<blockquote>
<p><strong>I have a 17 word seed phrase ...</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Usually BIP-39 seed-phrases are 12, 18 or 24 words long. You can often add some extra phrase of your own, but even so, 17 words seems wrong.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>... from a 10 year old Bitcoin-qt/core? ...</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bitcoin-qt/core has never used seed-phrases.</p>
<p>Electrum was first released in late 2011 and used seed-phrases - it used a proprietary system that has since been superseded by the standard BIP-39 system for seed phrases.</p>
<p>I believe the business behind the blockchain.info website used to provide an account (they may have described it as a wallet) that has a 17-word recovery phrase. See <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/54586/13866">How can I recover a blockchain.info wallet from a 17 word phrase?</a> or <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/63559/13866">Help please recovering a wallet from a 17 word mnemonic phrase and other info</a> and <a href="https://blockchain.info/wallet/forgot-password" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blockchain.info/wallet/forgot-password</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>... acct</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The accounts feature in Bitcoin core was dropped some years ago.</p>
<p>There was never a private key per account. I believe Bitcoin-qt's accounts were mainly a way of organising addresses. The current equivalent is labels.</p>
<p>When people write about accounts, I always suspect they mean an online custodial account rather then a normal wallet. Bitcoin was intended as digital cash that each person looks after themselves without the need for any trusted third party. Accounts are associated with giving your money to some trusted third-party business and hoping they look after it for you. Some businesses call their customer accounts &quot;wallets&quot;, which I think is misleading, but that's just one man's opinion.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>17 letter associated private-key itself. It starts with &quot;q&quot; and has two commas and a space in it?</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't think that is how Bitcoin <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key" rel="nofollow noreferrer">private-keys</a> are normally encoded. There are several encodings but the most common is probably Wallet Interchange Format (WIF)</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>One guy said Electrum, but it didn't help decipher the individual words</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <em>individual</em> words of a BIP-39 seed phrase are not ever deciphered. They are not the result of enciphering some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaintext" rel="nofollow noreferrer">plaintext</a>. The whole phrase is the input to a mathematical operation (not encryption, decryption, encipherment or decipherment) whose result is a number that can be used as a private-key. The words are not intended to be processed individually.</p>
<p>I think Electrum is a good candidate but the information you are feeding it is not what would be expected. You also need to make sure that you are using electrum in a way that is appropriate for a <em>legacy</em> seed-phrase rather than the current system it normally uses.</p>
<hr />
<p>With the information you have so far, I don't see any way to recreate a bitcoin-qt wallet - the information isn't consistent with typical use of Bitcoin-qt of around 2011. I'd look for other information, files on disk, backups, emails, records of downloaded software, etc.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-04-29T18:00:37.857Z
I have 17 words, and also I have hex which is 17 chars long.  Both 17... Seems legit??
jim
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-04-29T19:49:01.943Z
@jim: No. (1) The length of a seed phrase is not related to the length of a private key. (2) hexadecimal numbers only have digits 0-9 and letters a-f (or A-F) never "q". Real private keys in hexadecimal are 64 characters long, not 17.
RedGrittyBrick
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-04-28T13:56:07.513Z
2022-09-12T12:15:55.200Z
2022-09-12T12:15:55.200Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>I have a 17 word seed phrase from a 10 year old Bitcoin-qt/core? acct, but don't know what tool to use to turn it into a wallet. I also wrote down the 17 letter associated private-key itself. It starts with &quot;q&quot; and has two commas and a space in it?? Is that valid? Obviously I am terrified to put the seed phrase into any ONLINE tool. I want to practice offline somehow to see if I even wrote it down properly. I tried looking thru the sourcecode: <a href="https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin</a> to see there is a word-list.. No joy. One guy said Electrum, but it didn't help decipher the individual words, just kind of a 'put them all in', sink or swim endeavor.... Thanks!</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-18T04:41:06.427Z
17 words is a blockchain.info account. And the words are weird. If you Google them (just a few! out of order!) you will see they are not on any specific, short wordlist.
William Entriken
<bitcoin-core>
BTC wallet recovery: I have a 17 word backup, what do I do?
jim
# BTC wallet recovery: I have a 17 word backup, what do I do?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-04-28)

I have a 17 word seed phrase from a 10 year old Bitcoin-qt/core? acct, but don't know what tool to use to turn it into a wallet. I also wrote down the 17 letter associated private-key itself. It starts with "q" and has two commas and a space in it?? Is that valid? Obviously I am terrified to put the seed phrase into any ONLINE tool. I want to practice offline somehow to see if I even wrote it down properly. I tried looking thru the sourcecode: <https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin> to see there is a word-list.. No joy. One guy said Electrum, but it didn't help decipher the individual words, just kind of a 'put them all in', sink or swim endeavor.... Thanks!

**Tags:** bitcoin-core

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: 17 words is a blockchain.info account. And the words are weird. If you Google them (just a few! out of order!) you will see they are not on any specific, short wordlist.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-04-28. Score: 3

> **I have a 17 word seed phrase ...**

Usually BIP-39 seed-phrases are 12, 18 or 24 words long. You can often add some extra phrase of your own, but even so, 17 words seems wrong.

> **... from a 10 year old Bitcoin-qt/core? ...**

Bitcoin-qt/core has never used seed-phrases.

Electrum was first released in late 2011 and used seed-phrases - it used a proprietary system that has since been superseded by the standard BIP-39 system for seed phrases.

I believe the business behind the blockchain.info website used to provide an account (they may have described it as a wallet) that has a 17-word recovery phrase. See [How can I recover a blockchain.info wallet from a 17 word phrase?](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/54586/13866) or [Help please recovering a wallet from a 17 word mnemonic phrase and other info](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/63559/13866) and <https://blockchain.info/wallet/forgot-password>

> **... acct**

The accounts feature in Bitcoin core was dropped some years ago.

There was never a private key per account. I believe Bitcoin-qt's accounts were mainly a way of organising addresses. The current equivalent is labels.

When people write about accounts, I always suspect they mean an online custodial account rather then a normal wallet. Bitcoin was intended as digital cash that each person looks after themselves without the need for any trusted third party. Accounts are associated with giving your money to some trusted third-party business and hoping they look after it for you. Some businesses call their customer accounts "wallets", which I think is misleading, but that's just one man's opinion.

> **17 letter associated private-key itself. It starts with "q" and has two commas and a space in it?**

I don't think that is how Bitcoin [private-keys](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key) are normally encoded. There are several encodings but the most common is probably Wallet Interchange Format (WIF)

> **One guy said Electrum, but it didn't help decipher the individual words**

The *individual* words of a BIP-39 seed phrase are not ever deciphered. They are not the result of enciphering some [plaintext](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaintext). The whole phrase is the input to a mathematical operation (not encryption, decryption, encipherment or decipherment) whose result is a number that can be used as a private-key. The words are not intended to be processed individually.

I think Electrum is a good candidate but the information you are feeding it is not what would be expected. You also need to make sure that you are using electrum in a way that is appropriate for a *legacy* seed-phrase rather than the current system it normally uses.

---

With the information you have so far, I don't see any way to recreate a bitcoin-qt wallet - the information isn't consistent with typical use of Bitcoin-qt of around 2011. I'd look for other information, files on disk, backups, emails, records of downloaded software, etc.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I have 17 words, and also I have hex which is 17 chars long.  Both 17... Seems legit??  
> **username_2**: @username_0: No. (1) The length of a seed phrase is not related to the length of a private key. (2) hexadecimal numbers only have digits 0-9 and letters a-f (or A-F) never "q". Real private keys in hexadecimal are 64 characters long, not 17.  

---

