What is the difference between Private Key and Seed Phrase? Are they the same?

[Brushless4500KV 4214]

When we discuss about BTC wallets, there are 3 terms that come to mind first.

Public key is quite easy to understand. It is a set of numbers and letters (hash) that can be seen by everyone in a transaction. It is used to receive BTC from others.

The other two terms are Private Key and Seed Phrase (it has some other names such as recovery phrase).

I read about BTC wallet private key and seed phrase but couldn't understand the difference between them!

According to what I know, private key is a secret number that any wallet owner has in order to spend his bitcoin.

Seed phrase is a number of words that we should write down to recover our wallet funds in case something happens for our PC or mobile. This will be given to us by wallet service provider.

I have received a seed phrase from my blockchain wallet and have written it on a piece of paper. Is this the same thing as private key? What do they mean by private key? Is my blockchain password = my private key?

Can someone explain the difference between private key (secret number) and seed phrase (a set of words)?

 

[avatarkiyoshi 270]

Basically both security system is the same, seed phrase can be converted to number of bits and it's approximately has same strength as private keys. 

If you use a wallet that provides many public keys, the advantage of the seed phrase feature in backing up your wallet is that you don't have to bother backing up all private keys, just use a seed phrase so that your wallet can be restored.

[Brushless4500KV 4214]

I still don't get the point of private keys. I read in some articles that private key is the most important part of any wallet and wallet owner can't spend his/her bitcoin without it. But I created a wallet in blockchain and sent or received BTC with my wallet easily without even knowing what is my private key! I read that we should write down and keep our private keys in a piece of paper but when I signed up at blockchain, I didn't receive any private key. The only thing they gave to me was a public wallet address.

How did I manage to spend my BTC without my private key? I was never asked to offer my private key anywhere in any transaction. Someone told me there is a section in blockchain settings that you can find your private key there. If it is that important why it is hidden from the user?!

Edited December 4, 2019 by Brushless4500KV

[Crypto123 0]

difference between private key and seed phrase as i know:  it is the private key that allows you to access your wallet. If you lose it, you won't be able to access the wallet. seed phrase is the key that will allow you to retrieve your wallet if you make a formatting for your computer or mobile phone or want to replace the old one with a new one.

[Brushless4500KV 4214]

19 hours ago, Crypto123 said:

difference between private key and seed phrase as i know:  it is the private key that allows you to access your wallet. If you lose it, you won't be able to access the wallet. seed phrase is the key that will allow you to retrieve your wallet if you make a formatting for your computer or mobile phone or want to replace the old one with a new one.

This is the part that I don't understand. You say I can't gain access to my wallet without my private key. If this is the case, why I have access to my wallet without offering any private key? Currently I don't have any private key but I can use my blockchain wallet both for sending and receiving bitcoin. I just need to log in to my account and I only need my account password to log in. The only things I do to spend my bitcoin is to enter the amount of BTC I want to send and adjust the fees. That's it!

Can someone explain why I have never been asked to offer my private key in any transaction? How can I get a private key? Is it somewhere hidden in my wallet settings? Should I apply to get my key or do I already have it without even knowing it myself?! Do you enter your private key every time you want to do a transaction?

[Akbor 1042]

Mainly they are same because they used as security for the wallet. i think the seed phrase are very much secured i think. you need to write down the seed phrase to secure your wallet.

[yifnt 666]

Both are very important and must be stored securely because if you lose your private key the way to reset it is to use the phrase seed.

[escapefrom3dom 93]

On 12/3/2019 at 7:07 PM, Brushless4500KV said:

I read about BTC wallet private key and seed phrase but couldn't understand the difference between them!

seed phrase → some reliable algo → privkey

 

benefits:

• easy (compared to privkey) to remember
• possibility to generate many different privkeys to different coins just from a single seed

Edited December 7, 2019 by escapefrom3dom

[fo1lluko1l 487]

With the help of a secret phrase, wallets are usually restored, it's like a backup on a computer, and a private key gives full access to the wallet, if you lose it, you will not be able to return your money.

[Brushless4500KV 4214]

4 hours ago, Hamk said:

They are the same. You can get your private key from your seed but you cannot get your seed from your private key, you can access your wallet using both, but you can only send with your private key

Thank you for your answer. So, according to what you said seed phrase is more important than private key because if we lose our account we can not recover it by private key and we only need seed phrase to activate it again.

I understand what is meant by seed phrase but private key is still not clear to me. You said you can only send BTC with private key. So, no one should be able to send any amount of crypto without it but I have sent crypto many times with my blockchain wallet and I was not asked for my private key! The only information required for sending were the amount, the receiver address and the fees. I fill these information and click send. That's all! The system doesn't ask me to offer my private key. This is what I want to know.

[Crypto123 0]

On 12/5/2019 at 4:26 PM, Brushless4500KV said:

This is the part that I don't understand. You say I can't gain access to my wallet without my private key. If this is the case, why I have access to my wallet without offering any private key? Currently I don't have any private key but I can use my blockchain wallet both for sending and receiving bitcoin. I just need to log in to my account and I only need my account password to log in. The only things I do to spend my bitcoin is to enter the amount of BTC I want to send and adjust the fees. That's it!

Can someone explain why I have never been asked to offer my private key in any transaction? How can I get a private key? Is it somewhere hidden in my wallet settings? Should I apply to get my key or do I already have it without even knowing it myself?! Do you enter your private key every time you want to do a transaction?

Well, dear, I think now I understand you, there is a difference between a web wallet and a desktop or mobile application wallet as well as a ledger wallet or the so-called cold wallet as well as there is a paper wallet.
Blockchain website wallet is a web wallet and does not need a private key You only need a password and a username.
This is a topic that needs to be explained in a separate topic. I will do it soon and remind you to see it, but now I am a little busy and I cannot write.

