They can, however, be used to recover the HD wallet private keys without access to the original BIP-39 Mnemonic phrase or passphrase – you could generate and distribute a set of more secure SLIP-39 Mnemonic phrases, instead of trying to secure the original BIP-39 mnemonic + passphrase – without abandoning your existing BIP-39 wallets.
We’ll use slip39.recovery --bip39 ... to recover the 512-bit stretched seed from BIP-39:
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 -v \
--mnemonic "zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong"
) 2>&12022-11-06 06:18:22 slip39.recovery Recovered 512-bit BIP-39 secret from english mnemonic 2022-11-06 06:18:22 slip39.recovery Recovered BIP-39 secret; To re-generate SLIP-39 wallet, send it to: python3 -m slip39 --secret - b6a6d8921942dd9806607ebc2750416b289adea669198769f2e15ed926c3aa92bf88ece232317b4ea463e84b0fcd3b53577812ee449ccc448eb45e6f544e25b6
Then we can generate a 59-word SLIP-39 mnemonic set from the 512-bit secret:
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 \
--mnemonic "zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong" \
| python3 -m slip39 --secret - --no-card -v
) 2>&1 | tail -202022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 7 patent 19 glasses 31 aunt 43 smoking 55 burning 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 8 diminish 20 replace 32 holiday 44 burden 56 military 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 9 duke 21 privacy 33 ugly 45 body 57 crucial 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 10 civil 22 idle 34 burden 46 burning 58 cultural 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 11 bolt 23 editor 35 photo 47 numerous 59 adult 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 12 scared 24 isolate 36 inherit 48 square 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 6th 1 alto 13 traveler 25 level 37 carve 49 away 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 2 acid 14 damage 26 symbolic 38 image 50 similar 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 3 decision 15 pecan 27 dance 39 segment 51 public 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 4 spider 16 robin 28 unfold 40 document 52 picture 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 5 acquire 17 funding 29 genre 41 blanket 53 cage 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 6 image 18 news 30 shadow 42 herd 54 hanger 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 7 hairy 19 hesitate 31 filter 43 frost 55 relate 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 8 silent 20 tackle 32 phrase 44 year 56 improve 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 9 believe 21 false 33 pancake 45 inside 57 tofu 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 10 ending 22 teammate 34 reunion 46 cricket 58 science 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 11 quantity 23 order 35 device 47 budget 59 fishing 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39 12 erode 24 eyebrow 36 ultimate 48 retreat 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39.layout ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0xfc2077CA7F403cBECA41B1B0F62D91B5EA631B5E 2022-11-06 06:18:26 slip39.layout BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 : bc1qk0a9hr7wjfxeenz9nwenw9flhq0tmsf6vsgnn2
This 0xfc20..1B5E address is the same Ethereum address as is recovered on a Trezor using this
BIP-39 mnemonic phrase. Thus, we can generate “Paper Wallets” for the desired Cryptocurrency
accounts, and recover the funds.
So, this does the job:
- Uses our original BIP-39 Mnemonic
- Does not require remembering the BIP-39 passphrase
- Preserves all of the original wallets
But:
- The 59-word SLIP-39 Mnemonics cannot (yet) be imported into the Trezor “Model T”
- The original BIP-39 Mnemonic phrase cannot be recovered, for any hardware wallet
- Must use the SLIP-39 App to generate “Paper Wallets”, to recover the funds
So, this is a good “emergency backup” solution; you or your heirs would be able to recover the funds with a very high level of security and reliability.
The best solution is to use SLIP-39 to back up the original BIP-39 Seed Entropy (not the generated Seed), and then later recover that Seed Entropy and re-generate the BIP-39 Mnemonic phrase. You will continue to need to remember and use your original BIP-39 passphrase:
sequenceDiagram
Participant BIP as BIP-39 Mnemonic
Participant SLIP as SLIP-39 Mnemonics
Participant BIP_REC as BIP-39 Recovered
Participant HW as Hardware Wallet
BIP-->>SLIP: slip39 --bip39 --mnemonic "..."
