Private Keys vs Seed Phrases- What They Are and Why They Matter

[Joeboy]

When getting started with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, there are two terms you will hear a lot which are- private key and seed phrase. They might sound similar, but they play different roles in keeping your funds safe....
1) Private Keys
When you create a crypto wallet, it generates two things- a public key (like your account number, which you can share to receive funds) and a private key (your secret code, which must always remain hidden). The private key makes use of an alphanumeric string and it proves that you are the true owner of the coins in that wallet. Anyone who has access to it can be in full control of your funds, send them, spend them, or even transfer them to their own account.

2) Seed Phrase
A seed phrase (also called a recovery phrase) is a group of 12 or 24 random words that can recreate all the private keys in your wallet. This means if your phone gets lost or spoils, you can still recover your wallet, so as far as you have your seed phrase with you. Just think of seed phrase as the master key to all your wallet.

Why They Matter
Your pivate key and seed phrase are the two central backbone of your crypto security this is because if anyone gets hold on either of them they can take all your funds. That’s why you should:

- Never share them with anyone.

- Store them offline (write them on paper or make use of a hardware backup).

-Avoid saving them in your phone or computer where they could be hacked.

[Su-asa]

A seed phrase is mostly made of 12 or 24 words which can be used to recover your wallet in the future, in case you misplaced your seed phrase in the past you can not recover them without the seed phrase which is why you must keep it save. They are more like a words and not sentence. Without them your assets will be lost forever. here are some information you get about bitcoin enthusiast that have lost access to their crypto.

https://www.webopedia.com/crypto/learn/largest-ost-bitcoin-wallets/

[Charles-Tim]

Seed phrase can be 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24 words long.

This means if your phone gets lost or spoils, you can still recover your wallet, so as far as you have your seed phrase with you. Just think of seed phrase as the master key to all your wallet.

You can have wallet on computer or have a hardware wallet.

Seed phrase is important because it can generates the private key which can be used to recover your coins or to spend the coins.

[Mia Chloe]

Seed phrase can be 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24 words long.

Because of Electrum and some other wallet that support custom seeds, I'll just simply put it as 12 words upwards ( although the 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24 words are the normal default ones)

Seed phrase is important because it can generates the private key which can be used to recover your coins or to spend the coins.

Aside frome this people prefer to work with seed phrases because they are easier to manage, store and work with. But private keys are very important when it comes to things like coin control.

~snip

Seed phrases are hashed to get private keys and public keys the point is the private key is very important in signing a transaction. So consider the seed phrase like a compressed version of the master private key.

[casey15]

Thank you OP for this...
For better understanding
    Think of you wallet as a house.... Each Bitcoin address on the wallet is like rooms inside and a private key is a specific key to open the door to the rooms.. each door has it own key.. so each address has its own private key...
While A seed phrase is a master key of the house that can open all rooms... When you have a private key, you can only gain access to a specific address and the funds in it... While with a seed phrase you can gain access to all the addresses in the wallet and the funds in them
    Private keys are important especially when you want to diversify funds within a wallet fir different purpose as it helps you to access only the specific address you are interested in instead of all...

[Antotena]

When getting started with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, there are two terms you will hear a lot which are- private key and seed phrase. They might sound similar, but they play different roles in keeping your funds safe....
1) Private Keys
When you create a crypto wallet, it generates two things- a public key (like your account number, which you can share to receive funds) and a private key (your secret code, which must always remain hidden). The private key makes use of an alphanumeric string and it proves that you are the true owner of the coins in that wallet. Anyone who has access to it can be in full control of your funds, send them, spend them, or even transfer them to their own account.

You are in the track, private key gives you public keys and public keys are what you can use to receive funds but this was in the early days, it was improved further with two different hash functions (sha256 and Ripemd160) to have a shorter version because public keys data are way too large and this makes your transaction becomes bogus in the transaction block. This public keys are not just public keys, they are compress keys after hash to give you a short version of an address.

- Store them offline (write them on paper or make use of a hardware backup).

-Avoid saving them in your phone or computer where they could be hacked.

