2 ms·

So what you call a passphrase I would call a password, but its the secret bytes which have to be known in order for the blockchain to allow the move.

• ddtaylor 5y ago
  That's where it gets a bit complex. There are both passwords and phrases, but usually for different purposes: Traditional passwords are used sometimes to encrypt the secret bytes (private key) similar to how an SSH key might be encrypted and unlocked. In this usage the actual bytes are encrypted and stored somewhere (like on disk) and if you lose that file or the password you used to encrypt it, you therefore lose the private key and can no longer sign messages or "spend" the coins. This is how Bitcoin functioned in the early years. Some people instead use what originally were called "brain wallets" and are mnemonic lists of words that then get used through a key derivation function (KDF) to turn those words into the secret bytes. In this kind of setup you don't have the secret bytes stored anywhere but rather you need to remember the phrase (list of words) which is in turn used to generate the secret bytes deterministically.
  • Terry_Roll 5y ago
    Yeah but ultimately I still need those bytes to move the coins. Doesnt matter what method I use to come up with those bytes, beit a password or a brain wallet, they are just algo's of various length and time to compute.