Generate entropy for bitcoin (and most other crypto asset) wallets by using a normal 6-sided dice as a source of entropy.
- Make sure that the dice is not biased to any specific output and nobody is observing or recording your dice rolls.
- Roll the dice exactly 100 times so that you reach entropy of 256 bit.
- Enter the dice rolls as one long number concatenated as the parameter to this script, e.g.
$ . dice2seed.sh 1234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234
your seed is:
39BD194E3B989D612E6ED5BF485BAE130D53F5F532F29585E98ECD298282A5C3
You can now use the resulting entropy to create a mnemonic which you can archive or you can use it to create private keys and / or addresses.
You might be in a setting where you are offline, cannot clone this repo and just need a minimal one-liner that you can type on a command line. In that case feel free to use the following:
dice1=123456; dice0=$(echo $dice1 | tr 1-6 0-5); echo "obase=16;ibase=6; $dice0" | bc | sed -e 's/.*\(.\{64\}\)$/\1/'
In the one-liner, replace 123456
with the result of 100 times throwing the dice. Beware that this is a minimal one-liner without checks. So make sure to enter exactly 100 digits as otherwise your resulting entropy would have too few hex characters. You could also omit the last sed
part of the one-liner and manually ensure that the output has 64 characters.
The hexadecimal 256 bit entropy can now be used as the input for a BIP39 mnemonic. We can e.g. use libbitcoin's BX:
$ bx mnemonic-new 39BD194E3B989D612E6ED5BF485BAE130D53F5F532F29585E98ECD298282A5C3
defy trip fatal jaguar mean rack rifle survey satisfy drift twist champion steel wife state furnace night consider glove olympic oblige donor novel left
You can also add the mnenomic key generation to the above give one-liner:
$ dice1=1234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234; dice0=$(echo $dice1 | tr 1-6 0-5); echo "obase=16;ibase=6; $dice0" | bc | sed -e 's/.*\(.\{64\}\)$/\1/' | bx mnemonic-new
defy trip fatal jaguar mean rack rifle survey satisfy drift twist champion steel wife state furnace night consider glove olympic oblige donor novel left
For production you might want to archive your mnemonic in a secure fashion by using e.g. the blockplate and store it in a secure location.
Use the mnemonic and optionally a password to create a seed:
$ bx mnemonic-to-seed --language en defy trip fatal jaguar mean rack rifle survey satisfy drift twist champion steel wife state furnace night consider glove olympic oblige donor novel left
ac09fdce665aa86195fd3dba3f3731bb23c7735e31de64569c3b54ad348668bfb4ceefc4758311784510cc4cf3b3c460749a1cd0e61d608689b55b0c4ef72cca
If you have a BX version with ICU build enabled then you could also strengthen your seed with a password:
$ bx mnemonic-to-seed --language en --passphrase "PASSWORD is not s3cret" defy trip fatal jaguar mean rack rifle survey satisfy drift twist champion steel wife state furnace night consider glove olympic oblige donor novel left
5f048ddf9a3860ff29665980bd27d9f31db4a1678c1fb174cf5107cd3cb415afcf6234c910307fa6a7082af48f1c7802559fdf351d6a3d36a9071ee6a0692823
Note that the binaries which are distributed via GitHub do not support ICU and thus you cannot use the password feature. Instead you have to follow the fairly straightforward build instructions and then e.g. build via:
$ ./install.sh --prefix=/home/me/myprefix --with-icu --build-icu --without-tests --build-boost --build-zmq --disable-shared
Adjust /home/me/myprefix
to a folder in your home directory into which you want to build bx, e.g. /User/Sebastian/libbitcoin
.