[Naga 1250]

i think seed is the combination of words that actually help you recover your account if something happened but the private key is what you use for your wallet entry, like your password for safety.

[babdus10 16]

The string of words, known as the crypto wallet "recovery phrase", or "mnemonic words" or "seed words" are simply a human-readable format of the underlying machine-readable entropy - which is a large random number - used to create the crypto vault.

The exact steps from seed to wallet addresses include the use of a hash function (HMAC) and key stretching with PBKDF2 with default values for the passphrase field.

[Kusumo234 400]

On 4/12/2019 at 00.07, Brushless4500KV said:

Ketika kita membahas tentang dompet BTC, ada 3 istilah yang terlintas dalam pikiran pertama.

Kunci publik cukup mudah dimengerti. Ini adalah serangkaian angka dan huruf (hash) yang dapat dilihat oleh semua orang dalam suatu transaksi. Ini digunakan untuk menerima BTC dari orang lain.

Dua istilah lainnya adalah Kunci Pribadi dan Frase Benih (memiliki beberapa nama lain seperti frasa pemulihan).

Saya membaca tentang kunci pribadi dompet BTC dan frase seed tetapi tidak dapat memahami perbedaan di antara mereka!

Menurut apa yang saya ketahui, kunci pribadi adalah nomor rahasia yang dimiliki pemilik dompet mana pun untuk menghabiskan bitcoin-nya.

Frase Benih adalah sejumlah kata yang harus kita tulis untuk memulihkan dana dompet kita jika terjadi sesuatu untuk PC atau ponsel kita. Ini akan diberikan kepada kami oleh penyedia layanan dompet.

Saya telah menerima frase awal dari dompet blockchain saya dan telah menulisnya di selembar kertas. Apakah ini sama dengan kunci pribadi? Apa yang mereka maksud dengan kunci pribadi? Apakah kata sandi blockchain saya = kunci pribadi saya?

Dapatkah seseorang menjelaskan perbedaan antara kunci pribadi (nomor rahasia) dan frase awal (serangkaian kata)?

 

a simple description of this certainly lies in the function and usability based on its name, of course there are public keys or commonly called public addresses or addrees that may be known by anyone or certain groups when we make a transaction, and again different from private keys that function to use  transaction features on an address ,,

[Sagor 500]

They are most likely same because both are use for accessing any wallet. the seed keys are much secured than the private key.

[Satishmolankar 1703]

Different between private keys and seed phases is but I don't know deeply about that I would say seed phases is some words in seed phases and in private keys look Iike receiving add we put on ant coins

[CryptoLover21 0]

No they are not same , with the private key you can login or decrypt your wallet to any wallet which support pvt key , but with seed phrase you can only login to the same walllet  from which seed is , 

[NordisLofer 77]

These two systems are very similar, but in some moments just the same. The initial phrase can be converted to the number of bits. In general, they have common important tasks to protect your property.

[Nahidnoor 24]

 

Private key:-

 

The private key is a secret key that is used to decrypt the message and the party knows it that exchange message. In the traditional method, a secret key is shared within communicators to enable encryption and decryption the message, but if the key is lost, the system becomes void. To avoid this weakness, PKI (public key infrastructure) came into force where a public key is used along with the private key. PKI enables internet users to exchange information in a secure way with the use of a public and private key.

 

Seed phrase:-

 

The seed phrase is a set of words that allows you get access to funds of your Waves account. During account registration, you will be always asked to save your secret phrase (Seed) which contains 15 English words with spaces between each word.

 

Both  are not same ...

[Grease Lightning 169]

In some coin, you can make a private key from seed word. Each coin had different uses. If you have an encrypted private key you can restore the private key if you forgot the password.

[saddamali 194]

Seed phrase is a secured way other private key.I see many private key wallet hacked but anybody can not hacked any seed phrase wallet.

[johant123 1559]

On 12/4/2019 at 7:03 PM, Crypto123 said:

difference between private key and seed phrase as i know:  it is the private key that allows you to access your wallet. If you lose it, you won't be able to access the wallet. seed phrase is the key that will allow you to retrieve your wallet if you make a formatting for your computer or mobile phone or want to replace the old one with a new one.

The seed phrase is the input for the algorithm that creates your private keys (the master key and the derived keys). So if you have the seed phrase, you can reconstruct the private key.

About that master key; your wallet has a master key pair (private and public), and for each transaction a key pair is derived from that.
 

This is important: if someone has your xPub master public key, they can follow all your transactions!

Edited December 31, 2019 by johant123

[Akbor 1042]

On ‎12‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 11:59 AM, Hamk said:

They are the same. You can get your private key from your seed but you cannot get your seed from your private key, you can access your wallet using both, but you can only send with your private key

You are right. now a days every wallet are increasing their wallet security and they are using the seed key for high security of the asset stored in the wallet.

[Crypto_trader 46]

well' both are very important key and phrases if you lost your phrases then you access your wallet to phrases

[bitcoinb 1359]

On 12/3/2019 at 7:18 PM, avatarkiyoshi said:

Basically both security system is the same, seed phrase can be converted to number of bits and it's approximately has same strength as private keys. 

If you use a wallet that provides many public keys, the advantage of the seed phrase feature in backing up your wallet is that you don't have to bother backing up all private keys, just use a seed phrase so that your wallet can be restored.

I thank you on behalf of everyone for this simple and precise explanation. Every wallet user should know this. I am shocked and tired to read and re-read again that "Coinbase is the best wallet" ... WHAT A JOKE! NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS.