Advanced Questions

What is a Bitcoin Brain Wallet and How to Create One

By Alexander Reed

Last Updated: Jul 7, 2018

Create Bitcoin Brain Wallet

Warning: Brain wallets are considered to be significantly insecure and are can be relatively easily hacked.

A Bitcoin wallet is the combination of a public address and a private key. In the past we’ve talked about different kinds of Bitcoin wallets. Hot wallets which are connected to the Internet, mobile wallets which are installed on your mobile phone and cold storage wallets like paper wallets or TREZOR. Today I want to add a new type of wallet – Brain wallets.

The basic idea of a brain wallet is that your private key is memorized by heart and not written down anywhere. Using this method the only way someone can gain access to your Bitcoins is by forcing you personally to tell them your private key. This of course is a much more secure way to store Bitcoins but also not very user friendly.

Private keys are very long strings of numbers without any meaning –  so how can someone remember such a long mashup of letters ?

Fortunately you don’t need to remember random letters, you can just use what is known as a passphrase. A passphrase is a sentence (usually 8 words or more) that can then mathematically be changed into a private key.

The passphrase needs to be an entire original sentence that does not appear in any song or literature. Security is enhanced simply by including some sort of memorable personal information, which doesn’t necessarily even have to be secret (like an e-mail address, or phone number). A good brain wallet passphrase will have dozens of characters.

Here’s An example of a decent passphrase formula:

[your mother’s birthday multiplied by your favorite number] + [every other word of some obscure phrase that holds special meaning to you] + [your home phone number when you were a kid] +[the first 5 words of your best freshman year english paper, ASSUMING IT ISN’T SEARCHABLE ONLINE]

Extraneous characters such as commas and broken grammar can make the passphrase harder to figure out.

Once you have your passphrase memorized you can use programs like Brainwallet.org to create your private key and public address from it. When doing so make sure that your computer is not connected to the Internet and that you are using private browsing so that no one will be able to steal you passphrase.

In order to use your newly created brain wallet you will need to import your private key into your Bitcoin client.

This post was created with help from these source:

BitcoinTalk, CoinDesk, BitcoinWiki and BitcoinMagazine.

Free Bitcoin Crash Course

  • Enjoyed by over 100,000 students.
  • One email a day, 7 days in a row.
  • Short and educational, guaranteed!

Why you can trust 99Bitcoins

10+ Years

Established in 2013, 99Bitcoin’s team members have been crypto experts since Bitcoin’s Early days.

90hr+

Weekly Research

100k+

Monthly readers

50+

Expert contributors

2000+

Crypto Projects Reviewed

Google News Icon
Follow 99Bitcoins on your Google News Feed
Get the latest updates, trends, and insights delivered straight to your fingertips. Subscribe now!
Subscribe now
Disclaimer Icon
Disclaimer

Crypto is a high-risk asset class. This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute investment advice. You could lose all of your capital.

Alexander Reed
Alexander Reed
Editor

Having delved into futures trading in the past, my intrigue in financial, economic, and political affairs eventually led me to a striking realization: the current debt-based fiat system is fundamentally flawed. This revelation prompted me to explore alternative avenues, including... Read More

Back to top