Don't write your seed phrase alone on a piece of paper, you can as one means but that's not enough. If you are going to make a backup of your seed phrase, the material has to be water resistance, fire resistance and can last for ages, paper can get wet or get burn instead use a metal plate to engrave your seed phrase as back up.
Your hardware shouldn't be a place for backup, it can get stolen or lost and there is nothing you can do about it, better to use a metal steel/plate.

[Charles-Tim]

Because of Electrum and some other wallet that support custom seeds, I'll just simply put it as 12 words upwards ( although the 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24 words are the normal default ones)

Electrum does not support custom word unless it is BIP39.

BIP39 is what I am referring to. They are 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 words long. Not lesser not longer. Shorter is not secure while longer was not proposed. Nothing in-between but 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 and that is what you will on BIP39 wallets. 12 words is common, then followed by 24 words, but some wallets like Sparrow can generate all.

Seed phrase is important because it can generates the private key which can be used to recover your coins or to spend the coins.

Aside frome this people prefer to work with seed phrases because they are easier to manage, store and work with. But private keys are very important when it comes to things like coin control.

I mean what that is most important is the private key, even seed phrase is important because of the private key that it can generate. That is the work of seed phrase. It is easy to backup which is the reason it is proposed and named mnemonic.

[Callido]

You can also talk about the difference between Private key and Seed phrase. They both serve as security lock or password to our wallets but  the difference is that privates keys can be generated from seed phrases.

Losing either your seed phrase or private key means losing access to all your funds. Seed phrase is most likely seen as the master key because it controls the security of every other wallet assigned to each private key.

[Onyeeze]

Op, Theirs no much different between private key and seed phrase, both do same function, we use seed phrase as tools of recovering a private key when you wants to login your address to another device, that is why I said both works as a term and they're similar.

A seed phrase is mostly made of 12 or 24 words which can be used to recover your wallet in the future, in case you misplaced your seed phrase in the past you can not recover them without the seed phrase which is why you must keep it save. They are more like a words and not sentence. Without them your assets will be lost forever. here are some information you get about bitcoin enthusiast that have lost acces

I have not see anyone who have a large amounts of coin or a bitcoin that lost his seed phrase, because if you have a big amounts of bitcoin in a wallet it will be difficult for you to keep it careless to the extent of forgetting the measures that you can keep your bitcoin safe, the most interested in bitcoin is that you will secure your seed phrase, I have memories one of seed phrase that I have a lot of bitcoin, but do you know that after I used the bitcoin in that wallet all, I forgot about the seed phrase, like now I can't remember the seed phrase except that I looked into the place I store them

[Su-asa]

A seed phrase is mostly made of 12 or 24 words which can be used to recover your wallet in the future, in case you misplaced your seed phrase in the past you can not recover them without the seed phrase which is why you must keep it save. They are more like a words and not sentence. Without them your assets will be lost forever. here are some information you get about bitcoin enthusiast that have lost acces

I have not see anyone who have a large amounts of coin or a bitcoin that lost his seed phrase, because if you have a big amounts of bitcoin in a wallet it will be difficult for you to keep it careless to the extent of forgetting the measures that you can keep your bitcoin safe, the most interested in bitcoin is that you will secure your seed phrase, I have memories one of seed phrase that I have a lot of bitcoin, but do you know that after I used the bitcoin in that wallet all, I forgot about the seed phrase, like now I can't remember the seed phrase except that I looked into the place I store them

There are many people who have no access to their wallet anymore, if you haven't seen it anyone, you can actually make some research and I'm sure you will bump into a lot of them. However I also posted a link on my comment above, you can as well click on it so you can read to see some top cry enthusiast that have lost a lot of Bitcoin because of carelessness or hacked wallet. Most of these crypto Enthusiast that no longer have access to their crypto anymore didn't start today. Majority of them have been into Bitcoin since the day Bitcoin was invested, so it's been long and at that those years there were not much of a safer method to secure seed phrases.

