<p>For all wallets, which support <a href="https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki" rel="nofollow">BIP-0039</a> (still draft status), the mnemonic passphrase is enough to completely backup your wallet. As I can read from the greenaddress.it website they support BIP-0039 (not tried), so all you need is the passphrase (seed).</p>

<p>Theoretically, you can import the seed into any other wallet implementation and manage your bitcoins from there. However e.g. the popular Electrum wallet doesn't comply with BIP-0039. So you have to take care if you want to switch wallets.</p>

<p>For a detailed understanding of deterministic wallets, I can only recommend you reading the section on <a href="https://github.com/aantonop/bitcoinbook/blob/develop/ch04.asciidoc#wallets" rel="nofollow">wallets</a> in the book "Mastering Bitcoin".</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-10T12:29:46.923Z
2015-08-10T12:29:46.923Z
Stefan
<p>I'm using a greenaddress.it wallet, but assume this will be the same for all deterministic wallets. (If not, please correct me!)</p>

<p>Since the first and all further bitcoin addresses my wallet will ever use can be determined by the "mnemonic passphrase", is there anything else I need to backup / store securely?</p>

<backup><wallet-security><green-address>
Is the mnemonic passphrase enough to backup with deterministic wallets?
Nijin22
# Is the mnemonic passphrase enough to backup with deterministic wallets?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-08-10)

I'm using a greenaddress.it wallet, but assume this will be the same for all deterministic wallets. (If not, please correct me!)

Since the first and all further bitcoin addresses my wallet will ever use can be determined by the "mnemonic passphrase", is there anything else I need to backup / store securely?

**Tags:** backup, wallet-security, green-address


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-08-10. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

For all wallets, which support [BIP-0039](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki) (still draft status), the mnemonic passphrase is enough to completely backup your wallet. As I can read from the greenaddress.it website they support BIP-0039 (not tried), so all you need is the passphrase (seed).

Theoretically, you can import the seed into any other wallet implementation and manage your bitcoins from there. However e.g. the popular Electrum wallet doesn't comply with BIP-0039. So you have to take care if you want to switch wallets.

For a detailed understanding of deterministic wallets, I can only recommend you reading the section on [wallets](https://github.com/aantonop/bitcoinbook/blob/develop/ch04.asciidoc#wallets) in the book "Mastering Bitcoin".


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