How to access private keys from a seed phrase

Lately, crypto users from different regions have been facing various types of problems on centralised platforms and are forced to switch to non-custodial wallets (Ledger, Trezor, Trust Wallet, SafePall, etc.). Most choose the simplest solutions, using software wallets wrapped in a mobile app shell (Trust Wallet, Exodus, SafePall)

- But what to do if apps will start getting blocked and is it even possible?

To begin with, any non-custodial wallet is just a connector between you and the blockchain (nothing more), a so-called link that makes life easier. And the security of all your funds is guaranteed by blockchain technology, not by any treaties, sanctions or UN resolutions.

Also this article will be relevant for those who have lost physical access to their gadget or app, but kept their seed phrase

We'll deal with this issue in this article.

It's important to realize that:

The main ‘key’ to your cryptocurrency wallet is the private key. But in multi-currency non-custodial solutions, users are most often given a seed phrase (mnemonic) consisting of 12, 18 or 24 words.
Seed phrase contains all private keys of all addresses that were generated in the wallet and gives full control over them. Private key - gives access only to a specific blockchain address
The seed-phrase words generated by your wallet are not random. They are drawn from a specific set of 2048 words known as the ‘BIP39 word list’

All words from the BIP39 list can be viewed on GITHUB

The seed phrase itself does not give a complete picture of the wallet and its contents. There is a cryptographic procedure called ‘hierarchical deterministic wallet’. It translates the seed phrase into a Master Key, from which all other keys are deployed in a ‘deterministic’ order. Since the seed phrase is a mathematically generated deterministic sequence (see picture below), it works regardless of wallet type. The passphrase (seed) and Master Key are standardised in the same way and the only problem is that there are two widely used algorithms for recovering keys and wallet address, they are called BIP32 and BIP44, less commonly BIP49, BIP84, BIP141.

If the seed phrase was created using a BIP44-enabled wallet, an attempt to restore it using a BIP32-enabled wallet will open an empty wallet. Therefore, it is important to know which wallet is suitable for recovery from your seed phrase.

Support BIP44 algorithm (Ledger, Trezor, Trust Wallet, Exodus, MultiBit)
Support BIP32 algorithm (Electrum, MultiBit)

For the average user, this may all seem like a 'grey area', but not everything is as scary as it seems.

So what to do after all, if for some reason, there is no access to your wallet?

You can enter your seed phrase, in any other non-custodial wallet, but you will need to make sure the key recovery algorithms are compatible.
It is possible to extract private keys of specific wallets from the seed phrase and use them to gain access through the official wallet of a particular coin or through other popular apps. This option is especially important if the second multicurrency wallet does not support all coins of the first one

Let's take a closer look at the 2nd point

To obtain private keys from mnemonics, let's use Ian Coleman's tool, which is open source.

We have personally tested this method by restoring access to ETH and ATOM wallets

Task.
We have:
$ETH on TrustWallet, access to the wallet is lost, seed phrase is available.

Required:
regain control of funds.

❗️You take full responsibility for the safety of your assets by continuing to follow the instructions. Further operations will take place with your mnemonic (seed) phrase.

Note: you should by no means share your seed phrase with third parties

Saving the latest BIP39 release from GITHUB to your PC (https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39/releases/)

To ensure the security of your seed phrase, we recommend disconnecting your PC from LAN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth networks. Use a PC that will never be connected to the network again or immediately after recovering the private key, the OS will be reinstalled on it
Open the downloaded bip39-standalone.html release, and enter your seed phrase in the BIP39 Mnemonic field

In the Coin field select the desired coin, in our case $ETH

In the Derived Addresses section find our wallet address and its private key. Usually the required address is in the first line, but you can use Ctrl+F to search for it.

It may happen that your address is not on the page. You need to go higher, to the Derivation Path section and go through the tabs of BIP standards to find the algorithm where the required wallet is.

To ensure that everything works, we need to regain control of our address. In this case we will use Coin98 wallet, as it can be restored by private key and is more convenient for demonstrating the process.

In the app, select the desired $ETH coin and click ‘Restore’
Enter your private key in the Private Key field and connect

Check the address. The wallet is ours, access is restored.

You can recover any private keys of your coins in all blockchains from a seed phrase using this method

This article was prepared for the readers of https://t.me/cryptperry and our friends