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BIP-39: Add shortcomings section, drop comments headers.#2184

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ajtowns:202605-bip39-unanimity
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BIP-39: Add shortcomings section, drop comments headers.#2184
ajtowns wants to merge 1 commit into
bitcoin:masterfrom
ajtowns:202605-bip39-unanimity

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@ajtowns ajtowns commented May 31, 2026

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@ajtowns ajtowns force-pushed the 202605-bip39-unanimity branch from 050142c to 9444507 Compare May 31, 2026 07:09
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ajtowns commented May 31, 2026

cc @scgbckbone @prusnak ; ref #1677 (comment)

Comment thread bip-0039.mediawiki
Comment on lines +143 to +146
* Generated seed depends on the wordlist used for the mnemonic. Because
the "mnemonic to seed" process uses the mnemonic sentence directly
rather than the original entropy, translating the mnemonic to a
different wordlist necessary creates a completely different seed.
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Maybe I'd add that this shortcoming has been addressed by wallets by not-allowing generating seeds in other languages than English to maximize compatibility across wallets.

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Never attempting to translate to a different wordlist avoids the problem, sure, but it's still a shortcoming given the BIP includes 10 different wordlists. It's your doc, so happy to reword if you prefer, but I think "despite supporting different languages, you can't actually translate mnemonics" is a real shortcoming.

Comment thread bip-0039.mediawiki
Comment on lines +148 to +151
* No versioning scheme. When originally introduced, there was no way to
distinguish the address format that should be used for a BIP-0039 key.
This is now largely mitigated by using descriptor wallets (BIP-0380)
in addition to a seed however.
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I still do think this is a feature not bug, allowing the seed to be future proof which has proven to be very useful.

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Any suggestion for rewording it?

@jonatack jonatack added Proposed BIP modification PR by non-owner to update BIP content Pending acceptance This BIP modification requires sign-off by the champion of the BIP being modified labels May 31, 2026
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Pending acceptance This BIP modification requires sign-off by the champion of the BIP being modified Proposed BIP modification PR by non-owner to update BIP content

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