You can then copy the resulting binary bx
into some location that is on your PATH, e.g.:
$ cp libbitcoin/bin/bx /usr/local/bin/
Use the seed to create a master private key m
:
$ bx hd-new ac09fdce665aa86195fd3dba3f3731bb23c7735e31de64569c3b54ad348668bfb4ceefc4758311784510cc4cf3b3c460749a1cd0e61d608689b55b0c4ef72cca
xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
A corresponding master public key M
can be derived from this this master private key:
$ bx hd-to-public xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
xpub661MyMwAqRbcFp771J3emEamwBw9hnwi7egCfyNBXW87nb1AR1uH276A4diYRTiduo7y67kd8U8X2KQKsjNVCC9Z2U5YF6kCKppkTL4oQAq
The master private key m
can be used to derive a hardened (omit the -d
for not-harneded key) child private key m/0H
:
$ bx hd-private -d -i 0 xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
xprv9uqh6TbyfqnVC2uhh5BRFK9iZBCutjL16Py968XMyfNjteHkDqggpFaFV3Kc8j2rLqBCi94Por8fie86Y4LYThbL9eax4wqm6vEuk1EGUE8
The corresponding public key M/0H
can be generated from the derived private key :
$ bx hd-to-public xprv9uqh6TbyfqnVC2uhh5BRFK9iZBCutjL16Py968XMyfNjteHkDqggpFaFV3Kc8j2rLqBCi94Por8fie86Y4LYThbL9eax4wqm6vEuk1EGUE8
xpub68q3Vy8sWDLnQWzAo6iRcT6T7D3QJC3rTctjtWvyXzuimSctmNzwN3tjLKFc96cYUt8aHPD9Sgb1dfNfLAfJSTev1PTQ8fXmkH8H1DLkdRH
Alternatively, the public key can be obtained directly from the master private key:
$ bx hd-public -d -i 0 xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
xpub68q3Vy8sWDLnQWzAo6iRcT6T7D3QJC3rTctjtWvyXzuimSctmNzwN3tjLKFc96cYUt8aHPD9Sgb1dfNfLAfJSTev1PTQ8fXmkH8H1DLkdRH
The non-hardneded child public M/0
key can also be directly obtained from the master public key M
:
$ bx hd-public -i 0 xpub661MyMwAqRbcFp771J3emEamwBw9hnwi7egCfyNBXW87nb1AR1uH276A4diYRTiduo7y67kd8U8X2KQKsjNVCC9Z2U5YF6kCKppkTL4oQAq
xpub68q3Vy8jAYopGGGdjk8ysAjUYg5wWmHB32SgMXWEvQvmD3s7aiUQvkN1XxwqVaDdUSNmHJVzUPx3vtWkSs6VAsr6cR2c391xcBhsAiEsESr
Note that the child public key derivation from parent public keys only works for non-hardened child public keys.
The above key M/0
is identically to first deriving an intermediate private key m/0
and then from there deriving the corresponding public key M/0
:
$ bx hd-private -i 0 xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs | bx hd-to-public
xpub68q3Vy8jAYopGGGdjk8ysAjUYg5wWmHB32SgMXWEvQvmD3s7aiUQvkN1XxwqVaDdUSNmHJVzUPx3vtWkSs6VAsr6cR2c391xcBhsAiEsESr
Further child private keys can now be created from a parent private key. The corresponding public keys can be generated in the same fashion as above for the master public key. E.g. the master private key m/OH
can be used to generate the following child private keys.
$ bx hd-private -d -i 0 xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
xprv9uqh6TbyfqnVC2uhh5BRFK9iZBCutjL16Py968XMyfNjteHkDqggpFaFV3Kc8j2rLqBCi94Por8fie86Y4LYThbL9eax4wqm6vEuk1EGUE8
$ bx hd-private -d -i 1 xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
xprv9uqh6TbyfqnVEuRZrztE6JYdpDd4uPuwZuVbyg8bVxCxeaNkueX3eTq4ncRejJb6QDxTyAJGH9C7GreDDdih64DUTN3w428G12fWRZR6x5T
$ bx hd-private -i 1 xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
xprv9uqh6TbqLBFX52NsmdVNcqixjS6tzKzzHeZ6jDgj5TWS8reJ85PnL9BYVMjFeh8vmMmsaeB5M4pS4cHxfUeBJzFCWzg44kZk6mPC4Wfbo7i
$ bx hd-private -i 12345 xprv9uqh6TbqLBFX52NsmdVNcqixjS6tzKzzHeZ6jDgj5TWS8reJ85PnL9BYVMjFeh8vmMmsaeB5M4pS4cHxfUeBJzFCWzg44kZk6mPC4Wfbo7i
xprv9xJ8KhM7YZhR8qdz769c2bUG29WbgSQeSn2dTRhGtbHMKNRzBMRkCzwzUVUqQn2WEn7yR8SNe45EvNfRgHbXwqDeeSeQztJSHKTcC8wBqav
Further child public keys can now be created from a parent public key. Note that the hardened public keys can only be derived from a parent private key. E.g. the master public key m/OH
can be used to generate the following child public keys.
