ForgotWalletPassword.com

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Every wallet term on this site, explained like you are not a developer.

Half of recovery confusion is vocabulary: people hunt for a “password” when they lost a “passphrase”, or fear “brute force” without knowing what it costs. This glossary defines the terms — and links every one to the guide that uses it.

By Robbert Bink · ~5 min read · Published 6 August 2026 · Last reviewed: 15 August 2026

Wallet fundamentals

Seed phrase (recovery phrase)
The master backup for the accounts and keys derived from that phrase. Commonly 12/18/24 words (BIP39); other schemes use other lengths (e.g. Monero 25). Lose it completely and seed-derived accounts can never be recreated — imported private keys, hardware-wallet accounts and some legacy wallet data may need separate backups. Full guide · the passphrase on top
Wallet password
Unlocks an encrypted wallet file on your device (e.g. wallet.dat, a keystore). Different problem from a lost seed. What did you lose?
Passphrase
An optional extra phrase layered on a seed, creating a hidden wallet. It can be any string; on a BIP39 seed it is sometimes called the 13th/25th word. Same seed + different passphrase = different wallet. Explained
Private key
The secret number that proves ownership of a wallet address. A seed phrase is a compact backup of many private keys. Password vs seed phrase
Wallet address
The public identifier others use to send you funds — useful when checking a recovery case, but an address alone does not prove ownership. Write it down
PIN
A short device code on hardware wallets. It never leaves the device; forgetting it means restoring from the seed. Four doors explained
Paper wallet
A private key printed on paper, often BIP38-encrypted (6P…). The paper itself is the wallet. BIP38 guide
Brain wallet
A wallet with no file: the private key is derived directly from a passphrase you memorised (SHA-256 on bitaddress.org-style tools, scrypt on WarpWallet/Memwallet). Forgetting the passphrase means reconstructing it. Recovery deep-dive
Hardware wallet
A dedicated device (Ledger, Trezor, Coldcard…) that keeps keys offline. Its PIN is temporary; its seed is the backup. Prevention guide

Standards & file types

BIP39
The standard that turns 128–256 bits of randomness into a 12/15/18/21/24-word seed phrase, drawn from a fixed 2048-word list with a built-in checksum. the passphrase (25th word)
BIP32 / HD wallet
Hierarchical deterministic wallets: one seed derives an unlimited tree of addresses. Why one seed backs up everything. The master-backup rule
BIP38
A standard for password-encrypting a private key so it can be printed safely — the 6P… strings. Recovery deep-dive
wallet.dat
The wallet file of Bitcoin Core and classic Bitcoin desktop clients — iterated SHA-512 encryption (OpenSSL EVP_BytesToKey), hashcat mode 11300. Recovery deep-dive
Ethereum keystore / UTC JSON
The UTC--*.json files of geth, MyCrypto, MyEtherWallet — scrypt or PBKDF2 plus AES-128-CTR. Recovery deep-dive
Electrum wallet file
The encrypted keystore of the Electrum Bitcoin wallet — PBKDF2-based from 2.8+ (older files use double SHA-256); hashcat modes 16600/21700/21800 (by salt type). Recovery deep-dive
Monero wallet file (.keys)
The encrypted wallet file of Monero’s official wallets — ChaCha20 (ChaCha8 in older versions) with a CryptoNight-based key derivation. Not supported by one-command tools like btcrecover; only specialist tools like John the Ripper document it. The seed — 25-word legacy, 16-word Polyseed, 13-word MyMonero — restores the wallet without the password. Full Monero guide · Identify your wallet
Armory wallet (armory.wallet)
The wallet file of the legacy Armory Bitcoin client — AES-256-CFB with a memory-hard ROMix-SHA-512 KDF and hardware-tuned rounds. There is no hashcat mode. Current John the Ripper Jumbo supports Armory wallet hashes from btcrecover data extracts (extract-armory-privkey.py) — a compatible extraction step is still required, and the format remains slow (tens of thousands of candidates per hour at best), so only strong clues make cracking realistic; the Armory paper backup (its own Root Key / chain-code format, not a BIP39 12-word phrase) is the fastest restore path. Never lose access
Phantom wallet
Traditional Phantom wallets use a 12-word recovery phrase. Phantom also supports Google/Apple account-based wallets: those recover on a new device with the same Google/Apple account plus the PIN you set, and a recovery phrase can be exported only while you still have access — if you are logged out everywhere without a backup, the account access and PIN are the critical material. Imported private keys and recovery phrases need their own backups before any reset. Seed phrase passphrase guide

Encryption & cracking

KDF (key derivation function)
The deliberately slow function (PBKDF2, scrypt, or wallet.dat’s repeated-SHA-512 scheme) that turns a password into a decryption key. Its speed sets the whole feasibility question. The speed table
PBKDF2
A key-derivation function with a tunable iteration count — 1,024 (Electrum) up to hundreds of thousands, for example 600,000–900,000 in newer MetaMask vaults (read the stored value). More iterations = slower attacks. Feasibility
scrypt
A memory-hard KDF (Ethereum keystores store scrypt or PBKDF2 parameters in the JSON under kdfparams — geth-style keystores commonly use N=262144, r=8, p=1, but other wallets or libraries may differ; BIP38 uses N=16384, r=8, p=8) — even slower per guess on GPUs. Keystore guide · BIP38 guide
AES
The symmetric cipher used after the KDF step — AES-256-CBC in wallet.dat, AES-128-CTR in Ethereum keystores. wallet.dat · keystore
Entropy
How much randomness a password contains — the real measure of how hard it is to guess. Human passwords have low entropy; 16 random characters have very high. The equation
Brute force
Trying every possible password. Only realistic when the search space is small — i.e. when you have clues. Feasibility
Mask
A structural template for guessing, e.g. ?u?l?l?l?d?d?d (capital + 3 letters + 3 digits) — how tools shrink the search space with structure. Built from your habits
Token file
A list of candidate words/fragments fed to a recovery tool — your memory work turned into input. The candidate list
Hash line
The small extracted line tools crack instead of the wallet file itself: salt + KDF parameters + a verification value. It is not normally a plaintext private key, but it can contain highly sensitive encrypted wallet material — treat it as sensitive as the wallet file. wallet.dat becomes $bitcoin$…; Ethereum keystores are converted with ethereum2john.py. hashcat walkthrough · John walkthrough
hashcat
A GPU-accelerated password recovery tool with wallet-specific modes (11300, 15600/15700, 16600/21700/21800). The modes table
btcrecover
The open-source tool purpose-built for wallet.dat and related Bitcoin-era wallets — free, offline, well documented. wallet.dat guide
GPU
Graphics hardware repurposed for parallel guessing. Fast — but the wallet’s KDF decides how many guesses per second it actually gets. Feasibility

Terms are doorways here

Every definition above links to the guide that explains it in context. If a term confused you, click its link — the answer is one page away. And if you are unsure which term describes your situation, run the diagnosis.

Cite this page

APA: Bink, R. (2026). Every wallet term on this site, explained like you are not a developer. ForgotWalletPassword.com. https://forgotwalletpassword.com/glossary

Markdown: [Every wallet term on this site, explained like you are not a developer.](https://forgotwalletpassword.com/glossary)

The technical core

Is recovery technically possible?

KDFs, iteration counts, speed classes — the arithmetic behind every term here.

Read the feasibility → Identification

Which wallet file do you have?

Match your extension to the right specialist guide.

Identify the format → Questions

Frequently asked questions

The questions people actually ask — answered plainly.

Open the FAQ → The bigger picture

Which wallet passwords can be recovered?

Every term meets its wallet: the master list in one searchable table.

See the master list →
Missing something, or spot an error? Tell us — every correction is checked and applied.
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