bipsea 2.0.1

Composable Python CLI for Bitcoin mnemonics and BIP-85 secrets.

bipsea: secure entropy for mnemonics, passwords, PINs, and other secrets

One Seed to rule them all,
One Key to find them,
One Path to bring them all,
And in cryptography bind them.
-BIP-85

bipsea is composable command-line utility that generates and validates Bitcoin mnemonics and hierarchical secrets according to BIP-85. bipsea is designed be usable, readable, and correct via extensive unit tests. bipsea includes pure Python APIs for BIPs 32, 39, and 85. bipsea is currently for experimental purposes only.

bipsea relies on cryptographic primitives from Python and the python-ecdsa module, which is vulnerable to side-channel attacks. bipsea does not rely on third-party libraries from any wallet vendor.

You can run bipsea offline to generate passwords, seed mnemonics, and more. Consider dedicated cold hardware that runs Tails, has networking disabled, and disables Intel Management Engine and other possible hardware backdoors.

Usage

Installation

pip install bipsea

Help

bipsea --help

Commands

bipsea offers four commands that work together:

1. mnemonic creates BIP-39 seed mnemonics in 9 languages
2. validate validates BIP-39 in 9 languages
3. xprv derives a BIP-32 extended private key
4. derive applies BIP-85 to an xprv to derive child secrets

Tutorial

You can compose bipsea commands with a pipe:

bipsea mnemonic | bipsea validate | bipsea xprv | bipsea derive -a mnemonic -n 12

rotate link six joy boss sock unveil achieve charge sweet hidden regular

Because bipsea mnemonic uses random bits from Python's secrets library, your output will, with extremely high probability, differ from the above output.

The above generates a fresh mnemonic, validates it against the english word list, converts it to an xprv, and then derives a new secret according to BIP-85.

But why would anyone turn one seed mnemonic into another?

We started with a mnemonic and got another one, so what? As you'll see below you can derive not one but millions of secrets, including PINs, mnemonics, and passwords, from a single root secret. Thanks to BIP-85, bipsea enables you to create millions of secure and independent derived secrets.

Even if a child secret were compromised, the parent and root secrets would remain secure due to the irreversibility of hardened hierarchical derivation. You can read more on these topics below.

bipsea mnemonic

Suppose you want a 15-word seed phrase in Japanese.

bipsea mnemonic -t jpn -n 15

おかわり おっと ゆにゅう いこつ ろうそく げつれい おかわり きらい ちたん にくまん でんわ ずぶぬれ くださる いらすと のみもの

Or 12 words in English.

bipsea mnemonic -n 12 --pretty

1) beach
2) tail
3) trial
4) design
5) lyrics
6) episode
7) miracle
8) strong
9) slogan
10) pole
11) blood
12) scene

bipsea validate

BIP-39 mnemonics come from localized wordlists, have 12-24 words, and include a checksum. validate checks the integrity of a mnemonic phrase, normalizes the input (NFKD), then echoes the result so that you can pipe it to bipsea xprv.

bipsea mnemonic -t spa -n 12 | bipsea validate -f spa

relleno peón exilio vara grave hora boda terapia dinero vulgar vulgar goloso

bipsea xprv

bipsea mnemonic | bipsea validate | bipsea xprv

xprv9s21ZrQH143K41bKPQ9XHbPoqfdCDmZLBorYHay5E273HTu5yAFm27sSWRoCpisgQNH9vfrL9yVvVg5rBEbMCk2UwQ8K7qCFnZAY7aXhuqV

bipsea xprv converts a mnemonic into a master node (the root of your wallet chain) that serializes as an xprv or extended private key.

xprv from dice rolls (or any string)

bipsea validate -f free -m "123456123456123456" | bipsea xprv

Warning: Relative entropy of input seems low (0.42). Consider a more complex --mnemonic.
xprv9s21ZrQH143K2Sxhvzbx2vvjLxPB2tJyfh5hm7ags5UWbKRHbm7x1wyCnqN4sdGTqxbq5tJJc3vV4vd51er6WgUiUC7ma1nKtfYRNTYaCeE

You can even load the input from a file.

bipsea validate -f free -m "$(cat input.txt)"

If you are now thinking, I could use any string to derive a master key, then you're ready to learn about BIP-85 with bipsea derive.

Do not derive valuable keys or secrets from short, simple, or predictable strings. You can only stretch entropy so far. Weak entropy in, weak entropy out. Common phrases are further susceptible to rainbow table attacks.

bipsea derive

It's important to use a fixed, trusted, and cold-stored mnemonic so that derive (or any BIP-85 implementation) produces repeatable results. If the root xprv changes, so do all of the child secrets.

In the following examples we derive all secrets from a single mnemonic.

MNEMONIC="elder major green sting survey canoe inmate funny bright jewel anchor volcano"

Below are several applications. bipsea derive --help shows all available applications.

base85 passwords

bipsea validate -m $MNEMONIC | bipsea xprv | bipsea derive -a base85

iu?42{I|2Ct{39IpEP5zBn=0

-a or --application tells derive what to derive. In this case we get -n 20 characters of a base85 password.

mnemonic phrases

bipsea validate -m "$MNEMONIC" | bipsea xprv | bipsea derive -a mnemonic -t jpn -n 12

ちこく へいおん ふくざつ ゆらい あたりまえ けんか らくがき ずほう みじかい たんご いそうろう えいきょう

As with all applications, you can change the child index from it's default of zero to get a fresh, repeatable secret.

