Seed phrase crazy odds

Some other post mentioned how the BIP seed words can be represented by numbers and something clicked for me about the security of these things against a brute force method.

Many of us have seen the number of combos and the “x guesses per second would take 2 billion years” fun facts, but here’s another fun way to think about it.

Imagine a giant lotto drawing machine and include 2048 balls. Then you fire it up, blow them things around, and pick 12.

There’s your random seed phrase.

Already, with 12 numbers to hit, it’s pretty daunting, but vastly increase the possible combos by requiring it to be in the order drawn. The lotto does not do this, instead, they have the power ball, a separate draw.

But still, 12 random numbers from 1-2048, in a particular order… no one would ever win that in a lottery draw. Add in a wildcard “powerball” in the form of a pass phrase, and you’re pretty secure.

Cool head story.