mnemonic 0.21

Implementation of Bitcoin BIP-0039

python-mnemonic

Reference implementation of BIP-0039: Mnemonic code for generating deterministic keys

Abstract

This BIP describes the implementation of a mnemonic code or mnemonic sentence – a group of easy to remember words – for the generation of deterministic wallets.

It consists of two parts: generating the mnenomic, and converting it into a binary seed. This seed can be later used to generate deterministic wallets using BIP-0032 or similar methods.

BIP Paper

See https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki for full specification

Installation

To install this library and its dependencies use:

pip install mnemonic

Usage examples

Import library into python project via:

from mnemonic import Mnemonic

Initialize class instance, picking from available dictionaries:

• english

• chinese_simplified

• chinese_traditional

• french

• italian

• japanese

• korean

• spanish

• turkish

• czech

• portuguese

mnemo = Mnemonic(language)
mnemo = Mnemonic("english")

Generate word list given the strength (128 - 256):

words = mnemo.generate(strength=256)

Given the word list and custom passphrase (empty in example), generate seed:

seed = mnemo.to_seed(words, passphrase="")

Given the word list, calculate original entropy:

entropy = mnemo.to_entropy(words)

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

0.21 - 2024-01-05

Added

• Czech and Portuguese wordlists

• Option to provide custom list of words instead of loading from built-in file

Changed

• Use secrets module for randomness

• Use English as a default language if none is provided

• Language detection is unambiguous even if some words are ambiguous

• Build system switched to Poetry

Removed

• Support for Python below 3.8 was dropped

0.20 - 2021-07-27

Added

• Type annotations

• Support for testnet private keys

Changed

• Project directory structure was cleaned up

• Language on the Mnemonic object is remembered instead of repeatedly detecting

Removed

• Support for Python 2.7 and 3.4 was dropped

0.19 - 2019-10-01

Added

• Start of changelog