I'm surprised how little buzz there is about BIP-85. This feature is a big deal in Bitcoin, especially for those juggling multiple seeds for different wallets or devices. It's such a hassle to keep creating seeds for everything. Found a decent explanation on reddit and figured I’d expand on it here.
I use a child SEED from my master SEED on Passport 2, following the BIP-85 path. It makes my life so much easier, no extra backups needed. I can restore it anytime from the master SEED, backed up as described earlier, using either Passport 2 or the iancoleman tool. Super reliable.
I appreciate your explanation but I'm only partially getting it. Visual aids help me wrap my head around Bitcoin concepts. So, is exposing the derived seeds a serious risk for the wallet?
Absolutely! And yeah, using a passphrase is a smart move. You can generate child seeds with a passphrase too, which means you'd have two passphrases to keep track of. But honestly, for many, that's a lot to manage. If you lose the parent seed, having the child seed saved is your safety net.
Bringing the BIP-85 chat here, from another thread... The Krux GitHub has a script for it, or you could code your own. It’s all open-source, nothing proprietary. So your parent seed could be used to create various child seeds for different uses.
BIP-85 is amazing! When I first tested it, it was like a lightbulb moment. Most people see it as a way to create child seeds from a parent seed, but think about multisig. You can generate multiple child seeds and recover them easily if needed.
Nice to hear! I think using child seeds as passphrases is clever, but BIP-85 can generate passwords too. Like this one: AwMJYOqM+ibwWt/s4BCcH. But many wallets only allow child seed generation. BIP-85 can do more, including WIFs and HEX.
So the device can produce the child seed from the master SEED with a passphrase? I can confirm Passport 2 does support BIP-85 Passwords. I use this feature to generate the child SEED for my Tangem 2, really convenient.
Nah, I steer clear of that. I know it's deterministic, but I prefer the simplicity of 12-word child seeds as passphrases. Imagine writing AwMJYOqM+ibwWt/s4BCcH by hand. It’s a mess. 12 words are way easier to manage.
I thought only Coldcard and seed.tools had BIP-85 support. Glad to see Passport 2 does too! I wasn't aware of that. But some services require complex password criteria which complicates things. I use KeepassXC for those.
Totally agree, that's a legit use. But man, I worry people might use those passphrases for their Bitcoin security and end up in trouble. They might forget to back it up or mess up the writing, leading to disaster.
I noticed Electrum isn't on the BIP-85 support list. I checked their GitHub, and it seems the devs think Electrum's current mnemonic recovery is sufficient.
Only use BIP-85 if you really get how it works. Test it on the iancoleman site but remember, it’s best for offline use. Avoid entering sensitive info online, you never know what might be lurking.
You're focusing too much on altcoins. If you broaden your crypto interests to trading, BIP-85 probably won't even be on your radar. As a newbie, there's a ton to learn about BIPs, and it can be overwhelming.