DRNG, enter the matrix

BIP-85 includes a discrete random number generator.

bipsea validate -m "$MNEMONIC" | bipsea xprv | bipsea derive -a drng -n 1000

<1,000 bytes (2,000 hex characters) from the DRNG>

PIN numbers from the DRNG with -a dice

bipsea implements cryptogaphic dice based on the BIP-85 DRNG.

To simulate 100 6-sided die rolls:

bipsea validate -m "$MNEMONIC" | bipsea xprv | bipsea derive -a dice -n 100 -s 6

4,2,5,3,4,4,4,5,0,3

Die rolls start at 0 so that, for instance, you can get a proper 10-digit PIN.

For a 6-digit PIN roll a 10-sided virtual die.

4,9,9,3,7,6

Technical discussion

How are bipsea and hierarchical wallet derivation (BIP-85) useful?

BIP-85 enables you to protect and store a single master secret that can derive millions of independent, multi-purpose secrets. The following benefits emerge:

1. Offers the security of numerous independent passwords with the operational efficiency of a single master password. (The master secret can be multi-factor.)
2. Uses Bitcoin's well-tested hierarchical deterministic wallet tree (including primitives like ECDSA and hardened children).
3. Generates millions of new mnemonics and master keys.
4. Generates millions of new passwords and random streams from a single master key.

Unlike a password manager, which protects many secrets with one hot secret, BIP-85 derives many secrets from one protected secret. Therefore you only need to back up the derivation paths and the services they are for. You do not need to back up the derived secrets.

You could safely store all derivation paths in a hot password manager like Apple Keychain. You could even store the derived secrets in a hot password manager at no risk to the master private key.

bipsea alone is not password manager, but you could use it to implement one. See BIP-?: General secrets keychain with semantic derivation paths for more.

How does it work?

The root of your BIP-85 password tree is an extended master private key (xprv).

In general, you should not use a wallet seed with funds in it. In any case, fresh seeds are free and easy to generate with bipsea.

Child keys are then derived according to BIP-32 hierarchical deterministic wallets with a clever twist: the derivation path includes a purpose code (83696968') followed by an application code. In this way, each unique derivation path produces unique, independent, and secure derived entropy namespace as a pure function of the master private key and derivation path.

BIP-85 specifies a variety of application codes including the following:

application code	description
39'	as in BIP-39, to generate seed words
2'	for HD-Seed wallet import format (WIF)
32'	as in BIP-32, to generate extended private keys (xprv)
128169'	for 16 to 64 bytes of random hex
707764'	for 20 to 86 characters of a base64 password
707785'	for 10 to 80 characters of a base85 password

bipsea implements all of the above applications plus the BIP-85 discrete random number generator (DRNG).

Derivation

Consider m/83696968'/707764'/10'/0'. It produces a password such as dKLoepugzd according to the following logic:

path segment	description
m	master private key
83696968'	purpose code for BIP-85
707764'	application code for base64 password
10'	number of password characters
0'	index, 0 to 2³¹ - 1 for millions of unique passwords

' denotes hardened child derivation, recommended for all BIP-85 applications. Hardened derivation means that, even if both the parent public key and the child private key are exposed, the parent private key remains secure.

BIP-32 hierarchical deterministic wallet tree

ECDSA for the curious and paranoid

BIP-85 derives the entropy for each application by computing an HMAC of the private ECDSA key of the last hardened child. Private child keys are pure functions of the parent key, child index, and depth. In this way BIP-85 entropy is hierarchical, deterministic, and irreversibly hardened as long as ECDSA remains secure. ECDSA is believed to be secure but it may not even be possible to prove the security of any cryptographic algorithm as such a proof would need to demonstrate strong conjectures similar to "P is not equal to NP."

All of that to say even the "most secure" algorithms are vulnerable to the problem of induction.

Just because no one has broken ECDSA
doesn't mean no one will break ECDSA.

"break" means the ability to derive a private key from the corresponding public key, a feat believed but not known to be infeasible in polynomial time because it requires the attacker to compute the discrete logarithm of the public key p = Q*k, where Q is the generator of the SECP256k1 elliptic curve and k is the private key. SECP256k1 is a cyclic group under addition modulo n, the order of the curve. We call computing k from Q*k the "discrete logarithm" since, the same way log(a^x) = x the attacker must reduce the point Q*k to k.

ECDSA is not post-quantum secure. If someone were to build a so-far elusive quantum computer with sufficiently many logical q-bits to run Shor's algorithm to compute the discrete log of an ECDSA private key, ECDSA would be broken. As unlikely as a quantum computer may seem, the Chromium team is taking no chances and has begun to roll out quantum-resistant changes to SSL.

Developer

make
make test

See Makefile for more commands.

Is the bipsea implementation correct?

bipsea passes all BIP-32, BIP-39, and BIP-85 test vectors in all BIP-39 languages plus its own unit tests.

There is a single BIP-85 vector, which we believe to be incorrect in the spec, marked as an xfail and filed to BIP-85.

References

1. BIP-32 hierarchical deterministic wallets
2. BIP-39 mnemonic seed words
3. BIP-44 generalized BIP-32 paths
4. BIP-85 generalized cryptographic entropy

TODO

• Investigate switch to secure ECDSA libs with constant-time programming and side-channel resistance.
  • https://cryptography.io/en/latest/
    • Incomplete support for public key points