SLIP-->>BIP_REC: slip39-recovery --mnemonic "..."
BIP_REC-->>HW: Recover w/ BIP-39 Mnemonic + passphrase
First, observe that we can recover the 128-bit Seed Entropy from the BIP-39 Mnemonic phrase (not the 512-bit generated Seed):
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --entropy -v \
--mnemonic "zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong"
) 2>&12022-11-06 06:18:34 slip39.recovery Recovered 128-bit BIP-39 secret from english mnemonic 2022-11-06 06:18:34 slip39.recovery Recovered BIP-39 secret; To re-generate SLIP-39 wallet, send it to: python3 -m slip39 --secret - ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
Now we generate SLIP-39 Mnemonics to recover the 128-bit Seed Entropy. Note that these are
20-word Mnemonics. However, these are NOT the wallets we expected! These are the well-known
native SLIP-39 wallets from the 0xFFFF...FF Seed Entropy; not the well-known native BIP-39
wallets from that Seed Entropy, which generate the Ethereum wallet address 0xfc20..1B5E! Why
not?
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --entropy \
--mnemonic "zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong" \
| python3 -m slip39 --secret - --no-card -v
) 2>&1 | tail -202022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 4 skin 11 ounce 18 guilt 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 5 airline 12 racism 19 ecology 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 6 depict 13 picture 20 thumb 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 7 counter 14 afraid 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 5th 1 boundary 8 seafood 15 threaten 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 2 roster 9 welfare 16 olympic 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 3 decision 10 voting 17 detailed 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 4 snake 11 orbit 18 muscle 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 5 cubic 12 engage 19 toxic 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 6 corner 13 therapy 20 froth 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 7 upgrade 14 smirk 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 6th 1 boundary 8 review 15 swimming 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 2 roster 9 easy 16 dive 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 3 decision 10 both 17 enlarge 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 4 spider 11 axle 18 rumor 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 5 cause 12 penalty 19 cargo 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 6 elite 13 budget 20 chemical 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39 7 glen 14 loan 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39.layout ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0x824b174803e688dE39aF5B3D7Cd39bE6515A19a1 2022-11-06 06:18:37 slip39.layout BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 : bc1q9yscq3l2yfxlvnlk3cszpqefparrv7tk24u6pl
Because we must tell slip39 to that we’re using the BIP-39 Mnemonic and Seed generation
process to derived the wallet addresses from the Seed Entropy (not the SLIP-39 standard). So,
we add the -using-bip39 option:
( python3 -m slip39.recovery --bip39 --entropy \
--mnemonic "zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo wrong" \
| python3 -m slip39 --secret - --no-card -v --using-bip39
) 2>&1 | tail -202022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 4 skin 11 fiscal 18 prize 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 5 buyer 12 crucial 19 legal 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 6 remind 13 seafood 20 game 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 7 rhyme 14 spew 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 5th 1 trial 8 evil 15 pregnant 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 2 regret 9 class 16 enjoy 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 3 decision 10 fiscal 17 grocery 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 4 snake 11 timber 18 style 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 5 debris 12 busy 19 finance 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 6 merit 13 depict 20 peasant 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 7 agree 14 junk 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 6th 1 trial 8 husky 15 cricket 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 2 regret 9 alive 16 expand 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 3 decision 10 intimate 17 downtown 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 4 spider 11 swing 18 escape 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 5 being 12 employer 19 teammate 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 6 race 13 zero 20 climate 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39 7 stadium 14 friar 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39.layout ETH m/44'/60'/0'/0/0 : 0xfc2077CA7F403cBECA41B1B0F62D91B5EA631B5E 2022-11-06 06:18:46 slip39.layout BTC m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 : bc1qk0a9hr7wjfxeenz9nwenw9flhq0tmsf6vsgnn2
And, there we have it – we’ve recovered exactly the same Ethereum and Bitcoin wallets as would a native BIP-39 hardware wallet like a Ledger Nano.
In the SLIP-39 App, the default Controls presented are to “Backup” a BIP-39 recovery phrase.