$ bx hd-public -i 1 xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
xpub68q3Vy8jAYopHWTLsf2NyyfhHTwPPniqesUhXc6Ldo3R1eySfci2swW2LcipbUVoM6H2PsWWMN4YTAuxLz6H4ofomdk3NwqNCteGPkpSQo3
Note that this key is the same that can also be obtained from the corresponding private key:
$ bx hd-to-public xprv9uqh6TbqLBFX52NsmdVNcqixjS6tzKzzHeZ6jDgj5TWS8reJ85PnL9BYVMjFeh8vmMmsaeB5M4pS4cHxfUeBJzFCWzg44kZk6mPC4Wfbo7i
xpub68q3Vy8jAYopHWTLsf2NyyfhHTwPPniqesUhXc6Ldo3R1eySfci2swW2LcipbUVoM6H2PsWWMN4YTAuxLz6H4ofomdk3NwqNCteGPkpSQo3
$ bx hd-public -i 12345 xpub68q3Vy8jAYopHWTLsf2NyyfhHTwPPniqesUhXc6Ldo3R1eySfci2swW2LcipbUVoM6H2PsWWMN4YTAuxLz6H4ofomdk3NwqNCteGPkpSQo3
xpub6BHUjCt1NwFiMKiTD7gcPjQzaBM65u8VozxEFp6tSvpLCAm8itjzkoGUKkTumk1dth1TfD2XFkqjCnEfFU7t4abAK6Lz1wF4ttPe1Q9Xpnx
Note that this key is the same that can also be obtained from the corresponding private key:
$ bx hd-to-public xprv9xJ8KhM7YZhR8qdz769c2bUG29WbgSQeSn2dTRhGtbHMKNRzBMRkCzwzUVUqQn2WEn7yR8SNe45EvNfRgHbXwqDeeSeQztJSHKTcC8wBqav
xpub6BHUjCt1NwFiMKiTD7gcPjQzaBM65u8VozxEFp6tSvpLCAm8itjzkoGUKkTumk1dth1TfD2XFkqjCnEfFU7t4abAK6Lz1wF4ttPe1Q9Xpnx
The derived child private key can be turned into an EC (elliptic curve) private key (here we are using m/0H
) via
$ bx hd-to-ec xprv9uqh6TbyfqnVC2uhh5BRFK9iZBCutjL16Py968XMyfNjteHkDqggpFaFV3Kc8j2rLqBCi94Por8fie86Y4LYThbL9eax4wqm6vEuk1EGUE8
05492bb25dc620ba3bae9d5f7d18344152f6ea3e2e5f1315bc98b60ac7e2e1cd
Generate an EC compressed public key from the EC private key (add -u to generate an uncompressed public key from which later also a (different!) uncompressed address can be generated in the same way):
$ bx ec-to-public 05492bb25dc620ba3bae9d5f7d18344152f6ea3e2e5f1315bc98b60ac7e2e1cd
027be3a3581a5cd52c584871344c8fe57cf4cb356f3b635004ae29bcc8e7d805bd
Alternatively, the EC compressed public key can also be obtained from the m/0H
extended public key:
$ bx hd-to-ec xpub68q3Vy8sWDLnQWzAo6iRcT6T7D3QJC3rTctjtWvyXzuimSctmNzwN3tjLKFc96cYUt8aHPD9Sgb1dfNfLAfJSTev1PTQ8fXmkH8H1DLkdRH
027be3a3581a5cd52c584871344c8fe57cf4cb356f3b635004ae29bcc8e7d805bd
Turn the EC compressed public key directly into the address:
$ bx ec-to-address 027be3a3581a5cd52c584871344c8fe57cf4cb356f3b635004ae29bcc8e7d805bd
1DbtUySeX4oP8Z1BSej3VC29xF6bX35o96
(Following the libbitcoin tutorial)
- Perform SHA-256 hashing on the public key.
$ bx sha256 027be3a3581a5cd52c584871344c8fe57cf4cb356f3b635004ae29bcc8e7d805bd
267021ce9d2c790cac024c80345141df2a76fef8be35523c5fa6dd60039afaef
- Perform RIPEMD-160 hashing on the result of SHA-256.
$ bx ripemd160 267021ce9d2c790cac024c80345141df2a76fef8be35523c5fa6dd60039afaef
8a3aa09ad02fafea9324d027820b5e060bec19d1
- Add version byte in front of RIPEMD-160 hash (0x00 for Main Network).
$ echo 008a3aa09ad02fafea9324d027820b5e060bec19d1
0024d25ddafa2b707fbcd2981679e1060c0ca3e1f4
- Perform SHA-256 hash on the extended RIPEMD-160 result.
