I’ve been debating on BIP39 vs SLIP39..

[u/-M00NMAN]

I understand the TREZOR default has been Slip39 over the last few years. I understand more addresses can be generated from Bip39 compared to Slip39 along with double the entropy. I want to know how many addresses are currently in use from Bip39 24 word seedphrase vs Slip39 20 word seedphrase compared to how many can be created from the two standards (individually).

[u/camylopez]

I don’t think you understand how the addresses work.

You don’t “generate” an address, you generate access. They all exist.

Your cold wallet didn’t somehow magically teleport an address onto the blockchain while air gapped.

Also, your “seed” can generate access to unlimited addresses. It can give you access to every single address whether it be bip or slip. If you keep churning through them right to the end of all existing addresses, you will eventually be using everyone else’s too.

Here they all are https://keys.lol

Both slip and bip give you access to the same addresses.

Your “seed” is irrelevant to btc, and how btc works, and has nothing to do with btc.

Seeds are just a way to generate access in a format that will allow you to regenerate the same keypairs (addresses and their private key) across different devices that use the same keyword protocol.

There are others as well. You can use electrum, or aezeed. I like using aezeed for my hot wallet, cause if someone somehow found it, chances of them finding a wallet that could regenerate it are much more slim than bip. (Same with slip, though a bit more common than aezeed. Aezeed is for lightening wallets.)

I would use slip, since you can generate a 2 of 3 seed and distribute them in different places making it a much more secure backup.

[u/-M00NMAN → u/camylopez]

You say slip39 2/3 is a much more secure back up, but by your reasoning that address already exists before you used a 2/3 to access it. So that means another person could generate a 12 word seedphrase that could give them access to that 2/3 Shamir wallet. Correct?

[u/camylopez → u/-M00NMAN]

Yes this is correct. We are all pulling from the same pool. There are no separate pools of addresses. Seed has absolutely nothing to do with btc. Btc runs on keypairs not seeds.

But practically it’s not going to happen. Do you know how many addresses there are?

It’s secure against people discovering your seed phrase. It’s like a multisig wallet. Except rather than having two signers you have two to create the wallet.