[Makus]

Securing your seed phrase is the most important part of your crypto journey  because  if anything bad happens to it that might be the end of those coins in your wallet especially when  you do not  have an additional  backup elsewhere. Most person only  understand the importance of their seed phrase after they've  lost it and that is why it's  important  we equip ourselves  with knowledge  before kick starting anything  especially  when it has to do with finance. The worst thing that can happen to a crypto enthusiasts is after staking enough crypto then he ends up losing his seed phrase because of carelessness or the account  got hacked  because of poor storage medium.

[Donk1]

Well explained on the difference, Both our seed phrase and private key are very useful and personal informations that must be stored very well. So while it's not bad to store your seed phrase on paper, it's better to store them in a fireproof safe or it can be engraved on a steel plate for a better long term security for your wallet And also, the best practices for this is to always have more than one copy of your seed phrases stored, just in case because who knows anything can happen it's better to stay ahead of any mistakes or incident that will compromise the asses to your wallet.

[EL MOHA]

Op, Theirs no much different between private key and seed phrase, both do same function, we use seed phrase as tools of recovering a private key when you wants to login your address to another device, that is why I said both works as a term and they're similar.

Yes both are used to actually recover our wallet and any access to them gives access to your wallet. The difference though is that Seed Phrase recovers everything on that wallet while private keys depends on which private key was used, a master private key will restore all the assets on its child key, while the child key restores only what is on its address

Well explained on the difference, Both our seed phrase and private key are very useful and personal informations that must be stored very well.

We need to know that we don’t necessarily need to back up our private key, we can simply just back up the seed phrase and it will restore everything on that wallet even the private keys and public keys. Restoring Seed Phrases is much much easier because of the alpha numerical data that private key has.

[BlackBoss_]

That’s why you should:

- Never share them with anyone.

Private things don't need and should not be shared publicly with anyone.

- Store them offline (write them on paper or make use of a hardware backup).

Offline, airgap are good ways to store your wallets that have big funds and your wallet backups.

-Avoid saving them in your phone or computer where they could be hacked.

If your device is online, you should not do it.
If your device is used offline, airgap, you can do it but a vital rule is always have different wallet backups. Avoiding a practice of having only a single wallet backkup as you can lose it anytime by accidents.

How to back up a seed phrase?

[Onyeeze]

A seed phrase is mostly made of 12 or 24 words which can be used to recover your wallet in the future, in case you misplaced your seed phrase in the past you can not recover them without the seed phrase which is why you must keep it save. They are more like a words and not sentence. Without them your assets will be lost forever. here are some information you get about bitcoin enthusiast that have lost acces

I have not see anyone who have a large amounts of coin or a bitcoin that lost his seed phrase, because if you have a big amounts of bitcoin in a wallet it will be difficult for you to keep it careless to the extent of forgetting the measures that you can keep your bitcoin safe, the most interested in bitcoin is that you will secure your seed phrase, I have memories one of seed phrase that I have a lot of bitcoin, but do you know that after I used the bitcoin in that wallet all, I forgot about the seed phrase, like now I can't remember the seed phrase except that I looked into the place I store them

There are many people who have no access to their wallet anymore, if you haven't seen it anyone, you can actually make some research and I'm sure you will bump into a lot of them. However I also posted a link on my comment above, you can as well click on it so you can read to see some top cry enthusiast that have lost a lot of Bitcoin because of carelessness or hacked wallet. Most of these crypto Enthusiast that no longer have access to their crypto anymore didn't start today. Majority of them have been into Bitcoin since the day Bitcoin was invested, so it's been long and at that those years there were not much of a safer method to secure seed phrases.

It's not doubt-able, because I know very well that is possible for someone to loss It's recovering phrase, I know that many people do lose their phrase but the problem is that so many of them doesn't know that how to document a seed phrase knowing that when it lost you can't have access in your wallet, as I said before, document my seed phrase offline  in good condition and also memories it very well no matter how long I want to keeping holding my btc in that address I will still have the seed phrase in my brain, and I will not miss any steps, that's how important the seed phrase is to me, people forget their own I don't know what they were thinking, but in actual sense we need to keep our eyes watching.

[Jaycoinz]

You can also talk about the difference between Private key and Seed phrase. They both serve as security lock or password to our wallets but  the difference is that privates keys can be generated from seed phrases.