In “Seed Source”, enter your existing BIP-39 recovery phrase. In “Seed Secret”, make sure “Using BIP-39” is selected, and enter your BIP-39 passphrase. This allows us to display the proper wallet addresses – we do not store your password, or save it as part of the SLIP-39 cards! You will need to remember and use your passphrase whenever you use your BIP-39 phrase to initialize a hardware wallet.
Check that the Recovery needs … Mnemonic Card Groups are correct for your application, and hit Save!
Later, use the “Recover” Controls to get your BIP-39 recovery phrase back, from your SLIP-39 cards, whenever you need it.
Practice this a few times (using the “zoo zoo … wrong” 12-word or “zoo zoo … vote” 24-word phrase) until you’re confident. Then, back up your real BIP-39 recovery phrase.
Once you’re convinced you can securely and reliably recover your BIP-39 phrase any time you need it, we recommend that you destroy your original BIP-39 recovery phrase backup(s). They are dangerous and unreliable, and only serve to make your Cryptocurrency accounts less secure!
The python-slip39 project is tested under both homebrew:
$ brew install [email protected]
and using the official python.org/downloads installer.
Either of these methods will get you a python3 executable running version 3.9+, usable for
running the slip39 module, and the slip39.gui GUI.
To build the wheel and install slip39 manually:
$ git clone [email protected]:pjkundert/python-slip39.git $ make -C python-slip39 install
To install from Pypi, including the optional requirements to run the PySimpleGUI/tkinter GUI, support serial I/O, and to support creating encrypted BIP-38 and Ethereum JSON Paper Wallets:
$ python3 -m pip install slip39[gui,wallet,serial]
To install from Pypi, including the optional requirements to run the PySimpleGUI/tkinter GUI:
$ python3 -m pip install slip39[gui]
Then, there are several ways to run the GUI:
$ python3 -m slip39.gui # Execute the python slip39.gui module main method $ slip39-gui # Run the main function provided by the slip39.gui module
You can build the native macOS and win32 SLIP-39.app App.
This requires the official python.org/downloads installer; the homebrew [email protected] will not
work for building the native app using either PyInstaller. (The py2app approach doesn’t work
in either version of Python).
$ git clone [email protected]:pjkundert/python-slip39.git $ make -C python-slip39 app
Install Python from https://python.org/downloads, and the Microsoft C++ Build Tools via the
Visual Studio Installer (required for installing some slip39 package dependencies).
To run the GUI, just install slip39 package from Pypi using pip, including the gui and
wallet options. Building the Windows SLIP-39 executable GUI application requires the dev
option.
PS C:\Users\IEUser> pip install slip39[gui,wallet,dev]
To work with the python-slip39 Git repo on Github, you’ll also need to install Git from git-scm.com. Once installed, run “Git bash”, and
$ ssh-keygen.exe -t ed25519
to create an id_ed25519.pub SSH identity, and import it into your Git Settings SSH keys. Then,
$ mkdir src $ cd src $ git clone [email protected]:pjkundert/python-slip39.git
The MMC (Microsoft Management Console) is used to store your code-signing certificates. See stackoverflow.com for how to enable its Certificate management.
Each installation of the SLIP-39 App requires an Ed25519 “Agent” identity, and cryptographically signed license(s) to activate various python-slip39 features. No license is required to use basic features; advanced features require a license.
The Ed25519 signing “Agent” identity is loaded at start-up, and (if necessary) is created
automatically on first execution. This is similar to the ssh-keygen -t ed25519 procedure.
Each separate installation must have a ~/.crypto-licensing/python-slip39.crypto-keypair. This contains the licensing “Agent” credentials: a passphrase-encrypted Ed25519 private key, and a self-signed public key. This shows that we actually had access to the private key and used it to create a signature for the claimed public key and the supplied encrypted private key – proving that the public key is valid, and associated with the encrypted private key.
When an advanced feature is used, all available python-slip39.crypto-license files are loaded.
They are examined, and if a license is found that is:
- Assigned to this Agent and Machine-ID
- Contains the required license authorizations
then the functionality is allowed to proceed.
If no license is found, instructions on how to obtain a license for this Agent on this Machine-ID will be displayed.
