Seed phrase

Seed phrase is a sequence of 24 words that fully encodes a wallet’s private key. Knowing the phrase is equivalent to owning the funds: whoever holds the seed controls the wallet. Non-custodial TON wallets have no logins or passwords — there is only the seed.

Where the phrase comes from

When you create a wallet, the app generates random entropy (256 bits from a cryptographically secure RNG) and encodes it as 24 words from the BIP-39 wordlist. That wordlist contains 2048 English words, carefully chosen so that the first four letters of each word already uniquely identify it — which dramatically reduces input errors.

Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets typically use 12 words (128 bits of entropy). In TON the standard is 24 words (256 bits). The resulting search space is astronomical: brute-forcing a seed phrase is computationally infeasible for any present or foreseeable adversary.

How keys are derived

The phrase is passed through PBKDF2 to produce a master seed, then through BIP-32 / Ed25519 derivation to produce the private key, public key, and wallet address. The process is fully deterministic: the same phrase entered into any compatible wallet yields the same set of addresses.

This means a seed from Tonkeeper can be imported into MyTonWallet, Tonhub, or Wallet inside Telegram (non-custodial mode), and you will see the same balances. Cross-wallet portability is built into the standard.

Storage rules

• Write it on paper or, better, engrave it on a metal plate. Paper burns and dissolves; metal does not.
• Keep it offline. No notes in cloud services, messengers, email, gallery screenshots, or phone photos.
• Never enter the phrase online except inside the wallet app at recovery time. No legitimate support team, exchange, or airdrop will ever ask for your seed.
• Make at least two copies stored in geographically separate places to survive fire, flooding, or theft.
• Never photograph the phrase. Cloud photo libraries sync to Apple and Google servers; a single account leak equals total loss of funds.

Common ways to lose a wallet

• Photographing the seed and letting iCloud or Google Photos sync it to the cloud, then suffering an account compromise.
• Entering the seed on a phishing site that imitates a wallet verification page or airdrop claim flow.
• Saving the seed in Telegram Saved Messages, which stores it on Telegram servers.
• Keeping the seed as a plain text file on the desktop, which any infostealer malware harvests instantly.
• Sending the seed to fake support or moderator accounts on Telegram. In every case this is a scam.

What to do if compromised

If you suspect the seed may have leaked, immediately create a new wallet with a fresh seed and move every asset to the new address. There is no password reset in TON: the only way to secure funds is to migrate them to a key the attacker does not know.

The seed phrase is the single point of failure in any non-custodial wallet. The security of your TON assets is exactly equal to the security of those 24 words.