Seed phrase: what it is, 12 or 24 words, and where to store it so you don't lose your crypto
When an exchange gets hacked, people who keep their coins in their own wallets have just one thing to worry about: the seed phrase. Those 12 or 24 words are your money — whoever holds the phrase owns the coins. Here's a plain-English guide to what a seed phrase is, how it works, where to store it and how it gets stolen, so that once you've withdrawn from an exchange, you don't lose your coins through a mistake of your own.
What is a seed phrase? A plain-English explanation
A seed phrase (also called a recovery phrase, mnemonic phrase, secret recovery phrase or backup phrase) is a set of 12 or 24 English words your wallet shows you when you create it. From these words, the wallet derives all of its private keys and addresses. That's why the phrase isn't a password to your wallet — it is the wallet: enter it in another app or on another device, and all your coins will show up there.
This leads to two golden rules. Lost your phone but have the phrase written down? Reinstall the wallet, enter the words, and your coins are right where you left them. Someone else saw the phrase? They can withdraw everything, and no support team can undo it.
How does a seed phrase work?
Most wallets generate the phrase using the BIP-39 standard, adopted back in 2013.
- A wordlist of 2048 words. Each word encodes 11 bits of a random number, which is why you don't come up with the words yourself — the wallet picks them.
- 12 words give 128 bits of randomness, 24 words give 256. The last word is partly a checksum, so if you make a typo in a single word, the wallet will notice and reject the phrase.
- The phrase becomes a key. The wallet runs the words through the PBKDF2 function 2048 times and gets a 512-bit number — the "seed" that gives the phrase its name. From it, the BIP-32 and BIP-44 standards derive keys for every network: Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and the rest.
- Wordlists exist in several languages, but almost all wallets use English. There's no Russian wordlist in the standard.
Brute-forcing 2 to the power of 128 combinations is impossible, so seed phrases don't get cracked — they get stolen or lost.
Seed phrase vs private key vs password: what's the difference?
| What it is | What it unlocks | Can you change it? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed phrase | 12 or 24 words that generate all of the wallet's keys | Full access to all coins on every network in the wallet | No — you can only create a new wallet and move your coins |
| Private key | A long number for a single address | Access to the coins at that address | No |
| App password or PIN | Protects the app on this device | Nothing without the device itself | Yes, anytime |
A password protects your phone from a random stranger, while the seed phrase protects your money from everything else. If your password-protected phone gets stolen, your coins are safe. If someone steals the phrase, no password will help.
12 or 24 words: which seed phrase is safer?
Even 12 words are plenty to protect against brute force: 128 bits is more than all the computers in the world could ever get through. 24 words give you a margin for the future, which is why hardware wallets like Ledger go with them. The real risk is the same either way — someone finds your phrase or you lose it. There's no difference in how you should store 12 words versus 24.
What is a passphrase (the 25th word)?
The BIP-39 standard lets you add one more word or phrase to your seed phrase — a passphrase. The same 12 or 24 words with a different passphrase open a completely different wallet.
- Upside: anyone who finds your words will see an empty wallet without the passphrase.
- Downside: forget the passphrase, and your money is gone forever. It can't be recovered, guessed or reset through support.
If you use a passphrase, store it separately from the words and just as securely.
One phrase for all coins? And why a restored wallet shows zero
A single BIP-39 phrase opens your wallet on every network at once: Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT on different networks. So if you exchange crypto online and receive a different coin to the same wallet, you don't need a separate phrase for it. But different wallets use different derivation paths to get addresses from the phrase. Bitcoin has four address types — starting with 1, 3, bc1q and bc1p — and a new wallet may show you the wrong one.
That's why your balance sometimes looks like zero after a restore. Your coins haven't gone anywhere: switch the address type or add an account in the wallet settings, and they'll show up.
When BIP-39 doesn't apply: Monero, TON, Electrum and Shamir
- Monero. The official wallet uses its own 25-word phrase, newer wallets like Feather use the 16-word Polyseed format, and neither can be entered into a BIP-39 wallet. If you're only now planning to buy Monero straight to your own wallet without an exchange, write down exactly the phrase your Monero wallet shows you, whether it has 25 words or 16.
- TON. Wallets on the TON network give you 24 words generated with their own scheme, which isn't compatible with BIP-39.
- Electrum. This popular Bitcoin wallet creates a phrase in its own format by default.
- Shamir (SLIP-39). New Trezor Safe devices create a 20-word phrase under the SLIP-39 standard by default and can optionally split it into several shares — for example, so that you need three of the five to restore the wallet. You can't enter this kind of phrase into a BIP-39 wallet either.
The rule is simple: restore a phrase in the same wallet where it was created, or in a wallet that explicitly supports its format. This means that if you decide to exchange bitcoin to Monero, you'll most likely end up with two phrases: the BIP-39 one from your Bitcoin wallet and the Monero wallet's own, and you need to keep both safe.
Where to store your seed phrase: options compared
| Method | Pros | Cons | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper | Simple and free | Vulnerable to fire, water and time | To start with, kept somewhere safe |
| Metal plate | Survives fire and flood | Costs money | For your savings |
| Two copies in different places | Losing one isn't a disaster | More places where someone could find the phrase | Together with a passphrase |
| Shamir or multisig | A single share is useless on its own | Trickier to use | For large amounts |
| Photo, cloud, notes, email | Convenient | Leaks and hacked accounts | Never |
| Password manager | Encryption | One breach exposes everything | Wallet makers themselves advise against it |
The best option for most people: paper to start with and metal for your savings, kept in two places only you know about.
How not to store a seed phrase
- Photos and screenshots. Your phone's gallery syncs to the cloud, and malicious apps know how to find phrases in images.
- Files, notes, email and messaging apps. Anything that ends up online can leak along with your account.
- Websites and forms. "Verifying," "syncing" or "unlocking" a wallet by entering your phrase on a website is always theft.
- Next to the device. A thief who finds your hardware wallet shouldn't find the words right next to it.
- A pre-filled phrase in the box. If your hardware wallet comes with a card that already has a phrase written on it, the seller knows that phrase too. A genuine wallet generates the phrase itself when you first turn it on.
How seed phrases get stolen
- Fake support. A scammer reaches out pretending to be a wallet or an exchange and asks for your phrase "for verification." That's how about $282 million vanished in January 2026: the owner handed their seed phrase to someone claiming to be Trezor support. Real support never asks for your phrase.
- Fake apps. Copies of well-known wallets pop up in app stores and search engine ads: they accept your phrase during "recovery" and instantly send it to the people behind the fake. In April 2026, Kaspersky found 26 such fake wallets on the App Store.
- Phishing sites. An email or message about a "problem with your wallet" leads to a site that looks like the real one and asks you to enter your words.
- Malware. It hunts for phrases in files, notes and screenshots and swaps addresses in your clipboard.
- A predictable phrase. Starting July 30, 2026, attackers drained Coldcard wallets: because of a bug in firmware from 2021, phrases generated on some devices turned out to be guessable. According to TRM Labs, the damage came to about $116 million. Keep your firmware updated, and if in doubt, create a new phrase.
According to Chainalysis, $713 million was stolen from personal wallets in 2025 — that's 158,000 incidents and at least 80,000 victims. Now that thousands of people are withdrawing crypto from Bitget to their own wallets for the first time, scammers are cashing in on it: the exchange has already warned about fake accounts posing as its support team.
What to do if someone saw your seed phrase
You can't change a wallet's phrase — the phrase is the wallet. So act right away: create a new wallet with a new phrase, write it down and move all your coins and tokens from the old wallet into it, on every network. Stop using the old wallet. Once coins are gone, nobody can stop the transfer, so every minute counts.
Seed phrase and inheritance
Without the phrase, your heirs won't get a single coin: neither a court nor any support team can recover it. Think ahead about who will find it and how: a sealed envelope in a bank safe deposit box, Shamir shares of the phrase held by different trusted people, or a multisig wallet. The main thing is to make sure no single person gets full access too soon.
Where to send your coins once the phrase is written down
With the phrase safely written down, your wallet is ready to receive coins. If they're still sitting on an exchange, move them to your wallet: we've explained why you should leave the exchange in the first place in our breakdown of the difference between custodial and non-custodial wallets. You can top up your Bitcoin without an exchange: with VertEXchange, you can buy BTC with USDT without registration, and the coins land straight at your address, which only you hold the keys to.
Frequently asked questions
What is a seed phrase in simple terms?
It's 12 or 24 words from which your wallet derives all your keys. Whoever has the phrase has the coins.
Is a seed phrase the same as a recovery phrase or mnemonic?
Yes. Seed phrase, recovery phrase, mnemonic phrase, secret recovery phrase and backup phrase are different names for the same thing.
Can I recover a wallet without the seed phrase?
As a rule, no. As long as the wallet is still open on your phone, you can view the phrase in the settings and write it down. If you've already lost access, nobody can recover it.
Can I store my seed phrase in a password manager?
Wallet makers advise against it: a password manager means the cloud plus a single master password, and if that gets cracked, your phrase is exposed too. After the 2022 LastPass vault leak, attackers spent years cracking weak master passwords and draining coins using the phrases they found — TRM Labs counted more than $35 million. Paper or metal at home is safer.
Can I take a photo of my seed phrase?
No. The photo goes to the cloud along with your gallery, and malicious apps specifically hunt for phrases in pictures: in 2025, Kaspersky found SparkCat, a trojan in the App Store and Google Play that read seed phrases from images in the gallery.
What happens if I lose my seed phrase?
As long as the wallet still works, your coins aren't lost. In a software wallet, you can view the phrase again in the settings and write it down. A hardware wallet won't show it — move your coins to a new wallet with a new phrase. If you've lost both the phrase and the device, your coins are gone for good.
Can I change my seed phrase?
No. You can only create a new wallet with a new phrase and move all your coins into it.
Does one seed phrase work for all coins?
A BIP-39 phrase does: it generates the keys for every network in the wallet. The exceptions are Monero, TON, Electrum and the Shamir scheme — they have their own formats.
Why is my wallet empty after recovery?
Most often, the wallet is showing the wrong address type or the wrong account. Switch the address type in the settings or add an account, and your coins will turn up.
Does Telegram Wallet have a seed phrase?
Wallet in Telegram (the @wallet bot) doesn't: it's a custodial service, and the company holds the keys. The DeFi Account in the same app (formerly TON Space) does have one — 24 words, stored only on your device.
Does a hardware wallet need a seed phrase?
Yes. The device keeps the keys inside, but if it breaks or gets lost, only the phrase you wrote down during setup will get your coins back.
What if support asks for my seed phrase?
End the conversation. No genuine support team — for a wallet, an exchange or a swap service — will ever ask for your seed phrase.
Swap without an account: your coins arrive at an address only you hold the keys to.
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