Losing either your seed phrase or private key means losing access to all your funds. Seed phrase is most likely seen as the master key because it controls the security of every other wallet assigned to each private key.

Yeah I think your explanation best suits the knowledge here. Here is an important notes to take by the way on that is seed phrase and private key are very important and if you lose any of them then you lose your asset.  the funny thing about wallet security is that is the one way something unlike your bank app where you get to reset even after lose of security details and that's why keeping of the your Master key being the seed phrase is the most crucial because I think with the seed phrase you can conjure up your lost private key.

[HajiBagi]

A seed phrase is mostly made of 12 or 24 words which can be used to recover your wallet in the future, in case you misplaced your seed phrase in the past you can not recover them without the seed phrase which is why you must keep it save. They are more like a words and not sentence. Without them your assets will be lost forever. here are some information you get about bitcoin enthusiast that have lost access to their crypto.

https://www.webopedia.com/crypto/learn/largest-ost-bitcoin-wallets/

This is very important for people to know, most especially newbies, Seed phrase stands as a master key to cryptocurrency wallet that is why it is always advisable that we should keep it save and make sure not one see it or have access to them, with your seed phrase anyone can have access to your wallet, it is very dangerous for someone to see or have our seed phrase that is why some people get scammed easily, both are very important but seed phrase is very valuable to than private key.

[KiaKia]

Seed phrase is all that matters most, because it can generates your private key and your funds will be moved, it's far more powerful but also easier to keep than private keys.

I've always have a hard time in the past keeping my private key offline, you can't write them on a book because they are sensitive compare to seed phrases, you can easily make mistakes and you will end up with a bad private key and lose access to your digital assets.

It's easier to backup seed phrases because they are just words, private keys consists of signs that ever existed, some are even capital letters and small letters sensitive with signs depending on the crypto project blockchain, I've seen a lot.

[ThemePen]

Securing your seed phrase is the most important part of your crypto journey  because  if anything bad happens to it that might be the end of those coins in your wallet especially when  you do not  have an additional  backup elsewhere. Most person only  understand the importance of their seed phrase after they've  lost it and that is why it's  important  we equip ourselves  with knowledge  before kick starting anything  especially  when it has to do with finance. The worst thing that can happen to a crypto enthusiasts is after staking enough crypto then he ends up losing his seed phrase because of carelessness or the account  got hacked  because of poor storage medium.

Exactly securing your seed phrase is most important thing you can do with your cryptocurrency. This phrase is like master password for your digital wallet and if you lose it you will likely lose all your coins. People mostly only realize importantance of it after they have already lost it. That is why it is so crucial to learn about crypto security and safely storing your seed phrase before you start investing. If you careless like writing phrase on a piece of paper that gets lost or storing it where hackers can find it can lead to you losing all your money.

[Makus]

Securing your seed phrase is the most important part of your crypto journey  because  if anything bad happens to it that might be the end of those coins in your wallet especially when  you do not  have an additional  backup elsewhere. Most person only  understand the importance of their seed phrase after they've  lost it and that is why it's  important  we equip ourselves  with knowledge  before kick starting anything  especially  when it has to do with finance. The worst thing that can happen to a crypto enthusiasts is after staking enough crypto then he ends up losing his seed phrase because of carelessness or the account  got hacked  because of poor storage medium.

Exactly securing your seed phrase is most important thing you can do with your cryptocurrency. This phrase is like master password for your digital wallet and if you lose it you will likely lose all your coins. People mostly only realize importantance of it after they have already lost it. That is why it is so crucial to learn about crypto security and safely storing your seed phrase before you start investing. If you careless like writing phrase on a piece of paper that gets lost or storing it where hackers can find it can lead to you losing all your money.

I don't see any reason why people love to have bad experiences before they dedicate their time and effort  to learn about something to a great level. Some newbies only make out time to learn after they've lost some money then their curiosity begins,  but most people just tag the entire system a scam because they lost money but other people told them crypto was easy or better still profitable but they filtered out the part that loses are normal in this network and no matter the amout of knowledge gained one can still make lose in crypto especially ehen trading altcoins shit projects.