If you’ve already obtained a “master” license on your primary machine’s SLIP-39 installation, you can use it to issue a sub-license to this installation (eg. for your air-gapped cryptocurrency management machine).
Otherwise, a URL is displayed at which the required “master” license can be issued.
Typically, you’ll be using python-slip39’s advanced features on an air-gapped computer. You do not want to visit websites from this computer. So, you obtain a sub-license from your primary computer’s python-slip39 installation, and place it on your secure air-gapped computer (eg. using a USB stick).
Take note of the secondary machine’s Agent ID (pubkey) and Machine ID. On your primary computer (with the “master” license), run:
python3 -m slip39.sublicense <agent-pubkey> <machine-id>
Take the output, and place it in the file ~/.crypto-licensing/python-slip39.crypto-license on
your air-gapped computer.
On your primary computer, open the provided URL in a browser. The URL contains the details of the advanced feature desired.
This URL’s web page will request an Ed25519 “Agent” public key to issue your “master” license to. This should be your primary user account’s Ed25519 “Agent” public key – this master “Agent” will be issuing sub-licenses to any of your other SLIP-39 installations. You will be redirected to a URL that is unique to the advanced feature plus your Agent ID.
An invoice will be generated with unique Bitcoin, Ethereum and perhaps other cryptocurrency addresses. Pay the required amount of cryptocurrency to one of the provided wallet addresses. Within a few seconds, the cryptocurrency transfer will be confirmed.
Once the payment for the advanced feature is confirmed, the URL including your agent ID will always allow you to re-download the license. It is only usable by your Agent ID to issue sub-licenses to your python-slip39 installations on your machines.
Internally, python-slip39 project uses Trezor’s python-shamir-mnemonic to encode the seed data to SLIP-39 phrases, python-hdwallet to convert seeds to ETH, BTC, LTC and DOGE wallets, and the Ethereum project’s eth-account to produce encrypted JSON wallets for specified Ethereum accounts.
To use it directly, obtain , and install it, or run python3 -m pip install shamir-mnemonic.
$ shamir create custom --group-threshold 2 --group 1 1 --group 1 1 --group 2 5 --group 3 6 Using master secret: 87e39270d1d1976e9ade9cc15a084c62 Group 1 of 4 - 1 of 1 shares required: merit aluminum acrobat romp capacity leader gray dining thank rhyme escape genre havoc furl breathe class pitch location render beard Group 2 of 4 - 1 of 1 shares required: merit aluminum beard romp briefing email member flavor disaster exercise cinema subject perfect facility genius bike include says ugly package Group 3 of 4 - 2 of 5 shares required: merit aluminum ceramic roster already cinema knit cultural agency intimate result ivory makeup lobe jerky theory garlic ending symbolic endorse merit aluminum ceramic scared beam findings expand broken smear cleanup enlarge coding says destroy agency emperor hairy device rhythm reunion merit aluminum ceramic shadow cover smith idle vintage mixture source dish squeeze stay wireless likely privacy impulse toxic mountain medal merit aluminum ceramic sister duke relate elite ruler focus leader skin machine mild envelope wrote amazing justice morning vocal injury merit aluminum ceramic smug buyer taxi amazing marathon treat clinic rainbow destroy unusual keyboard thumb story literary weapon away move Group 4 of 4 - 3 of 6 shares required: merit aluminum decision round bishop wrote belong anatomy spew hour index fishing lecture disease cage thank fantasy extra often nail merit aluminum decision scatter carpet spine ruin location forward priest cage security careful emerald screw adult jerky flame blanket plot merit aluminum decision shaft arcade infant argue elevator imply obesity oral venture afraid slice raisin born nervous universe usual racism merit aluminum decision skin already fused tactics skunk work floral very gesture organize puny hunting voice python trial lawsuit machine merit aluminum decision snake cage premium aide wealthy viral chemical pharmacy smoking inform work cubic ancestor clay genius forward exotic merit aluminum decision spider boundary lunar staff inside junior tendency sharp editor trouble legal visual tricycle auction grin spit index