$ bx sha256 008a3aa09ad02fafea9324d027820b5e060bec19d1
50d44b28d34a1337e40c21111e870d082dfdbdf49f1d8d1b04dfee9d5e669780
- Perform SHA-256 hash on the result of the previous SHA-256 hash.
$ bx sha256 50d44b28d34a1337e40c21111e870d082dfdbdf49f1d8d1b04dfee9d5e669780
1c774ecda2078a7c02dc3ff689ca685237028ce5ee4a905cc341f6ac4aa41353
- Take the first 4 bytes (first 8 hex characters) of the second SHA-256 hash. This is the address checksum. Add the 4 checksum bytes at the end of extended RIPEMD-160 hash from stage 3. This is the 25-byte binary Bitcoin Address.
$ echo 008a3aa09ad02fafea9324d027820b5e060bec19d11c774ecd
008a3aa09ad02fafea9324d027820b5e060bec19d11c774ecd
- Convert the result from a byte string into a base58 string using Base58Check encoding. This is the most commonly used Bitcoin Address format.
$ bx base58-encode 008a3aa09ad02fafea9324d027820b5e060bec19d11c774ecd
1DbtUySeX4oP8Z1BSej3VC29xF6bX35o96
Note that this is exactly the same address that was derived with the higher-level command bx ec-to-address
in the shorter way above.
All of the above comments can be concatenated in the following form to obtain the address at the standard derivation path m/44'/0'/0'/0/0
:
$ dice1=1234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234; dice0=$(echo $dice1 | tr 1-6 0-5); echo "obase=16;ibase=6; $dice0" | bc | sed -e 's/.*\(.\{64\}\)$/\1/' | bx mnemonic-new | bx mnemonic-to-seed --language en | bx hd-new | bx hd-private -d -i 44 | bx hd-private -d -i 0 | bx hd-private -d -i 0 | bx hd-private -i 0 | bx hd-private -i 0 | bx hd-to-ec | bx ec-to-public | bx ec-to-address
1FwAening1vyxwjn1SX2eQ2NTu2NapEAfp
This address can be confirmed by online tools or the BIP39 mnemonic can be imported in wallets like Electrum to sign transactions from that address and broadcast them.
Get private key m/44'/0'/0'/0/0
from dice and passphrase
$ dice1=1234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234; dice0=$(echo $dice1 | tr 1-6 0-5); echo "obase=16;ibase=6; $dice0" | bc | sed -e 's/.*\(.\{64\}\)$/\1/' | bx mnemonic-new | bx mnemonic-to-seed --language en --passphrase "P@SSWORD 1$ n0t s3cret." | bx hd-new | bx hd-private -d -i 44 | bx hd-private -d -i 0 | bx hd-private -d -i 0 | bx hd-private -i 0 | bx hd-private -i 0
xprvA34p7ZRnVXF7DhMetLZm1CLhbR1pYtJvQBtajkDmE91dSxVWNLQhToWt2YZGEWzPuCKVQTAdcmaw1cuTAkdnuKuAfU7TL68iecsB4Sa2ZZA
Use the script dice2keys.sh
to export a list of (by default 10) HD keys (m/44'/0'/0'/0/0 to m/44'/10'/0'/0/0) to the CSV file keys.txt
. This requires a BX version with ICU build enabled as explained above.
$ . dice2keys.sh 1234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234561234 'P@SSWORD 1$ n0t s3cret.'
your entropy is: 39BD194E3B989D612E6ED5BF485BAE130D53F5F532F29585E98ECD298282A5C3
your mnemonic is: defy trip fatal jaguar mean rack rifle survey satisfy drift twist champion steel wife state furnace night consider glove olympic oblige donor novel left
your seed is: ac09fdce665aa86195fd3dba3f3731bb23c7735e31de64569c3b54ad348668bfb4ceefc4758311784510cc4cf3b3c460749a1cd0e61d608689b55b0c4ef72cca
your master private key is: xprv9s21ZrQH143K3L2duGWeQ6e3PA6fJLDrkRkbsaxZyAb8ung1sUb2UJmgDPKxgFQeZcxosJvGL2m1hjmqZqQKCAxJsa9g1k5rxE8h7aXxaEs
M/44H: xprv9uqh6TbyfqnX8LHHnzRcuLfNDyzMkjcLPmy3C6vuo11HsH2ScWnz7TX4CrYdsPrk4WcQdXpXJs6v9iFmrDKV81N66WJbe5MC43oXaqNyLoS
Beware that this takes about one minute for 100 coin types and 10 pub keys.