Could Someone Guess Your Recovery Seed Phrase?

It’s easy to think that because your recovery seed phrase is a 12 to 24-word phrase, cracking it might be possible. But is that the case?

What is a recovery Phrase?

A recovery phrase, also known as a recovery phrase or seed phrase, is a list of 12 to 24 words generated by your crypto wallet. You use this phrase to recover your wallet in the event that you misplace it, damage it, it gets stolen or becomes otherwise inaccessible.

A recovery phrase is essentially a human-readable form of your wallet’s private key used to sign transactions and claim ownership of your wallet addresses.

Just like your bank account login or email credentials, your recovery phrase needs to be kept in a secure, hidden location. You need to write it on a piece of paper (or engrave it in metal) and ensure that the order of words is followed.

Seed phrases have been used for backing up crypto wallets for a long time. They are used by most of the popular wallets, including Trust Wallet.

Recovery phrases are not meant to be shared. You can lose all your crypto if someone else discovers your recovery phrase, as it can be used to access your wallet.

So, can a hacker guess your seed phrase?

Could a Hacker Guess My Seed Phrase?

The short answer is no. The chances of a hacker guessing your seed phrase are essentially zero.

Statistically speaking, the chance of winning the lottery every week is higher than that of guessing a recovery seed phrase.

The only way that someone can know your seed phrase is either because you shared it with them, they somehow gained access to it or they got access to most of the words that make up your seed phrase.

A recovery phrase is usually generated from a specific list of 2,048 words. That means that your 12-word seed phrase has an iteration of 2,048 words. Therefore, it’s almost impossible that someone could successfully guess your seed phrase.

For someone to successfully guess your recovery phrase, they would need to not only guess all the words but they would also need to put them in the right order.

A 12-word seed phrase has a possible combination of 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 while a 24 word seed phrase has even more combinations.

This means that the chances of a hacker successfully guessing your seed phrase are essentially zero.

However, as mentioned, if someone knows some of the words that make up your recovery phrase, the number of combinations decreases. This is why it’s not advisable to try and generate your own seed phrase.

As humans, we are not the best at generating random words and that’s why most wallets, such as Trust Wallet, will generate a seed phrase for you and not ask you to create your own.

Remember to write down the seed phrase and then store it securely! Using your recovery phrase, you can regain access to your wallet from anywhere in the world in case it gets lost, stolen, or breaks.

However, that also means that anyone who gains access to your seed phrase, such as a hacker, can access your wallet. Therefore, it’s advisable not to store your seed phrase online. Instead, store the recovery phrase in physical form, written down on a piece of paper, in a secure location in your home.

How to Find Your Recovery Phrase in Trust Wallet

Trust Wallet is a multi-asset crypto wallet that allows you to store 160,000+ digital assets, which means that you can use it to store all your crypto.

Losing your recovery phrase will mean losing access to your crypto holdings if you lose your phone or it gets stolen or damaged. It’s, therefore, essential to ensure that you know how to find your recovery phrase on Trust Wallet and store it securely offline.

Here’s how you can access your recovery phrase in your Trust Wallet app:

• To find your recovery phrase, open your Trust Wallet app and go to ‘Settings’.

• On the ‘Settings’ screen, tap on ‘Wallets’. Your screen will display the different wallets that you currently have on Trust Wallet.

• If you have multiple wallets, tap on the wallet that you want to find the recovery phrase for, and tap on the ‘i’ symbol beside it to open it.

• Proceed to tap on the ‘Show Recovery Phrase’ for your wallet.

Your recovery phrase will be displayed on your screen. You can proceed to copy it in the order that it is and write it down somewhere, then store it safely to avoid losing it.

Note that your recovery phrase is encrypted on your device. This means that the Trust Wallet team cannot access it. Only you control your funds when using Trust Wallet.

Trust Wallet also has a QR code that you can scan and get your recovery phrase in case you lose it. And while you can screenshot this, it’s important to print it right after, store the copy safely, and delete the screenshot. This is because anyone with access to your phone can easily scan it and gain access to your wallet.

To secure store, use, and buy crypto, download Trust Wallet today!

Join the Trust Wallet community on Telegram Follow us on X (formerly Twitter) Instagram Facebook Reddit

Note: Any cited numbers, figures, or illustrations are reported at the time of writing, and are subject to change.